{"id":163782,"date":"2025-12-16T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fsmadmin.vsitesting3.com\/magazine\/?p=163782"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:01:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:01:21","slug":"hunting-meteorites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fourseasons.com\/magazine\/culture-style\/hunting-meteorites\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunting Meteorites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Luc Labenne<\/a>\u00a0has designed quite the adventurous life for himself, from tooling around North Africa on his Suzuki DR 600 motorcycle to trekking across deserts in Chile and Oman, all in search of his next big find. Just\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0ask him where\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0headed next.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToo many people might follow right behind me,\u201d Labenne explains.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photograph courtesy of Luc Labenne.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Paris-based Labenne is known in luxury circles as \u201cthe meteorite hunter,\u201d a career that has attracted clients that include Herm\u00e8s, Cartier, Boucheron, and the independent watchmaker Louis Moinet. Though he trained as a physician, Labenne has loved geology and astronomy since he was a teenager. He eventually succumbed to the allure of searching for meteorites (typically alloys of nickel and iron) that originate in outer space as meteors before reaching the Earth\u2019s surface. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A blue lunar rock and a green Martian rock. Photograph courtesy of Luc Labenne.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upon discovering a meteorite\u2014Labenne uses a metal detector but prefers not to go into detail about his methods\u2014he catalogues its GPS position and other details; back home, he\u2019ll analyze the rock with his spectrometer. If the results are promising, he\u2019ll send the rock to one of the labs he works with to determine where it originated. The most valuable meteorites are officially classified as either lunar or Martian. \u201cWhen I sell it, classification is necessary,\u201d he says.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunar or Martian meteorites are fetching ever-higher prices these days. In July at Sotheby\u2019s New York, a 54-pound Martian meteorite \u2014\u201cthe largest piece of Mars on Earth,\u201d as the auction house advertised it\u2014sold for a record-breaking $5.3 million, well above its estimate of $2 million to $4 million.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Herm\u00e8s’ limited-edition Arceau\u00a0L\u2019Heure\u00a0de la Lune.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The meteorites Labenne finds are typically much smaller, though still prized by collectors and luxury-goods companies, including watch brands that transform slices of meteorite into distinctive dials. Herm\u00e8s sourced meteorites from Labenne for its latest\u00a0Arceau\u00a0L\u2019Heure\u00a0de la Lune, a limited-edition timepiece that features two rotating discs depicting the surface of the moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luc Labenne travels the world in search of space rocks that are increasingly coveted within the luxury orbit. 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