Another aspect to valuation of natural history collections that is very
different from other museum collections concerns genetic material.  It
is quite probable that sooner or later ALL preserved natural history
specimens will be usable for their DNA.  Do we want to insure for this?
Shall museums follow the examples of a few countires (e.g. Costa
Rica) and instead of merely placing a value on collections, go ahead and
patent their DNA, too?  And just what would that be worth?