The problem with finding a meteorite on someone else’s property is that they will sue you for the item’s value.
The case below was covered previously on StrangeAgo.
The back story is that the person renting the house and property dug up the stone and sold it to the collector. When the wealthy landlord found out about it, they took the buyer to court.
A Stone Meteorite in Litigation Two Years
The cut represents a meteoric stone weighing 184 pounds which has been the basis of a hotly contested lawsuit lasting two years.
It has recently been sold for $2,000 to Professor Henry A. Ward of Chicago, who is the owner of the $100,000 collection of extra terrestrial bodies on exhibition in the New York American Museum of Natural History.
It is a “stone meteorite” as distinguished from an “iron meteorite.” It fell in a forest in Kentucky, and the finder and the owner of the property on which it fell resorted to law to settle the ownership of the treasure.
The suit was finally compromised, and the sale was effected.
Beyond its value as a rarity this meteorite is practically worthless.
Source: Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.), 17 Dec. 1904.
