Anyone else get conflated by things being sold at auction that really shouldn't? Thinking of the dinosaur skeleton that sold for millions the other day and today the pen that saved Tom Hanks or whoever when it was jammed into a broken rocket booster switch on one of the Apollo missions. Seems wrong to use filthy lucre to value these things and for zillionaires to possibly prevent them being seen be mere mortals.
R4 had a fossils lady on yesterday saying, and I paraphrase, that it might as well stay in the ground if some rich git is buying it for their games room.
It is no good to the scientific community being used as an expensive hat/brolly stand.
Obviously they might donate it to the scientific community for study but I feel the crypto bros are maybe not as philanthropic as the jolly chaps from days gone by.
R4 had a fossils lady on yesterday saying, and I paraphrase, that it might as well stay in the ground if some rich git is buying it for their games room.
It is no good to the scientific community being used as an expensive hat/brolly stand.
The last expensive dinosaur fossil to sell at auction (before the T-rex the other day) was a Stegosaurus which was then placed on (permanent?) loan in a museum.
Sadly it's the only way museums can afford to display this sort of stuff now. They can't afford to buy it for $50m, they just have to hope a wealthy buyer donates it / gives access to it.
Medals is one that always feels weird too. Someone won military medals for service and the family sells them off once the original recipient is dead... Medals feel like something you have to earn, not buy.
Anyone else expecting an eBay link to someone's second hand adult toy collection?
Medals is one that always feels weird too. Someone won military medals for service and the family sells them off once the original recipient is dead... Medals feel like something you have to earn, not buy.
Yes - makes no sense to me.
"Here is a medal that some other brave bloke was awarded in a war I wasn't in". I bet the number of female owners of medal collections of medals awarded to other people can be counted on one hand is zero!
The families' motives seem weird too - I guess it's just a trinket and the deed can still be remembered if that's your thing. I supposed the now deceased recipient might have requested it to be sold for the families benefit or charity. People who are still alive selling off their medals seems even worse - surely if you are rich enough, you'd not take advantage of the recipient's financial misfortune to prize the medal from them but would just give them the cash and thank them for their service.
"Here is a medal that some other brave bloke was awarded in a war I wasn't in"
I watched a fella on Insta the other day who's hobby is buying medals with provenance and researching the family to see if there are surviving family members and returning the medal to them. He had access to Kew and all the ancestry on-line sites so he did a pretty good job with family trees, the citation for the medal and military records. The family was pretty chuffed.
But there are also weird fetishistic medal gatherers as well.
Was expecting this (Wikpedia) ... "a number of high profile..." lordhelpus
Medals is one that always feels weird too. Someone won military medals for service
Last year we helped the GF's folks move house.
Dug out a load of old boxes. In one of them was the GF's granddad's war stuff... medal collection, certificates, maps and the grandmother's medal.
Only thing was, all the meals were decorated with Swastikas. Certificates were for how "treu" grandpa was to the cause. The maps were showing the Blitzkrieg across Poland and into Ukraine. Grandmother's medal was a Mutterkreuz, awarded to women with four children or more and who brought up their kids according to Nazi values.
GF's aunt was visiting from South Africa and her husband got very excited and started finding out the value of the medals. He wanted to take them with him so that he could sell them to his "collector" friend in SA.
We told him to **** off.
My Dad tried to show my kids his dad’s AFC when we saw him last year… I don’t think they really had any connection to it. I guess it will come to me when he dies. I appreciate what it means but am not really sure what I’ll do with it.
An auction isn’t right though.
I agree with some of the sentiment on here but also find it a bit weird how people get about 'old stuff must be in a museum for all to see'.
- There are lots of skeletons in museums already for research.
- The average joe public walking around a museum doesn't know which bits of the skeleton they are looking at is original and which bit is plaster or what ever they use to fill in the missing bits.
So how does having 3 t-Rex benefit more than 2 T-Rex? Why can't people who are interested in these things have one that they can look at, display or do whatever they like with?
Is it just because they are rich that it must be wrong?
What WCA said, some people like to look at jets, supercars, J-Class yachts, retro MTB's, houses, landscapes, dinosaur bones, where do you* draw the line of which ones can't be subject to capitalism?
Where I think it gets ridiculous is when someone buys a fragile piece of irreplicable history like a painting, and put it on display in their private jet or yacht where the risk of it being destroyed is significantly non-zero.
*all property is theft obviously
Medals is one that always feels weird too. Someone won military medals for service and the family sells them off once the original recipient is dead... Medals feel like something you have to earn, not buy.
Medals, war, it's all weird.
"Gramps got this medal for single handedly fighting 12 bad guys in the war"
Meanwhile in some other country 12 families have a medal "We got this for Gramps dying in the war"
Meanwhile in the history books a load of leaders are venerated for their role orchestrating all that death.
So how does having 3 t-Rex benefit more than 2 T-Rex?
And just because it's in a museum does it mean that anybody will be able to do any more research on it than by gaining access to a private collection?
Medals, war, it's all weird.
Agreed. Plenty of people who were awarded medals didn't want them.
I saw one of Napoleon's hats going to auction years ago. For absolutely no reason I decided that I'd love one of Napoleon's hats. In my lottery winning imagination, I'll be sitting in my holey underpants watching Wheeler Dealers while drinking a nice 2016 Chateau Latour and wearing Boney's hat!
I'll be sitting in my holey underpants watching Wheeler Dealers drinking a nice 2016 Chateau Latour and wearing Boney's hat!
Peep Show surely
I'll be sitting in my holey underpants watching Wheeler Dealers drinking a nice 2016 Chateau Latour and wearing Boney's hat!
Peep Show surely
Never watched it - did they do something like that?
But there are also weird fetishistic medal gatherers as well.
If any of you weirdos want my fire service medals just ask
Regarding the museum/private collection thing: One key principle of research papers is that the findings can be verified or disputed. If the original skeleton is sold into a private collection, access to study it is not guaranteed, and so most journals will reject any papers based on the study of that specimen. Effectively, it's lost to science. It's not about the public being able to see it; it's about future study being ensured.
I feel the crypto bros are maybe not as philanthropic as the jolly chaps from days gone by.
Donating a very expensive thing to a charitable cause will be music to the ears of their tax accoutants.
And the folk they buy it off, have a ton of money to keep doing science n stuff.
Out of curiousity what's the background of the skeleton in terms of who found it, how and where?
Wealthy collectors being able to buy things like this is only possible if someone claims ownership of an object and therefore the right to sell it, it's normally there that the main issue lies. Similar to people buying acres of land and preventing access/profiteering from it, the root cause is normally at the point of claimed ownership before which it was simply 'the ground' or a wild animal. You can't buy it if it's not for sale!
Not that I have any medals but if I did I'd much rather my grandkids got some money from them than kept them stuffed in a cupboard somewhere.
Out of curiousity what's the background of the skeleton in terms of who found it, how and where?
Found some 5 or 6 years ago in South Dakota apparently, and took 3 years to excavate because the ground is sometimes frozen, and to fully clean up, document & assemble. A private fossil hunter, I think I read somewhere, although that's not mentioned here (BBC)
Pah was expecting a stealth add. Am disappoint
Boxes of used mens boxer shorts
I was doing some legit research { honest guv } and not only did this appear at auction , it had a lot of bids and wasnt far off the price of new pack of 5 !
Opened yogurts
Never again
From a research point of view this is a bad thing because a of prime research territory into the Mesozoic in particular is on private land in middle USA, and you can't get access as they assume you're after something to take and sell
There are lots of skeletons in museums already for research.
Of T.rex? There actually isn't, no complete skeleton has been found I don't think and I doubt more that 30 or so majority complete ones exist.
Any idea what we are going to find from researching T-Rex? Perhaps how not to plan for a meteor strike. Anything else other than satisfying someones curiosity and someone elses expense?
Any idea what we are going to find from researching T-Rex?
Who knows what we will find out, that's the point of primary research
Of T.rex? There actually isn't, no complete skeleton has been found I don't think and I doubt more that 30 or so majority complete ones exist.
Most of the genuine ones have been copied and made into multiple cast skeletons. There's one in Manchester Museum which is being moved to a temporary exhibition in Manchester Victoria Baths next year, saw an article in Manchester Evening News about it.
But yes, the actual fossils are incredibly rare.
Any idea what we are going to find from researching T-Rex?
Environmental, evolutionary, bio-mechanics, ancient eco-systems. for example, research a couple of years ago discovered how animals with the bite force of T-Rex could still have eye sockets that would not just break instantly.
Or, just y'know for the sake of knowledge about the past of the planet we live on.
Any idea what we are going to find from researching T-Rex?
Who knows what we will find out, that's the point of primary research
So simple a kid could do it?
I wouød answer thats it good to be curious about the world we live in now and its history and development. Bear in mind that in the pool of acquired human knowledge only a very small % is what you might term 'valuable'
I appreciate what it means but am not really sure what I’ll do with it.
I’m sure the squadron or whatever might be interested for their own museum (if AFC means Airforce Cross), or somewhere like Duxford or other major aircraft museums.
I appreciate what it means but am not really sure what I’ll do with it.
I’m sure the squadron or whatever might be interested for their own museum (if AFC means Airforce Cross), or somewhere like Duxford or other major aircraft museums.
It did used to be on display, along with his flight diary which detailed every minute spent in the air (black for daytime, red for night missions) across Europe, North Africa and Burma.
