Are Martian and lunar meteorites valuable?
Yes, they are among the most sought-after meteorites because they are rare and come from worlds people have barely visited. Value still varies widely with the specimen's type, freshness, size and documentation.
Imagine holding a piece of Mars or the Moon in your hand without anyone having travelled there to fetch it. That is exactly what Martian and lunar meteorites offer, and it explains much of their appeal. They were blasted off their home worlds by asteroid impacts, drifted through space, and eventually fell to Earth.
They are genuinely scarce. Only several hundred named meteorites are recognised as lunar, and a few hundred as Martian, out of tens of thousands of meteorites in total, and many of those names are fragments of the same original fall. Only a handful of Martian meteorites have been seen to fall, including Chassigny in France in 1815, Nakhla in Egypt in 1911 and Tissint in Morocco in 2011. No lunar meteorite has yet been recorded as a witnessed fall. Most of both come from hot deserts and Antarctica.
They are also scientifically precious. Before space missions returned samples, these rocks were among the only way to study Martian geology in a laboratory, and they still add variety beyond the areas sampled by the Apollo and Luna missions and recent spacecraft. That scientific interest feeds demand from collectors and institutions.
Value differs a great deal between specimens. A fresh, well-documented witnessed fall is generally prized above a weathered desert find. Size, the presence of fusion crust and the particular rock type matter too. Because these meteorites are so desirable, fakes and wrongly labelled stones circulate, so buyers should insist on an official name and classification and buy from trustworthy sources. Meteorites from Antarctica are collected for scientific research under the rules that govern the continent, and are not legitimately on the market. As with any meteorite, prices can change, so treat them as remarkable objects rather than investments.