Every collection starts with a chondrite, and Tamsin Draa is a good one to start with. These are the unmelted leftovers of the early solar system: tiny molten droplets called chondrules that condensed out of the solar nebula and clumped together 4.56 billion years ago, before there was an Earth to land on. Cut one open and the chondrules are right there, round and grey against the matrix.
This is an L6 ordinary chondrite — 'L' for low iron, '6' for a body that was heated enough to blur the chondrules slightly without melting them. The desert finds from the Draa carry a handsome caramel weathering rind, and the best individuals keep patches of genuine black fusion crust from their fall. We sell these as whole individuals rather than slices, because the crust is half the charm.
At this price a chondrite is the easiest recommendation we make. It is not rare, it will not appreciate, and that is entirely the point: it is a four-and-a-half-billion-year-old object you can keep on your desk and pick up whenever you need a sense of scale.
