Immediately following a brilliant fireball in the heartland of the U.S. on February 18, 1948, sonic booms thundered and a large shower of meteorites fell at the Kansas/Nebraska border.

Named Norton County, aubrites are exceedingly rare — they represent about 0.1% of all meteorites — and the ten aubrite witnessed falls are a storied list of preeminent meteorites: Aubres, Cumberland Falls, Khor Temeki, Mayo Belwa, Bustee, Bishopville, Shallowater, Pena Blanca Springs, Norton County and most recently Tiglit.

The largest Norton County stone weighs approximately one ton and is on display at the University of New Mexico. It is the single largest stone meteorite to have fallen in the United States and is among the largest stone meteorites in the world. Given its relative abundance, thousands of scientific papers have been written about Norton County or cite it as a reference. Aubrites have the highest cosmic ray exposure ages of any stony meteorite. They are primarily composed of enstatite and may originate from the asteroid 3103 Eger, a near-Earth Asteroid that spectroscopically bears a striking semblance to aubrites.

Highly brecciated samples of Norton County are the most desirable and this is one such example with scattered white enstatite crystals afloat in a darker matrix. With one face of fusion crust and an uncommonly large inclusion of iron, this is a superlative example of a pre-eminent meteorite.

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.

57 x 42 x 37mm (2.25 x 1.66 x 1.5 in.) and 94.4 grams (0.2 lbs.)