Meteorites for sale: fans of fossils and space stones find their niche in Madrid | Madrid News

“Meteorites are sold.” The sign, hand-painted in lurid colors, rests on a two-meter-long table covered in stones that are advertised as having arrived from outer space. There are rocks that made a trip of almost 55 million kilometers, from Mars, before landing at the International Fair of Minerals, Fossils and Meteorites that was held at the Chamartín station, Madrid, this weekend. More than 30 exhibitors from Spain and other countries – Brazil, Morocco, India, Pakistan, Czech Republic – have participated in the event, which already has 41 editions and which, between this Friday and Saturday, attracted more than 2,000 people, according to data from the organization.

The meteorite table is run by Adrián Contrera (Granada, 41 years old). A tall man, with blue eyes and a pronounced accent, who is formally dedicated to teaching, but who ten years ago turned his hobby for meteorites into a business. The Martian stones sell for 100 euros per gram, and, along with the pieces of the Moon, they are one of the most sought-after pieces by customers. Contrera assures that everything he has for sale is original and that if a buyer has doubts, the merchant can certify it with a laboratory analysis.

Some of the rocks he says he collected himself, “although it is a fairly difficult task, it is not very grateful, nor very economically profitable.” The rest are purchased from suppliers they trust. “Meteorites are usually found in deserts,” he explains. Then he adds: “The Sahara is a great supply zone. There are people, especially from the Tindouf refugee camps, who make expeditions through the desert and find many remains.” Contrera assures that he buys them from there and then resells them at hobby fairs throughout Spain. Its most valuable piece is a 30 kilo meteorite, valued at more than ten thousand euros.

A few meters from the stall specializing in space stones, is the store of Luis Fernando Villa (Valladolid, 65 years old). He has for sale everything from fossilized remains of trilobites—a class of arthropods that lived on Earth 250 million years ago—to teeth of Megalodon, an extinct species of giant shark that lived during the Cenozoic. Villa has been in this for almost three decades, when he took a trip to Morocco with his wife, a biologist, and discovered the underworld of trading in fossils and meteorite parts. He left his job as a City Hall official and began a career as a rarity dealer. He buys his pieces, more than anything, where he discovered them, in Morocco. The African country is the world epicenter of fossil exports, a deregulated sector based on cheap labor. “There is a lot of counterfeiting in this business, but we have had a connection for 20 years with a family there that gets us the fossils and we have complete confidence in them,” he points out.

The most expensive piece on Villa’s stand is the skull of a 90,000-year-old bear, from Russia and valued at 2,800 euros.

The repertoire of the fair is not limited only to fossils, you can also buy, for 27 euros, a bundle of mammoth fur, or for 16, a small glass vial with sediment from the KT boundary. They are geological remains from the area where, 66 million years ago, the meteorite that annihilated the dinosaurs fell. It is a gray sand, with a strip of black sediment in the middle. It is a kind of natural memory that reveals the extraterrestrial impact on the planet. And it fits in your pocket.

A question of trust

Ana Díaz, a woman from Madrid, took her young son to tour the fair on Sunday morning. They bought a jar of KT limit and the fossil remains of what promises to be the shell of a dinosaur egg from 70 million years ago, for which they paid 17 euros. “My child collects minerals and dinosaur things. I prefer that he be curious about this and not spend all day on social networks,” he says. Trust that these are original parts. “I’m not buying it on Aliexpress, this fair is supposed to be serious and only sells authentic things,” he says.

Not all fair participants pursue solely commercial interests. Some, like José Vicente Casado (León, 57 years old), are also driven by scientific curiosity. Casado has worked in the sector “forever,” when he had a modest rare stone business at a fair in his hometown. “For me, it all started when a professor sent us to make a mineral collection and we went to a quarry to look for rocks. Imagining how all those shapes and colors could have been generated fascinated me,” he says.

Every year, Casado participates in large international fairs, such as the one held in Tucson (Arizona, United States). There he buys and exchanges pieces with merchants and collectors from all over the world, which he then brings back to Spain and sells, most of them online, to mineralogy fans.

—How do you know that these rocks really came from the Moon?

—Well, I don’t know. With the naked eye it is impossible to know because I don’t have X-rays in my eyes, but experience tells me.

Casado assures that all those merchants who offer certificates of authenticity with their pieces are lying. “There is no international organization that issues them,” he explains. “The only certificate of authenticity we offer is the purchase invoice. We are a legally established business and if we sell something that is false, they can report us to the consumer office,” he says.

The man defends the credibility of his field with the passion he feels for fossils and meteorites. He says that he could not study because he was born into a humble family, but that his enthusiasm for dissemination has led him to even participate in the assembly of exhibitions, the last one at the House of Sciences in Logroño. “The selling part is because I have to eat something,” he explains.

Casado points out that it is very easy to detect a scammer when selling stones. “There are few of us who are dedicated to this and when someone wants to sell you something that is false we immediately identify it and spread the word.” The seller believes he is sure that 95% of the materials offered at the fair are authentic, although there is always something that escapes: minerals colored with artificial pigments, or pieces of plastic that pass for amber, a valuable pine resin fossilized

His wife, Ana María Ordoñez (León, 54 years old), also works with Casado. “The majority of people who come and buy are knowledgeable, they know what they are coming for,” he says. And he adds: “People tend to trust us and to those who don’t trust we can give them all the explanations they need.”