Thanks to all that responded to my inquiry and for clarifying the
legalities of appraising and authenticating.  I posted this inquiry
because of the increasing amounts of requests we receive to appraise and
authenticate objects.

Often many of these inquiries start with, "What can you tell me about
this... “Or "Are you interested in this..."  They usually end with the
person wanting to sell the item.  I often try to persuade the person to
donate the object but often this proves to be fruitless and frustrating.
I'll try to avoid any specific information on the value of items in the
future.  I've always tried to steer the public towards licensed appraisers
in the past and we do not appraise items for donors.

I think the best thing is to develop a policy regarding appraising and
authenticating and add it to our collections policy.  I often do get in
the situation where the public wants us to date objects, which I never
considered harmful until reading some of these posts and other
publications regarding curatorial ethics.

Can dating objects put a museum into a legal dilemma?  I've always
considered dating objects different that authenticating objects (meaning
associating objects to a particular person).

I'm still interested in any other opinions from anyone on whether they
believe the collecting market is a source of competition to museums or
generates interest in museum collections.

Thanks

Jason

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