While a life without John Simmons is a life not worth living, I have to
agree slightly more with Richard Gerrard. I don't like the idea of
valuation. I also don't like being undervalued by administrations (all
too easy in a situation like John's or my former one, where insurance is
either verboten or the mysterious "self-insured."). In looking at the
problem of administratively abandoned collections, I was struck (and John
would probably say that I should be) by the number of times a collection
with no PERCEIVED value was the first to be cut by the bean counters. Not
fair, not right, not ethical...but it happens. And I don't think that
value ought to be tied to the market trends, for exactly the reasons that
John mentions. But saying that they are priceless is like a red rag to a
biull with many administrations in tough times, because they can easily
read that as worthless and take action accordingly. I think it's actually
more difficult to threaten a collection which has some objective value,
financial or otherwise. Valuation does not mean that everything has to
have a sticker price based on the latest auction catalogue.
 
Sally Shelton
Collections Conservation Specialist
San Diego Natural History Museum