This is a long message telling of our museum's experiences. The original
message is at the end of this e-mail.

First, some thoughts on numbering dismantled building components:
1. Durability of numbers (how soon will reassembly occur? We have one house
in storage that was dismantled over 20 years ago, and another one that took
10 years to restore.)
2. Are the numbers big enough to find easily, especially by someone who did
not do the numbering?
3. What about after assembly, will the numbers be removed , visible or ...?
4. Have adequate documentation (photos - labelled!!!, plans, checklists,
assembly instructions) A back-up set would be advisable - imagine losing the
documentation, and still having the building's '3D jigsaw puzzle' !
5. Plan for the worst - Assume that someone who never saw the house will
have to reassemble it. Hopefully that will not happen, but it could.
6. Hand stamping aluminum tags is a slow process. If doing hundreds of
pieces, consider getting a machine that presses numbers into alumiunum e.g.
an army surplus dog-tag marking machine or a machine for marking telephone
poles (in BC they use aluminum tags).

This assembly/reassembly is not a new problem. I recall reading of old barns
that had Roman Numerals cut into the beams for ease of assembly - when new.
I believe that prefab houses such as sold in British Columbia in the early
1900s also had markings on components, and I am sure that log home kits now
being built in BC also have code markings.

At the Burnaby Village Museum in British Columbia we use an alumninum tag
(it won't rust) with 1/4" high numbers stamped into it for the accession
number of each historic building, and mount it in a consistent location
above the main entrance doorway on the inside. I found that inked or painted
numbers could be overpainted or simply could not be found. If a stamped tag
was overpainted, one could usually find it and read it, even if one had to
scrape the paint off. We use the same method for large machinery and
vehicles, especially those stored or exhibited outdoors. One museum author
wrote that there is nothing more frustrating than finding a 1/4" high
accession number on a 100 foot totem pole.

I began work as Curator here in 1986. Back in the 1970s our museum had
acquired an old local farmhouse (built c.1910). Staff photographed it and
documented it. The dismantling was extensive - each floor and wall board was
lifted, windows and doors were removed as units, all post-1910 additions
(over 50% of the house) were discarded etc. As a reassembly coding they
apparently used garish paint scheme to help. The house, now in 'kit' form,
was then put into storage in a dirt crawl space under our restaurant. About
a decade later when the museum was ready for a farmhouse to display, none of
the people who had dismantled that old farmhouse remained on staff. It was a
major jigsaw puzzle and although we had some documentation, I did not know
if we could reassemble it or if the parts were even in good condition. At
the same time, another farmhouse became available (on its original site, and
threatened with demolition). The difficult decision was made to go with the
known entity, and the second house was acquired.

In 1988 we moved the second farmhouse onto our 10 acre site. It was a rush
salvage job. As it was only cut into three pieces for the move there was no
need for special numbering. At one point however it looked like the roof
removal cut (to clear power lines) would be at knee height on the second
floor, we quickly numbered every piece of trim arounds windows and doors
with felt markers as we would have removed the trim before the roof was cut
off.

Historically the choice was fortuitous as research had quickly shown the
house to be extremely original, historic (it is apparently built on building
permit No. 1 issued by Burnaby in 1893!), and very well documented by
historic family photograph albums and by surviving family. The Jesse and
Marth Love family and their succeeding generations had lived in the house
for almost all of its 'life'.  It had been slightly modified c.1924 and two
of the three gentlemen who had made the changes were interviewed in the
house and they showed us exactly what they had changed! This is one of the
joys of working with recent history - we can ask detailed questions of the
people who were there at the time! We have now restored the house to the
1925 time period.

I recall as a youth that when the Halifax Citadel in Nova Scotia has
restoration work done to the stone walls in the 1960s that numbers were
painted onto the stones. Presumably the numbers were either covered up
during the reconstruction, or cleaned off afterwards.

Colin Macgregor Stevens
Museum Curator
Burnaby Village Museum
City of Burnaby,  BC,  CANADA
(604) 293-6500
Business: [log in to unmask]
Museum Webpage:
http://www.burnabyparksrec.org/villagemuseum/villagemuseum.html
Personal: [log in to unmask]  Personal website:
http://bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net
===============================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Small, Martha S. <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.museum-l
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: June 17, 1999 05:40
Subject: Object Numbering


>I guess this is the day for queries.  Does anyone have any experience with
>applying accession numbers to all the parts of a dismantled building,
>particularly the wood elements such as beams?  Does one usually paint
>numbers on, affix tags, apply small metal plates with the numbers punched
>into them, etc..  Any help would be immensely appreciated.
>
>Martha S. Small
>Registrar
>Fidelity Investments
>82 Devonshire Street S7A
>Boston, MA 02109
>617-563-6134
>[log in to unmask]
>
>=========================================================
>Important Subscriber Information:
>
>The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://museums.state.nm.us/nmmnh/museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes).
>
>If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
>[log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff
>Museum-L" (without the quotes).

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://museums.state.nm.us/nmmnh/museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).