So how fares the meteorite market in these recessionary times? The supply is very low and the demand has really been going up in the last few years, says Farmer. Prices have quadrupled on certain items just in the last year. He is currently working on a $1.5 million sale of a 120-pound meteorite. He once negotiated in a similar price range with the Russians for a whopper weighing 3.5 tons. Having been burned investing in less rock-solid opportunities, Farmer says he's learned to keep his money in his inventory.
The phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, sent music on the sharpest tangent in its history. Mark Coleman writes about how the phonograph changed the music listening experience in his book, Playback: from the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money.
Phonograph, also called record player, instrument for reproducing sounds by means of the vibration of a stylus, or needle, following a groove on a rotating disc. A phonograph disc, or record, stores a replica of sound waves as a series of undulations in a sinuous groove inscribed on its rotating surface by the stylus. When the record is played back, another stylus responds to the undulations, and its motions are then reconverted into sound.