[Dave Crowell]

Even scouring folklore has not provided a definitive answer. I have seen references to people fending off magics by carrying a cold iron nail in their pocket. I have made nails, and they are forged not cast.

However steel seems not to have the same property. So I fall back on cold iron being what blacksmiths call wroght iron, that is a soft, fibrous iron without the added carbon that forms steel. I would include most old cast iron as cold iron as well.

Meteoric iron comes from the stars and that makes it magical. Never mind that meteoric iron is often a natural alloy containing carbon, nickel and other stuff besides pure iron, that's scientific metallurgy and we're talking magic here.

Perhaps Cidri has particular veins of ore that yeild cold iron when refined as opposed to most normal ores which yield normal iron? That would work for me. It also would allow for the possibility of finding objects that had unknowingly been crafted from "cold" iron ore.