Museum Deaccessions

[Bill-52]

In researching Shell rifles (Martin, John, etc.) I recently visited a museum, reported to have several Shell rifles in their collection.  What I discovered was that they had deaccessioned most of their rifles over the past several years.  I also learned that my Shell rifles were indirectly from the museum's collection!

Just wondering as I watch the snow accumulate here in New England: Have others acquired, directly or indirectly, pieces sold by museums? Are museums now more active in selling parts of their collections to help finances in the current economy?  What other factors might come into play: Moving a collection in a different direction? A less firearm-friendly environment?  Other issues?

I know, for example, the museum I visited will first try to place items with other museums before placing them out for auction.

[The other DWS]

speaking from the viewpoint of a former museum curator and director:

Deaccession is one of the most painful and controversial issue a museum can face.   books and articles as well as seminars and professional discussions go on constantly within the professional museum community.  Mishandling of deaccession is a public relations nightmare with huge repercussions in both the local and the professional community

Specially focussed interest groups like the firearms community are particularly sensitive to the topic.

IN general a museum can/may/should/will deaccession for several very legitimate reasons.  
One is if an artifact or an assembly of artifacts fall outside the museums statement of purpose.  For example; A collection of tea cozies donated to the Buffalo Bill Museum as part of an estate donation  (unless of course they had been the personal property of Buffalo Bill or Anne Oakley) really would not fit that specific museum's mission,  so they would rightfully attempt to place those artifacts in an appropriate museum.

Another concern might be the museum's ability to properly care for a given object or collection of object.  this could involve the physical condition of the object, that is conservation requirement, perhaps security issues.
  high value artifacts housed in small low budget local historical society museums have been ripe targets for theft for a number of years.  The costs of properly caring for and securing such artifacts are a very real problem for small museums.
In several highly publicized cases--art museums most recently--objects were deaccessioned and sold in order, supposedly, to insure the continued solvent survival of the institution.  Needless to say it was about as nasty a disaster as a museum management team could face.

IN the past museum philosophy and practice was to "display" "collections" of artifacts in pretty much an open warehouse kind of arrangement.   for us gun nuts, or our tea-cozy nut wives being able to walk in and view cases full of our special interest object was a nice privilege we came to assume as a right.  often such "collections" were donated as a group by some significant and probably prominent community member so there was a lot of pressure for "perpetual display"   However beginning in the 70's or so there was a change in the museum philosophy and we began to see them as educational institutions rather than warehouses for collections of old stuff.  singe topic collection exhibit cases began to be replaced with educationally oriented exhibits that combined various artifacts in a broader context.   this was real hard for the various types of 'artifact-nuts" to deal with--and still is.

  I personally disassembled a number of fire arms collection exhibits and used them in rotating exhibits that were topically and educationally oriented to things like "Pioneer life" or "local boys in the Civil War".  Arms (and pots and pans, tools etc etc) not used were put in storage.   It pi$$ed off a bunch of locals who's great grand daddy had donated that bunch of what-evers that were no longer on constant display.   {  I'm not going to get into the problem of people who wanted to reclaim something their granny had loaned/donated years ago that now was a "valuable antique"  suffice it to say its a very bad headache of old small town museums  who are transitioning from little old lady management to professional educational standards}

In terms of de-accession procedure there ARE established professional standards and practices that MUST be followed if the museum staff wish to remain credible in the community-----and out of jail. there is a sort-of decision tree method of evaluation and practice governing object and artifact de-accession.  Outright sale and or auction consignment of artifacts is usually fairly rare and is generally avoided at all possible cost except as a last resort.

I could go on at much greater length but this should suffice to show what a big problem this is.

[Artificer]

DWS,

That post was highly informative. 

I remember the Museum of the Confederacy in the Southern White House in the old days with the warehouse type atmosphere.  They have since moved the Arms collection and many relics to a fairly newly built annex and lay things out in a more educational atmosphere.  They also remodeled and restored the Mansion to as close to what it looked like during the War.

We no longer get to flatten our faces against the glass cases while staring at so many examples of swords and guns, but I see it as a positive step for the Museum of the Confederacy. 

However, I've also found a bit of politeness and perhaps a letter to a Curator will get one into seeing all kinds of stuff the general public never sees.  Proper conduct will get you back in again as well. 

When I first visited the REAL Springfield Armory NHS, I asked why an English "India or African" style percussion hunting rifle was found in the guns taken when President Davis was captured.  The Curator grinned and told me that wasn't what the gun was, it was "An Engine of Destruction."  He then asked me to wait a few moments.  He came back with what looked like a small Ketchum grenade.  That "Engine of Destruction" as it was listed on the original inventory was actually a percussion rifled grenade launcher. I then asked if they had a Model 1817 Common Rifle.  He grinned and said, "You know they were never made here?"  I said I realized that, but I was interested in getting a close look at one to do some restoration.  He asked me to wait and came out with a really nice one.   Then as I asked more questions, he took me upstairs and showed me a whole lot of really neat stuff.

If one takes a little time to develop a relationship, many curators will really help you out and you will see things the public never sees.  One tip though, try to keep from drooling over the objects of your interest.  Grin.

[The other DWS]

"We no longer get to flatten our faces against the glass cases while staring at so many examples of swords and guns"

yeah, getting the dried drool of the glass was a PITA,  and really the secret reason us "perfessin-owls" had to put'em away

again from my own experience.  museums are usually happy to work with credible researchers.  working with a appointment, having some credentials or letters of reference from other museums, building a personal relationship with the curatorial staff etc go a LONG way in gaining access.

oddly enough the larger more professional museums are easier to deal with that way.  in very general the smaller local ones are more volunteer based and (in spite of the American and Canadian professional museums assoc efforts to upgrade standards) less used to researchers.

two more comments

regarding photos.    (I was also a project editor for a publishing company who worked with museums and archival collection extensively for a number of years)   Generally speaking the museums are becoming more aware of the value of their assets (artifacts) and since financial considerations are a rapidly growing concern;  access may be an issue.  You will get farther if you clarify that photos are for personal research and NOT publication.
 If they will be published you should offer/expect to pay some sort of fee and sign a limited-use agreement.  In some cases you will be required to use their in-house photographer.    Again this will vary a whole lot from museum to museum.  Developing an open and honest relationship really makes a huge difference.

I can't emphasize that last point enough.
 I can recount countless museum war-stories of self-anointed self-appointed "experts" who barged into museums unannounced and expected that staff to bend over for them.  A few turned out to be professional museum thieves to stole stuff, Most were just arrogant jerks who were attempting to impress and cow the "blue-haired lady" smalltown historian staff.  unfortunately some fairly well known academic historians and researches fell into that latter group and I can assure you that that type got little or no cooperation.

[Mike R]

The anti-gun crowd is behind this general opinion shift from "old guns are OK exhibits" to "hide them in storage" to "sell them off".  I was distressed last visit to the nice Arkansas History Museum at the old Territorial capitol in Little Rock to find ALL of their good collection of early Arky rifles were in storage and replaced by a big quilt exhibit. But they do still have out their extensive knife collection, including several  important fine early Bowies...

[keweenaw]

It's hard for those of us with great interest in firearms to admit but there are a lot of people who aren't anti-gun people but who are just not interested in guns one way or the other.  If I'm running a museum with limited space and there are 20 people a week going through a gallery that has firearms in it, but if I fill it with quilts and 200 people a week go through it, I'm going to do the quilts.  After all museums run on some combination of membership fees, visitor fees and grants, the last category highly correlated with the number of visitors.  My wife and I jointed the Minneapolis Institute of Arts as members and have continued that membership solely because they took the risk and staged the Three Centuries exhibit of firearms that Mark Silver and Wallace Gusler guest curated.  On the stuff they send out from time to time asking why we are members, we always mention the fact that they do exhibits like that one.  The blue-haired ladies aren't afraid to join the museum and tell them that they like the quilts.  We shouldn't be afraid to put up a membership fee and tell them we like the firearms.

Three Centuries was a major art/firearms exhibit.  Field and Stream, supposedly a magazine promoting hunting, refused to carry a notice of the exhibit.  I know because I wrote to them asking them to do it.

Tom

[jwh1947]

Interesting thread.  Back to the beginning; if the museum you speak of is in central PA, I read the paper every day and I don't recall any local notices or publicity about rifle deaccessioning, or I would have been in a front seat.

Interesting story, though.  John Holman, an old friend, now deceased, was in the front seat about 15 years ago, in Hershey, PA, and bought about 50 horns.  There were two or three screw tips, and the rest were common horns, in a junk box the following week at a local gun show, priced $15, 2 for $25.  I rooted through them and found one and said to John, "Very funny, John, you knew I'd be here at the show."

 He said, "What are you talking about?"

I showed him the shard of ancient hang-tag that was affixed to one of the plain horns.  It gave the time of accessioning as 1936 and written notation :The Jacob Heckert powder horn provides...and then it is broken off.  He said, "your lucky day." and, being cheap, I picked out another nice one to get the price down.
$12.50 for what clearly appears to be a family heirloom.

   Jacob Heckert was the brother of my direct ancestor Phillip, and Jacob died in 1777, Lebanon Twp., Lancaster County, PA.  Only Jacob Heckert to be so recorded.  I have the inventory of his will.  He was a farmer and died young.  I don't know if he died in the war or not.  The plain horn would be consistent for a laborer or farmer at that time.  This one I keep, as it is not plain to me.

[The other DWS]

guys,  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is NO vast left wing conspiracy to remove antique firearms from the nation's museums exhibits or collections, nada, zilch.
Politics and modern PC values--what ever they are--has got nothing to do with it.
Its a matter of determining the museum's purpose in the community and attempting to make the best use of the museums limited resources to meet that purpose.
  Firearms are removed for the reasons I mentioned earlier.  to make exhibits that are more oriented to the general public than to cater to the desires of a small specialized group of collectors and fans and the requirements for better security and conservation of artifacts, etc etc.

   I have been in professional discussions and advanced museum management training seminars in the past with museum curators, educators, directors, and instructors where deaccession, museum education and exhibition policies were discussed to death.   I've heard the discussions about guns, but also almost identical ones about quilts, antique glass, old tools, and on and on.  All seem bring out virulently upset fans of what ever the object collection is and the poor staff who are simply trying to serve the WHOLE community gets savaged by what ever the local breed of collector or collectors is.

I can only think of one single firearms case where there were political--if you want to call them that--issues were raised. This was in an western state but I knew a couple of the folk involved.   That was in a case where previously legal WW1 trophy fully automatic arms were on public display----in a really high quality educational exhibit about local doughboys  along with uniforms letters equipment trench art.   however they had never been registered properly with the ATF.  the little old volunteers who ran the museum back then barely knew they were firearms.   ATF wanted to confiscate them and it got a bit ugly until the local congressman got involved and a weird but workable compromise was reached .  the arms were transferred on paper to the local sheriff's office who then DEWatted them  (yeah with the right ammo they were totally ready to rock and roll) and then "loaned" them back to the museum.

now this is NOT to say that in a few individual museums, collections of all sorts, not just firearms and accoutrements,  have been mismanaged in any number of ways, including seriously mishandled deaccessions.  it has been a problem I know is some "privately owned" museums.  fortunately a newer more professionally trained generation of museum professionals is replacing the untrained unqualified staff of the past.

Now if its REAL conspiracy you want I blame all sort of stuff on the idjits at Antiques Roadshow

I fully expect this thread to get shifted "over the fence" if we allow it to get bogged down in the PC/guncontrol type issues

[Bill-52]

Thanks all for your thoughts.  DWS, I now have a much greater appreciation for the deaccession process and issues.

I think it's interesting that while we see some museums moving away from displaying antique firearms, we see others going in the opposite direction: the Minneapolis Institute of Arts' Three Centuries exhibit noted by snyder and the Berks County Historical Society's Berks County Longrifle exhibit (continuing, I believe, to the end of the month). 

When I visited the Berks County HS I made a point of telling them that I appreciated the exhibit and had traveled from New England to see it.  I also made sure to spend a little extra while there.

Bill

[Mike R]

I was not referring to any imagined 'conspiracy' left wing or not, but rather the not so subtle and highly documentable shift in public opinion pushed by anti-gun folks & media [and the documentable shift to a more urban society, away from our roots as a more agrarian, rural based one]-- to the point where guns are anathema to a large portion of society. To the point where toy guns are banned, to the point where parents treat exposure of their children to guns like it was pornography--if you have not seen this you have had your head in the sand.  Just recently a child was sent home from school for having a Lego toy soldier who happened to be carrying a tiny toy gun.  The ban on knives is another symptom of a society gone mad--punishing a small schoolgirl for having a plastic butter knife in her lunch kit, banning Boy Scout knives from Boy Scouts! etc...YES, there is an anti-gun shift which is well funded and has the media's ear and mouthpiece. I think, by and large, antique guns and their repros have escaped this, but not entirely, as we read of cases where MLing guns have been treated by authorities like modern ones. This shift is likely irreversible.  One thing I do know is that at 65 years of age I have seen a different America evolve from that of my youth. Things we took for granted, like where food comes from [humans kill for it], the ownership of guns, the carrying of a simple penknife, the idea of LIBERTY, and many other concepts are gone from a huge portion of society...

[rich pierce]

Let's stick to discussing deaccessions as they may affect our ability to have guns and other items of interest presented publically for our benefit and for educating the public about the crafts we enjoy.  Or something along those lines.  No more politically oriented posting, please.  Thanks, all, continue!

[tallbear]

Guys
Please return to the original thread.We have drifted too far into politics which is expressly forbidden.While we all believe  and support the second amendment the arguments over politics take us away from the intended mission statement of these forums.

Thanks!!!!

Mitch

[Artificer]

Though the gun shop at Colonial Williamsburg is not technically a museum, per se, there have been similar changes there as well.  When I first visited there in 1975, they had at least two or three gunsmiths building guns and a Master of the shop as well as an apprentice or two.  Around 2002, there were two gents there and they weren't working on guns, but did a great job of answering questions.  On my last visit around 2004, no one was working on a gun and there was only one person in there when I visited during a weekend in the summer.  He answered some questions well, but he was not up to the level I had seen in earlier years in the shop.  I'm hoping to get back there this year and see how things are going lately.

Colonial Williamsburg has written that most visitors to the gun shop today are very different than during or before the Bicentennial.  They are not so much interested in recreating or building longrifles and period flint guns.  They note as the population has grown more urban and less people actually shooting as much, they changed the nature of the gun shop to go along with that.