Ah my story is quite inconsequential....
Chinese mom from Sitiawan meets German dad in university in Australia and get married have a little Frank. Then dad, becomes mechanical engineer and gets hired by Boeing and we go to the US. After a while we settle in Arizona and I go to university there an become an engineer myself some 25 years ago. I work designing turbine engines to pay the bills and make watches late at night when the wife is asleep. My background in turbine alloys which are not too different in some ways from nickel-iron meteorites gives me some ideas about treating the material to obtain beautiful colors nobody else has seen in this material. And that is how I got stuck away from the tropics and oceans I love so much. Arizona has a lot of variety though, mountains over 12,000 feet are only a couple hours away and California and Mexico oceans are only a days drive.
There are quite a few meteorites found here, the distribution is no different but the open terrain in some places makes for good hunting. I personally have never found one. There are a few professional collectors and hunters here that I buy from. Here is a small sample of what I am producing. I have also made one from a piece of mars and am working on a couple slices of the moon at present.
blue meteorite 42mm ss case with omega 2500c coaxial and 22mm stingray band, "meteor" polishing
Bronze meteorite with fusion crust left intact, skeleton 6497, 44mm pvd, 22mm leather band
blue-purple meteorite 42mm ss case with eta 2892a2, 22mm stingray band
Martian meteorite with omega 1120, 42mm ss case, 24mm bracelet
Titanium 44mm titanium case and skeleton 6498, 24mm sharkskin band
Best regards,
Frank