[meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

From: Mark Ford <mark.ford_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 16:01:20 +0100
Message-ID: <29A9DB45B84970458190D7D39BD42C4967B1FE_at_gamma.ssl.atw>

Also we should never underestimate the contribution made to science by
collectors! This is particularly true of meteorites, if no-one collected
them, and created the resources needed for hunting them, our museum
draws would actually be much emptier I suspect - Yes the market price
would (arguably) be a little bit lower but how exactly does that help
find more meteorites??

Imho, one of the reasons the market prices keep going up (particularly
with historic artifacts) is newly found stuff simply flows in one
direction into museum collections and archives. further limiting the
market availability, this will only get worse if the supply of material
to collectors gets even further choked off, by stupid blanket laws -
for example if museums where allowed to trade and sell off some of the
artifacts that are not needed then the market value would drop to
sensible levels.

(Ironically, there are countless thousands of useless orphaned
contextless artifacts, that can serve no useful purpose sitting in
museum draws all over the world, some are probably worth a small fortune
on the open market - surely we should consider using some of this to
fund much more important work, before we target private collectors).

I believe we actually all have a personal responsibility to only keep
and collect what we actually need to collect, museums included, that way
everyone gets the chance to own these treasures without needing a
mortgage, After all there is only so much to go round.


Mark











-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Peter
Davidson
Sent: 08 July 2009 12:02
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

This is my first posting on this list - please be gentle with me. I have
only been on the list a matter of a week or so and I seemed to have
walked into a veritable storm. I would like to share my views with you
as a curator. Please forgive this rather long mail.

 

Taking a posting from Martin Altmann dated 7th July as my starting
point, here goes.

 

I have never heard a law being described as "exotic". Do you mean
idiotic?

 

I can in no way speak on behalf of all curators, far less Australian
ones. I can only give you my own viewpoint but I do know many curators
from Australia, mostly mineralogists, and please believe me when I tell
you they are fine people and not the narrow-minded, nationalistic people
hinted at in a number of e-mails. I also noted that Martin Altmann
stated that everybody on the list was a "lousy layman" which is not only
patently untrue but just a little sexist. But I digress.

 

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Received on Wed 08 Jul 2009 11:01:20 AM PDT