tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302078021633810166.post1006275293844565365..comments2023-11-28T20:43:13.582+00:00Comments on New Views on Old Bones: The trade in fossils: a practical positionPaul Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12957963650104505341noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302078021633810166.post-47485737097264224522015-02-28T09:35:15.967+00:002015-02-28T09:35:15.967+00:00Thanks both for the nice and interesting comments....Thanks both for the nice and interesting comments. Sorry for the slow responses - busy week!<br /><br />James, one way of sorting out the good guys from the bad is simply to see what they're selling. Anyone dealing in fossil vertebrate material from countries like Mongolia, China, Brazil or Madagascar is likely to be infringing the law and should probably be avoided. Scrupulous dealers are usually happy to share locality information and will also disapprove of trading in material from countries that have laws banning fossil exports.<br /><br />Mike - I can see where you're coming from, but don't see much of a logical difference between hiring contractors to collect on your behalf (e.g. all of the people hired by Cope, Marsh, many of those employed in the early days of the AMNH and Smithsonian) and buying from a commercial dealer. Money changes hands for fossils in both cases without direct involvement in the collection of the staff at the institution that benefits from getting the material. I may have phrased it clumsily, but I'm not talking about museums taking on people simply to go and hunt for fossils (positions have hardly ever been created for this activity), but museums that contract people to do it.<br /><br />I also agree we can aspire to better ethical standards than those of our historical colleagues, but a certain amount of pragmatism is necessary in this case. And there is hypocrisy: I know of people who routinely work on recently purchased material in a museum in one country, but condemn the practice in their own.Paul Barretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12957963650104505341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302078021633810166.post-26920469362840858082015-02-24T14:37:18.391+00:002015-02-24T14:37:18.391+00:00Thanks, Paul for this characteristically nuanced a...Thanks, Paul for this characteristically nuanced analysis of the problem of specimen auctions. Very helpful. Just a couple of quibble to make:<br /><br /><i>Even those museums who claim to have ‘collected’ large numbers of specimens often engaged professional fossil hunters on their pay roll to do so (which is not really that different from buying from a dealer).</i><br /><br />I'd argue that it's <i>very</i> different. The former is simply outsourcing one of the functions of a museum -- something that you would do with the cleaning, payroll, building maintenance and many other things. The problem as I see it is auctions. That's where prices become inflated, and where individual specimens are hyped as icons. I would <i>much</i> rather a museum spend £1M of hiring a company of expert collectors to work a few field seasons for the museum, than spend that some money on buying a specimen at auction.<br /><br />Also, this (though it's tangential to your main point):<br /><br /><i>Thus, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in terms of condemning the sale of fossils, when this trade has actually formed the foundation of many major collections.</i><br /><br />I don't see it as hypocritical to want to do better than our forerunners did. Henry Fairfield Osborne was a notorious racist, but we don't see anything hypocritical in the AMNH having non-discriminatory hiring policies in the 21st Century. That's progress!Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302078021633810166.post-83476330821788423672015-02-23T17:50:31.582+00:002015-02-23T17:50:31.582+00:00Thanks for the insightful commentary on an age old...Thanks for the insightful commentary on an age old debate, Paul. As an Earth Science hobbyist and parent living in Tucson, I bring my kids to the Tucson show every year. We in fact had a productive rock hounding expedition a week after the show this year savaging what we could from the gravel at one of the outdoor sites. During our 'back yard museum' trips to the show itself, I try to teach my kids to discern reliable vendors from the shady ones, and to assess the quality, value, and ethics of specimens we see for sale. We do some collecting, though on a much smaller budget than a museum can! We have seen a wide range of minerals and fossils, from collectors who are hawking pieces they themselves collected, to vendors hawking casts of fossils as though they are the real deal. Some of these distinctions are obvious enough to an amateur eye, but do you have tips for the lay person to help discern the good guys from the bad guys? About all I can muster is to question the vendor to determine whether they know the age, taxonomy or mineralogy, the locality, and who collected the piece. There is also an intangible gut feel for the vendor's integrity and authenticity, but beyond those factors, I'm wondering how you identify the 'right' traits in a fossil or mineral purchase. Thanks!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04840742775125320981noreply@blogger.com