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Museums selling found artifcats in their gift shop?


willysmb44
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On my recent Florida trip, I went to a small museum dedicated to a WW2 amphib training post near where I grew up (of course long before I was born). I moved out of the area right before they opened it and it's way in the middle of nowhere. My Dad and I went down there and were impressed with what they had for such a small museum.

Their gift shop had much better stuff than museums 10 times it's size. I bought a shirt and a cap and other stuff I didn't really need. They also had some items that were dug up from the area for sale, including coke bottles and beer bottles (all empty but they had two filled coke bottles that were bug up at the same time on display). I bought a coke bottle because it was WW2 dated and from a bottling company in the area that hasn't been around in decades. You could also buy bags with spant casings, grenade rings, corroded collar brass and stuff like that they'd dug up.

What sort of bugged me was they had a case of dug up dog tags and were selling them as well. I am still not sure what to think about that. Yet, I bought a nice early brass one named for a man from Houston (who survived the war from what I could online).

What's your take on this? If a museum is dedicated to a specific area, is selling found dogtags contrary to that mission? Shouldn't they keep them all in the collection? I'm feeling kinda guilty about having it now for some reason...

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Museums have to support themselves and this sounds like a better thing than just having boxes full of stuff that would never be on display or used for any sort of research,

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Maybe the museum knew that they'd be going to good homes (because the only people that go to miliatry museums for the most part are those that care about history :thumbsup:)

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Proceeds from the artifacts being sold are identified by the IRS as "Related Business Income" vs "Unrelated..." which could be taxed in a non-profit store. So long as what a museum store sells IS related to its primary mission, then on legal grounds it is not only acceptable, but required. Having said that, we've all been to museum stores selling items which have no possible relevance to the mission whatsoever. The IRS is watching, if that is any comfort.

 

Selling dug dog tags from the site they were excavated though, must (I hope so much) mean that the museum could not locate the GI or his/her family to return them to. Being a former museum curator, I'd have a very difficult time allowing sale of dog tags or anything else that can be ID'd to a specific person under any other conditions. Even when something could be traced to a person, if it were of certain categories such as named medals, I would find those off-limits and simply put them in the museum collection even if they were not "needed" and we could not find any family to give them to.

 

Good topic, an unusual challenge to museum ethics.

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Define dug up tags? Meaning that someone with a metal detector went out, found them in the ground, actually dug them up and then sold them, or found in local junk/antique stores and turning them? I find it hard to believe that there were that many dog tags lost on this tiny post to be able to set up a cottage industry selling that many tags. However, with that said, say there are enough dog tags laying around that they can find that many in the ground, how is that any different than the pleathera of dog tags that we, on this board, buy and sell every day?

As long as they are not stealing them from the vets or not digging them up from grave sites, I don't see it as any different than the antique stores selling them.

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Re: The dug dog tags - my guess is that if they are the type that have the soldier's next of kin addresses on them; I believe these were replaced with the non-address type and the obsolete ones discarded, i.e. trashed and buried......and found by a metal detector. We know they have a long life. That's my supposition. Now, selling them? That's a whole other kettle of fish. Better they should be 'saved' than go back in the trash. AND, it's not like they came from a battle area where they may have been issued to a KIA/WIA. My 2-cents. :think:

Bobgee

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I cant speak for all museums, but from what I understand about our deaccession & selling procedures, we could sell artifacts from our collection if the collection committee met and agreed that we no longer need a particular artifact in the collection. Either because we have several examples already, or it doesnt fit with the museums mission (African tribal masks in a local history museum in Virginia for example). After the decision to deaccession an item we must first try to get it back to the original donor. If the original donor isnt interested we then have to offer it to another museum, and possibly another and another. If no other museum is interested in the item then selling it to the public is considered, but whatever profit is made from the sale must go towards the collection department, either to purchase another artifact or archival supplies.

 

With that being said, I dont think the museum I work for has ever sold something out of the collection.

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Cobrahistorian

Interesting discussion. The basic artifacts for sale in the gift shop doesn't really bother me much. These are most likely items that were never accessioned into the collection and their sale goes to support the museum. That's both ethically and legally acceptable.

 

The dogtags are too, to an extent. Were they found on the site, they're a tangible link to an individual's military history at that training site. However, if you've already got hundreds of dogtags from soldiers that trained onsite in the collection, one more tag is just that... one more tag. Now honestly as a Curator, I'd want to know the history of each individual tag, but I realize that's kinda pie-in-the-sky of me. We Curators often plan for things like that, but have so many things going on, that it is impossible to get to everything.

 

Also, if these items are just being picked up and are not formally accessioned, they are not part of the collection. Should they be?

 

It depends.

 

Named items like dogtags, I'd say yes. However, if you've got tons of dogtags in the collection, like I said.... one more tag. The act of accessioning an item makes it a permanent part of the collection. Once it is part of the collection, selling, trading or otherwise removing it from the collection is frowned upon and subject to the approval of the board's collections committee.

 

If it were impossible to return the tags to the original owner, the individual's history were either untraceable, or identical to that of several others in the collection, I wouldn't have an issue seeing them sell in the gift shop. But only if those criteria were met and if it were approved by the board's collections committee.

 

Jon

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  • 3 years later...
Backtheattack

Some of the museum in Europe sell items, for instance Diekirch, Ambleteuse, Batterie Todt museum. Think Diekirch has such a lot of items so they sell them.

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Jennings Lane

Often the families of veterans have an unrealistic expectation of the historical importance of their relatives military items. While their relations service, combat zone or home front, is always deserving of respect and appreciation, their grandfather's size 36 Ike jacket isn't necessarily museum worthy. Museums don't have much choice but to sell what they can't use for their collection after determining that it doesn't have significant historical value. Often, people will send or drop off their items at a museum, leaving the staff with the task of finding a home for the artifacts.Some of this stuff has been sitting around for years. Most larger museums are juried, meaning that a committee has to agree that your item is right for them. If not, you have a stated amount of time to pick it up or it's theirs to do what they want with. All said, it's better for a museum to sell this stuff to someone who will enjoy it, than to bear the expense of storing it. As for a few dug dog tags, most museums don't have the resources to search out a family member that most likely doesn't want them anyway. It's tough enough for most non-state supported museums now days

 

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I can see selling items that aren't traced to a specific person, as I have bought some WW1 items when I was in Europe in the late 80s.

The fact that they were dogtags so therefore easily traced to specific soldiers who went through training there, it seemed somehow odd to me that the museum didn't keep them, as they were dug up apparently by the museum people or volunteers. Dog tags would be pretyt easy to store. Heck, it'd make a great display to cover a wall with them if they'd had that many.

It's all good to me, as I now have a named item from the place, I was just wondering about it and how other museums would handle that...

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Gettysburg is spotted with small little private museums (read private collections) as well as much larger ones. It's not unusual to see them selling dug up musket balls, buckles, and the like excavated in the area

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