Some art collectors specialize in contemporary art; others focus their time and money on paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance. But there’s a growing demand in the world of high-end art for objects that go back a little bit further than that — as in, tens of thousands of years older. And from outer space. Evidently some collectors are zeroing in on meteorites as something to collect. As a whole, it’s about as far from NFTs as you can get.
In a new article for Air Mail, Carl Wilkinson explored the growth of meteorite collection. As Wilkinson explains, there are a number of eminently logical reasons as to why buyers have gravitated towards these objects — there’s a limited number of them on the planet (“fewer than 70,000,” Wilkinson writes) and each one is unique.
From looking at some of the extraterrestrial objects for sale at a recent Sotheby’s auction, it’s not hard to see the appeal of these as aesthetic objects. There’s the aforementioned scarcity factor, of course, but there’s also something inherently compelling about them; these are things that one could look at every day and continue to find them intriguing.
The article goes on to quote Cassandra Hatton, the global head of Science & Popular Culture at Sotheby’s, about the appeal of meteorites. Hatton points to interest in meteorites from “tried-and-true collectors of natural history and space enthusiasts, but also from collectors who appreciate meteorites as objects of beauty that can be enjoyed as cosmic jewels or sculptural works of art.”
Those collectors include both Elon Musk and Steven Spielberg, according to the article — and it seems eminently likely that their ranks will increase in the years to come.
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