Huge Hidden U.S. Military Collection at Ft. Belvoir, VA?

[militbuff]

Someone just sent this link to me. I had just read a few weeks back about a bunch of Nazi-painted propaganda paintings that were seized shortly after WWII by the U.S. Army that are stored at Ft. Belvoir. However, I never heard about the other items. Has anyone seen or heard about this? Does it really exist?

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/inside-the-armys-spectacular-hidden-treasure-room

[River Patrol]

It looks real enough.....perhaps wayyyy too organized, but stranger things can happen.

[ocsfollowme]

There was a big thread on this on this forum. Do a little searching.

[Sabrejet]

Incredible artefacts!!

[suwanneetrader]

Just goes to show: interesting and rare items are still out there. Richard

[BelligerentBlue]

This is exactly why I contemplate those who say "that belongs in a museum." Most stuff is hidden behind the scenes and never shown. At least in private collections the items can be shown and change hands. What I find funny about the article is they don't have the money for a museum... But they had 24mil to build this building to hide it all!

[gwb123]

It is the storage facility for the Center for Military History.

 

There is a difference between storage and display, primarily the amount of space that is needed.

 

I'm not understanding the level of disappointment here. This is material that was either used or captured by the US Army and has been preserved. Just be glad that this material has not been stuffed into a wooden crate and kept in a warehouse with no heat or climate control.

 

If you follow the video through to the end it is a pitch for the National Museum of the US Army. Even with that built, you will never see all of what they are holding on display.

 

In another thread that is on here it was mentioned that it is the practice of Government museums to rotate their display items. Perhaps over years we will see the best parts of their holdings.

 

As far as private collections... they can also be a black hole as well, where things go in, and never see the light of day for years. My personal frustration is trying to buy or trade for something that a collector has buried in their collection even though they do not have the slightest interest in it or the time period it represents.

[ScottG]

In the real world of museums, this is how the big boys play. This facility is real and as mentioned above, it is a storage facility for the proposed Museum of the US Army. While the Army has many museums like the Infantry Museum at Ft Benning, or the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen, there is no national museum for the Army. So, 200+ years of the Army's most treasured items are stored for future generations in the hope that the funds will be raised to co-locate a museum at Ft. Belvoir. This storage facility was 24 million, the proposed museum is 175 million. I love collecting but I also highly appreciate the folks that make sure our history is preserved for generations. None of us can do it the way the pro's can and we should all be thankful that these items are being saved. How many great items suffer accidents in our collections? How many are lost in floods and fires and tornado's each year? These museums will ensure that there are items for the future. Scott

[jgawne]

I'm not going to comment, other than to say I will no longer donate money to this project. It's long overdue, and get's weirder every year as they keep begging for yet more money.

[B229]

This is exactly why I contemplate those who say "that belongs in a museum." Most stuff is hidden behind the scenes and never shown. At least in private collections the items can be shown and change hands. What I find funny about the article is they don't have the money for a museum... But they had 24mil to build this building to hide it all!

 

It is not "hidden". Standard museum practice, in any professionally run museum, requires that the objects be rotated in and out of storage on a regular basis. Nearly any well-run museum will have only a small portion of it's collection on exhibit at any one time. This actually helps preserve the objects by limiting their exposure to the elements. The whole point of a museum collection is to preserve a particular set of historic material for posterity, not to let people play with it. Private collections are all fine and good, but there is no requirment to do anything with the material that might benefit anyone but the owner. Who exactly gets to see the stuff in private collections? The answer in most cases is no one, but a select few. And yes, I'm a collector too, but I don't pretend that I'm doing anything other than filling up my house with clothes I'll never wear.

 

And the funding for the Museum Support Center came from an entirely different source. If you think the National Museum should get tax payer dollars to get built, then complain to Congress. They are the reason the Army has to go beg on the street to get money for it, and why the Army Historical Foundation is raising it privately.

[B229]

I'm not going to comment, other than to say I will no longer donate money to this project. It's long overdue, and get's weirder every year as they keep begging for yet more money.

 

You're not going to comment, and yet you just did. Again, complain to Congress if you think the Army shouldn't have to fund it's national museum through private donations.

[jgawne]

I did. When there was a chance they would fund it I wrote and called my congressmen. And when it was decided this would not happen and it would all be private, I was one of the first to donate. I also tried to organize a write in campaign among collectors I know for this, but few cared.

 

But having followed the entire story since the beginning, I can't justify donating any more money for what I see happening to the original plans.

[thefallenbuddha]

As for the topic of museums preserving items indefinitely, I think it is fair to point out all the time institutions sell off donated items or other parts of their collections, either for fundraising, or due to bankruptcy / the museum closing, or for other reasons.

 

What a lot of institutions due for preservation is a noble task, but nothing is certain, and the majority of items do not stay in one institution forever, often eventually ending up in private hands at some point....perhaps to be given to another institution later on....with the cycle repeating.

[Corpsmancollector]

My goodness, that is incredible!

[jgawne]

This is one of the good things about the US Army museum system. While yes, in the past they did have an issue with things vanishing, they went through a pretty complete inventory and computerization of their inventory (vast), so it has become much harder for some wayward employee to walk away with something.

 

Private museums come and go. Most often go when the money dries up. Public museums, to include state run ones, can also lose funding and things get put away in storage (often very poor storage), but after having seen so many types of these things happen, I can really only recommend the Army system, or Smithsonian, for donations, unless it is an item very specific to a specialized museum or area. And in those cases only if it is not something of massive historical importance.

 

Those are your best bets for something being properly preserved over the maximum time period. The time of them burning confederate uniforms is over.

[willysmb44]

I too am torn over the US Army museum plan. As a former soldier, I felt compelled to donate some money to the cause, which I recently did.

That said, I've been seriously unimpressed with the recent changes in the Army museums I've seen. What was an ancient museum at Benning has turned into a modern one, at the cost of putting what was an amazing displayed collection almost all into storage, probably never to be seen by the public again. Seriously, ask anyone who went to the old Benning museum and has seen the new one. They'll back me up that so much of that collection is in storage now.

And their agenda is all flag-waving for the modern conflicts. When my father and I went to the 'new' Benning museum in 2011, Dad said before we even got to the door, "I bet all the modern stuff will be there and nothing earlier than WW2 will be out." Sure enough, it's as if he'd already seen the place. All the older era displays were still pending. The exact same thing happened at the USMC museum two years before. He'd called it then, too.

The Army is, in my opinion, the worst of the services for embracing their past on an individual level. In my service, I never encountered anyone below O-5 rank who thought there was anything to learn from the past. I even had a company commander who told me I should have my WW2 Jeep scrapped because, "Nobody cares about old stuff like that." I'm sure glad he never went into the museum field! The only units I ever saw who had any appreciation for their past were the airborne units I worked with. But the other branches of the military seem to have a much greater appreciation of where they've been...

Also, I was hesitant to make a non-anonymous donation because we all know what happens when you donate to a museum cause; they spend a lot of your money trying to get you to donate more. I donated once to the US Air Museum at Duxford. I don't think a week went by for the next couple of years where I didn't get a mailer asking for more...

[jgawne]

The week does not go by (OK, every month or so) I don't get asked for more money for the National Army museum. You might remember, Lee, one of their early money raising brochures had a post war West German canteen on it - just to show "some military artifact" on the thing.

 

What bothers me more than the lack of older history, is that the designs are getting more like monuments, than museums. Half a million (I think) for stained glass hangers of division insignia- rather than a massive display of every patch they can scrape up, which would cost less than a half mill.

[thefallenbuddha]

The trend of showing "pictures of things" rather than the things themselves has become mainstream, as we all know, in museums of any type for the past couple of decades. I think a lot of institutions are keen on this as they see it as an easier way of putting together a display / exhibition. It may be costly to print up a large size translucent image on glass, but in terms of not having to worry about security so much, or taking care of an object on display, it is the easier route. Of course, what happens is curators lose sight of the fact that a significant part of the historical main appeal for museums is to actually see the objects, not just be told about them.

 

I am sorry to say, but preservation aside, I think that if the National Army Museum ever becomes a reality, hardly any of the items shown in the link in this thread will ever see the exhibition floor...although pictures of them might.

[willysmb44]

The trend of showing "pictures of things" rather than the things themselves has become mainstream, as we all know, in museums of any type for the past couple of decades. I think a lot of institutions are keen on this as they see it as an easier way of putting together a display / exhibition. It may be costly to print up a large size translucent image on glass, but in terms of not having to worry about security so much, or taking care of an object on display, it is the easier route. Of course, what happens is curators lose sight of the fact that a significant part of the historical main appeal for museums is to actually see the objects, not just be told about them.

 

 

Too true, the current trend is 'telling a story' over showing the artifacts in the collection. So you're left with in effect, a large scale version of a good book on the subject. The WW2 museum in New Orleans is one of the most prominent examples (and one with a cult-like following where people practically challenge you to a duel if you dare to talk smack about what I feel is one of he most overrated museums in the nation), they have an amazing amount of repro stuff 'on display' when they likely have a jaw-dropping collection of the real stuff stored away somewhere. And what you pay to get in the place, I've never felt so violated in my life by going to a museum anywhere else.

It makes you wonder if these days, museums would instead be best referred to as repositories with a media display to justify the collection?

I just hope this US Army museum doesn't quite go the route that the USMC museum did (just talk to anyone who remembers the old Quantico museum, they'll tell you how much of that amazing collection has gone into storage).

 

[jgawne]

I do a lot of thinking about museums. That's why I came up with the "memorial" concept of what they are turning into. Shrine may be another good name- much like the pilgrimage people make to New Orleans. somehow I does remind me of medieval pilgrims going to see the holy relics. Like when the Caen Museum had only a few helmets on display in a spotlight.

 

What I was pondering is that in a hundred years the artifacts will still have value and be of interest to see- the photos, the touch screen displays, the architectural design will probably have NO value.

 

Look at art museums. They don't have standing displays on how the paint was made, or films on the history of paintbrushes, or give you cards when you enter letting you follow what happened to a specific piece of artwork. I know, its art- and we are thinking of history museums. You might say unlike art, history is intangible- but then artifacts are, and this is where they go.

 

I know one of the concerns is keeping items on display and the wear it causes them, which is why you'll see newer displays of mannequins that have original clothing and webbing, but that has been painted over to preserve the color and look without having to worry about fading and moths, etc. (this is done on common stuff- not on unique items).

 

But unfortunately museums have become big business- and I think to a great extent driven by the fundraising companies that make loads of money from raising smaller amounts of money for the museum. Does a museum actually need that much money? This is why we've seen the New Orleans museum go from a Normandy D-Day, to all D-day, to all WW2: OK, part of the reason.

 

I would personally like to see a survey done of people leaving a museum asking them if they wanted more or less artifacts, films, graphics, computer interaction, etc. and see the results. I would bet decent money they say they want more artifacts over anything else. Unlike the 70's when this style of exhibit came into vogue, you can get all the rest on the web quite easily. To which I say if people don't ask for what they want, they will never get it.

[Kration]

Jon,

Been trying to send u a msg but I think your box may be full

 

Kration

[willysmb44]

Look at art museums. They don't have standing displays on how the paint was made, or films on the history of paintbrushes, or give you cards when you enter letting you follow what happened to a specific piece of artwork. I know, its art- and we are thinking of history museums.

 

Yes, and while neither of us is arguing on this point, an art museum doesn't just show copies of the art in the collection or makes large copies pasted onto walls. They also don't put text in large sections to describe the art instead of the art itself.

That is what would happen if art museums went the way history museums are going...

[jgawne]

Just as an example, and make up your own mind, but the museum just got a million dollars from FedEx that will be spent on making a REPRODUCTION of the 1908 wright brothers aircraft which they consider "an essential artifact by museum staff."

 

Of all the items around the world that after deserving of space in the arm museum, a reproduction of the wright brothers plane is not on my list.

[disneydave]

 

As far as private collections... they can also be a black hole as well, where things go in, and never see the light of day for years.

I agree. I have a friend who has an absolutely phenomenal colelction of pre-1945 Disney stuff. Approximately 1,000 pieces of vintage art: drawings, els, backgrounds, storyboards, conceptual art, model sheets, etc. All from the classic 1930s and 40s Disney shorts and features. And then literally thousands of other items: books, 3-dimensional items, paper, advertising, etc. He has display cases and archival albums filled with stuff...and I mean filled. Once he buys something, it's pretty much there to stay. He has exceptionally rare material. Very few people know about his collection and even fewer have seen it. I understand his need to lay low to keep potential thieves away but it would be great if some of the material could be displayed somewhere for others to see. It truly is a remarkable and very important collection that is hidden away. He has been collecting for over 50 years.

[willysmb44]

As far as private collections... they can also be a black hole as well, where things go in, and never see the light of day for years. My personal frustration is trying to buy or trade for something that a collector has buried in their collection even though they do not have the slightest interest in it or the time period it represents.

 

Yeah, but the difference is private collections aren't paid by public money and hardly anyone ever donates stuff to them. Hardly a fair comparison at all there. What's more annoying; someone who won't show something they personally own, or a museum that operates with your tax dollars who won't show something they own? Really, is there any comparison to be made? I think not!

 

And as for buying from someone who doesn't want to sell. What freaking nerve, how dare they not sell you something you want. It's their property, but it should go to whoever wants it the most, right?