On the evening of October 15, 1972 farmhands in Trujillo, Venezuela were startled by an inexplicable sonic boom. The next day an exotic rock was found alongside a cow’s carcass whose neck and clavicle had been pulverized. It was obvious to the farm’s owner, physician Dr. Argimiro Gonzalez, what had occurred, but he didn’t give it a second thought since the possibility of mayhem from falling meteorites seemed intuitive. An unplanned steak dinner was enjoyed that night and the celestial boulder was used as a doorstop. More than a decade later scientists confirmed what Dr. Gonzalez had long correctly presumed. However, what Dr. Gonzalez didn’t know was that this was the first and still the only documented fatal meteorite impact since the dinosaurs. When Dr. Ignacio Ferrin, an astronomer at the University of the Andes, learned of the act of bovicide that had occurred at Valera, he visited the Gonzalez estate and left with an affidavit affirming the aforementioned events as well as the meteorite itself. This is a meteorite specimen that has it all: the crown of this specimen is covered in black fusion crust from burning through the atmosphere; there are also the meteorite’s naturally fractured exterior (a result of a low-latitude “air break”) as well as three cut and polished surfaces. The multi-hued matrix is embedded with sparkling metallic grains. The blurred chondrule boundaries seen are evidence of metamorphic alteration on its parent asteroid millions of years before having traveled through interplanetary space and sending a cow to the big pasture in the sky. Accompanied by a custom armature. Modern cutting. Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue. 64 x 42 x 22mm (2.5 x 1.66 x 0.75 in.) and 150 grams (0.33 lbs)

Dr. Ignacio Ferrin, Merida, Venezuela