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Meteorites a bonanza for collectorsNovember 27, 1996Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (CNN) -- Chunks of matter falling to Earth from space are more than just rocks in the view of scientists and space enthusiasts. They are sources of cosmic communication. For collectors, the rocks are dollars. Of the 12 known Martian meteorites on Earth, four are owned by two people who are at the center of a multi-million dollar business of buying, selling, hunting, hoarding and trading. "You don't know what you're going to find," collector Robert Haag said. "You might find a fortune. You might just come back with a tan." This story is from a CNN special series: The American EdgeHaag is a baby-boomer who grew up wanting to be an astronaut. He owns hundreds of meteorites, many of which are so valuable, he keeps them locked in a vault. Among them are specimens from Mars and the moon -- from space beyond the sun. Ron Farrell, who owns three chunks of Mars, is the only other private collector in the same league with Haag. "It's the oldest thing that you'll ever touch in your lifetime," Farrell said of a rock being admired by a guest. "We know for certain, because of chemical analysis and age dating, that those calcium aluminum inclusions are the oldest things that man has ever touched." But sentimental value has no place in the marketplace, and Haag recently took his small chunk of the moon, certified by scientists as authentic, to a sale of fossils and dinosaur bones in Japan. The price tag was $2 million. He was hounded for autographs and treated like a rock star, and sold numerous small meteorites. But the moon rock remained unmoved. Haag just socked away his rock for another day. It's part of the business overhead, as it were.
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