What belongs in a museum?

[Jibba Jabba]

My point applies to some museums.........not all..........but its quick to identify who I am talking about when you click on the "Research" button of their web site.

Research charges from these museums......25 pounds per hour.......to pick up research papers, in some cases donated to them.....really?!?

All museums have overheads and lack of government funding. But did these researchers and vets not donate their papers to educate those who might show an interest after them? I wonder if they realised that the research they have donated would only be brought out at a charge of 25 pounds minimum to interested parties?

A cynical person might think that charging such an insane amount of money for getting a book of a shelf, is a way to discourage interested parties from making enquiries. To do this to legitimate familly members researching their loved ones who actually served with the unit is just a dishonour of their memory in my opinion. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Look at the Australian and New Zealand research handling model..........free for all...........so why can we not do this in the UK?

[Traist]

Originally Posted by Pylon1357

As far as I am concerned, the only thing that belongs in a museum, are the items too big to fit into my house.


Ok now that my stupidity is out of the way, IMO the museums have all the items they can possibly hold. As for the disposition of my collection goes, the Regtl Museum will be the benefactor of my Regimental collection, named medals, and such items directly related to the Regiment. The balance of it is to be buried with me.

As collectors, I do honestly believe we have much more interest, and therefore knowledge about the items we collect, than the average museum worker or even Curator for that matter.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, there seems to be no middle ground at all.

This is more inline with my opinion. If one of my children wish to continue my collection then that will be great. If not then they must sell it. NO donation to a museum. If they are sold, then other collectors will get pleasure out of them and I know that they will take care of them. Look how many of us have gained great pleasure out of getting one of King's badges. Once it goes into a drawer in a museum it is gone forever.

[Mike_2817]

Collecting is the best form of Recycling, many collections get broke up and sold again.

[fougasse1940]

The main reason I joined the Forum is the lack of knowledge at the local museum.

Rgds, Thomas.

[54Bty]

Originally Posted by fougasse1940

The main reason I joined the Forum is the lack of knowledge at the local museum.

Rgds, Thomas.

Which one is that then?

Marc

Now I know.

[Peter Brydon]

For a lot of Museum Curators it is a job, for most of us it is a passion.

P.B.

[Chris Walker]

Dear Friends.

I have greatly enjoyed the above thread and the many thoughts and comments of members on the topic What belongs in a Museum.

I am probably very fortunate that I have what I believe is the best collection on the world wide web of badges in my particular sphere of collecting in the world. www.signalsbadges.co.uk It may sound big headed to say this but my reason for saying so is it is the only one of it's kind currently on the web!!!!!!!!! Brag over.

Fortunately some 90% of my collection is either in Frames, Boxes or Display Cabinets around the house (With the wife's permission I must say) I am there fore fortunate that the collection can be seen every day by anybody who come to my home. This seems to be outside of the norm for a lot of members who have their collections tucked away.

This now brings me to the problem I face with the current thread.

I have not been in touch with the Corps Museum officially to see if they would like my collection of badges when I pass away but it has always been my intention to donate them. My son is fully aware of this and if the Museum does not want them then he can sell the whole collection and enjoy the proceeds.

From what has been said in the thread there is a distinct possibility that even though the greater part of the collection is ready for display in a Museum (I have added a couple of photos for members to see for themselves how I display just part of the collection). There is a great possibility that it may well end up in storage somewhere and never seen again.

My friend Traist seems to have a good idea but I am going in the "Fire of the damned" when I go so do not want anything left in the coffin with me.

I agree selling the collection may well give other like minded people pleasure as it has given me but I think this would only be for them and not for museum patrons to enjoy.

Even though this thread has given many good ideas as to what to do with collections I still seem undecided as to what to do with it.

Further thoughts would be much appreciated.

My final thought is to call the Museum and see what they have to say I suppose.

With my very kind regards

Chris Walker
www.signalsbadges.co.uk

[Phillip Herring]

That sure is a lot of naked men on display around the house. Very 1970s!


Phil

[Old Smelly]

Whilst donating to a museum may be a good idea, what's to stop them selling it off at a later date? Many of them are thinning out items now to make space and pay for projects.

One thought did just occur to me(I do have some brain left). As many of us have made albums on here, and other places, we have in effect created a virtual museum which people all over the world can access from the comfort of their homes.

Lee

[Peter Brydon]

Whilst I appreciate that the ages of members of the Forum cover quite a large range, I do wonder that as many members of the Forum are amongst the last generation who still remember the old County Regiments and the Yeomanry and Cavalry Regiments, interest in those regiments will continue to diminish, as appears to be the case.

The younger generation`s interest seems to be focused on reality T.V. programmes and the lifestyle of celebrites like Peter Andre ( whatever his claim to fame might be ) with limited interest in fairly recent history.

The focus of exhibits in Museums now seems to be on those items that can be the subject of interactive displays and it seems to be more important to have areas where visitors can obtain refreshments than to have actual artifacts on display.

Perhaps virtual museums are the way ahead.

P.B.

[badgeman]

I have a rather large collection of WW2 memorblia in my private collection (Home!), most of which I have purchased from museums when they have been having a clear out, or need some cash!, I think its not very good if the museum's sell off things that have been donated......but if they did'nt I would not have half of what I have?

[btns]

I think collectables and museums are the worst combination possible.

Museums never have collectables in their focus area, curators know displaying lots of very similar items does not attract lots of visitors.
Collectables have a hard life in museum depots: either they rot away, they get sold off or they are whisked away by staff and volunteers for personal profit.

Sell off your collectables on the open market, donate your Turners.

[Charlie585]

--

[DavidS]

Originally Posted by WJ Miller

However, I think the real crux here is that many collectors do not know how to and frankly, don't care to preserve the historic context in which an item is acquired and kept. I think that is true and a great shame. 90% of the time when I inquire about an item from either a dealer or private collector about the history/provenance I get the blank 'don't know' response, sometimes followed by the squinty "what does it matter" look of contempt. Ah, if only I had a dollar for every time i heard something like, "I got it from a guy a few years ago, I think his uncle was a veteran but maybe he got it from a friend. I don't know, but I can assure you it is 100% genuine…". Okay, so it may be genuine, but so what? It had a history, it had a significance and no one bothered to record it. Now it is just another 'thing' in a riker mount...

I'd agree that most museums value provenance and most collectors don't. However, not all museums strive to keep artifacts in context or to associate provenance with them, any more than do collectors. Citadel Museum in Halifax is, I think, a great museum because of the context and provenance of its displays; Canadian War Museum much less so as it presents interpretative and time-line displays rather than artifacts with associated stories throughout much of its floor space.

I would love to have provenance for every badge I have collected. Sadly, as befits any equivalent collecting field (stamps, coins, Beanie Babies), it's the completionist in me (Bill Miller's description, not mine) that is satisfied by acquiring another badge, not the story. I can count on one hand, sans two fingers, the number of badges I can associate with an identified serviceman, and on two hands less two fingers the number I can attribute to an actual theatre of operations. Would I prefer to know more -- yes. Is it practical or even obtainable? Unless I luck out at a garage sale from a near relative, no. Maybe 15-20 years ago, when there were a lot more WWII vets around with clear heads, badges in drawers, and stories to tell, but not these days.

As for Mike_2817's observation, "Collecting is the best form of Recycling, many collections get broke up and sold again," true, but sad, too. Old collections have been cherry-picked, broken up by dealers or collectors flipping the desireables (Bill Miller is privy to that in trying to put back together 1st APCR ephemera split up six ways next to Sunday by a dealer) — some over and over again — and any notes (and I'm sure there were plenty with some of those old time, post-war-just collectors) regarding who, where and when their items came from, hit the trash along with the shipping boxes they came in and the original frames when the dealer unloaded his van.

Be that as it may, if I have a representative collection of every Canadian badge used during WWII, I have achieved my aim, since that was what I was trying to do. Is there value in that historically? Yes. Would a museum display such a collection? Depends. Some would, some wouldn't, some for a short time, maybe, some permanently. Would provenance diminish the value of that collection as historically valuable or of interest? I don't think so. As I see it, the value here is that this collection representative of the scope, breadth and sheer numbers of the Canadian involvement in WWII, and the organizational structure of the Canadian service force overseas and at home.

But would provenance add to the value of this collection? Yes, from a personal standpoint, but only marginally, if at all, in terms of what the collection demonstrates.

There is a division one needs to make: some artifacts require provenance to be significant, others do not. I'd posit that medals do, but badges don't; that uniforms sometimes do, but mostly don't; that firearms or swords often don't, but the ones hanging in a holster or from the belt of an attributed Canadian major's WWI uniform better (or are museums really just compilers, too?). To look at it another way, the contextual, historical value of the artifact determines the importance of provenance. Just look at any Neanderthal archaeological dig. The horse-bone flute from a Spanish cave is just as valuable historically whether or not we know the carver was named Gnarg the Gnarly or Ngath the Hairy.

As for comments about dumb historians vs. smart collectors, fair enough. I'm sure there are dumb historians and curators (personally, though, I haven't run across one yet). There are also extremely smart historians and very expert curators, vs. just plain smart-ass collectors (run across all of those). I don't know why discussions like this devolve into a question of 'us agin' them'. Carping about what gets displayed vs. what doesn't, what has value in a museum vs. what doesn't, or how much it costs to get some civil servant to spend their time thumbing through archives and documents, making photocopies, compiling research, etc. is only justifiable if, in the same breath we aren't carping about our high tax rates, how governments always misspend our money, and why the bloated civil service in that museum we love to hate so much all sit on their asses and don't earn honest wages.

Finally, I'll go out on a limb and say value is in the eye of the beholder, and one man's junk is, well, still just junk. There may be (in fact there is) a huge (read, at least three person) collecting community who get jittery and weak-kneed over WWII British/Commonwealth ordnance shipping crates -- all 300+ types, but jeeze, Louise I'd love to see the look on the curator's face at the military museum when he/she was faced with having to display that collection because it came from the mayor's wife.