Yorkshire meteorite fragment may sell for £18,000 at auction

Now 220 years later, a 13lb chunk of the four-billion-year-old Hambleton Meteorite is up for sale and is expected to fetch up to £18,000 at auction.

It might sound a lot, but this is not just any old meteorite. This is a pallasite, one of the rarest and most valuable of all meteorites. It is thought to have lain undisturbed on the North York Moors near Hambleton, since 1783, when George III was King, until retired meteorite dealer Rob Elliott and his wife Irene, from Fife, Scotland, found it while exploring Yorkshire in 2005.

Mr Elliott confirmed: “The Hambleton Meteorite is by far the rarest and scientifically most interesting meteorite recovered within the United Kingdom to date and the jewel in the crown of British meteorites.

“Pallasites are extremely rare. They are formed deep within the core/mantle boundary layer of a large asteroid and account for just one per cent of all known meteorites.”

Mr Elliott distributed some chunks of the forty pound Hambleton Meteorite to museums. Now the largest remaining fragment – weighing just under 13lb and measuring about eight inches by five inches – is coming up for sale at Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh on August 17 and it is expected to sell for between £12,000 and £18,000.

A polished slice of Hambleton weighing over a pound and a half and measuring seven inches by three inches should fetch between £2,000 and £3,000 at the same sale.

The Hambleton Meteorite is part of a collection of meteorites put up for sale by Mr Elliott.