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

[gwb123]

 

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?

 

A very nice twist of my words.

 

It's not even a matter of me wanting that Vietnam jungle jacket that my friend the devoted WWII collector has buried under rows of stuff footlockers.

 

There is a hoarding instinct that takes over some collectors. It is not a healthy thing for the collector to fall into such a mindset. It is a form of greed. And it also runs completely counter to all of the arguments here about how the open market is somehow better than having items stored by museums.

 

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to live in Hawaii. There was a small, but active collecting community there where most people either knew other or at least of each other. Many of us had specialized interests, and a lot of trading took place that helped all of us build our collections. But there were a couple of collectors who had a reputation of keeping everything they found, without any focus. Anything they found went straight to storage, never to be seen again. You can argue that they had every right to do that, but I can tell you they were the least popular members of our community.

[willysmb44]

 

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to live in Hawaii. There was a small, but active collecting community there where most people either knew other or at least of each other. Many of us had specialized interests, and a lot of trading took place that helped all of us build our collections. But there were a couple of collectors who had a reputation of keeping everything they found, without any focus. Anything they found went straight to storage, never to be seen again.

 

 

There's a flip side to this I've seen far too many times, where someone decides he has some sort of greater 'right' to an item than the person who actually owns it. There was a guy around these parts who got interested in war correspondent stuff. He wasn't a collector, just liked reading the subject. he came up on a display of that subject I put together and immediately demanded I sell him several items because he considered himself a person with a greater interest level (as if you could measure such a concept). I told him to go choke himself.

I've also had several people over the years demand to have me sell my 1944 Willys Jeep to them, even when told it's not for sale. A few MV-owning friends have told me of similar demands of their own vehicles.

Heck, one of the crazier ones once picked up an item of mine in a display, put down what he considered was the correct amount for it's value (maybe 10 years previously it might have been) and started walking off with it, saying he was 'saving' it from, "being further damaged going in and out of your house for these displays." I never forgot those words. Nor did I forget the look on his face when an off duty cop who happened to see this pulled out the cuffs.

I help people find stuff I'm not into, and many do the same for me. But if I want to keep an item I expect ZERO guff from someone who thinks I don't have the right to own things I legally paid for. And I have never felt, even deep inside, any anger over someone owning something I think i should have instead of them.

 

Frankly, the concept strikes me as one of the most childish forms of human behavior I could imagine...

[atb]

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.

That happened quite some time ago and the repro Flyer has been on loan to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Annex.

[gwb123]

 

 

There's a flip side to this I've seen far too many times, where someone decides he has some sort of greater 'right' to an item than the person who actually owns it. There was a guy around these parts who got interested in war correspondent stuff. He wasn't a collector, just liked reading the subject. he came up on a display of that subject I put together and immediately demanded I sell him several items because he considered himself a person with a greater interest level (as if you could measure such a concept). I told him to go choke himself.

I've also had several people over the years demand to have me sell my 1944 Willys Jeep to them, even when told it's not for sale. A few MV-owning friends have told me of similar demands of their own vehicles.

Heck, one of the crazier ones once picked up an item of mine in a display, put down what he considered was the correct amount for it's value (maybe 10 years previously it might have been) and started walking off with it, saying he was 'saving' it from, "being further damaged going in and out of your house for these displays." I never forgot those words. Nor did I forget the look on his face when an off duty cop who happened to see this pulled out the cuffs.

I help people find stuff I'm not into, and many do the same for me. But if I want to keep an item I expect ZERO guff from someone who thinks I don't have the right to own things I legally paid for. And I have never felt, even deep inside, any anger over someone owning something I think i should have instead of them.

 

Frankly, the concept strikes me as one of the most childish forms of human behavior I could imagine...

 

I've had similar experiences, and I agree with you. Such behavior is bizarre at best.

 

Along the same lines are people who look at your collection that took years to build, hours to sort, research and classify, and then get angry when you can't tell them where they can go out today and buy all of the exact same things.

 

But I am not talking about things that are meaningful to a collector... items that they care about and consider to be their collection. I am talking about the ones who buy something and then squirrel it away never to be seen again, either by themselves or the public.

 

We all know someone like this... boxes and boxes of stuff crammed in every corner of their home, and they can't tell you what is in even a tenth of it.

 

To me, that is equally bizarre behavior.

 

And circling back to the beginning of this discussion, it is somewhat disingenuous to claim that private collectors are somehow better in this respect than museums who have material hidden away in long term storage.