You raise a number of important issues, some of which have been addressed by others. Since you mentioned Japanese swords and tsuba, I thought I'd add another caution. Over the years, there have been some very persuasive and unscrupulous dealers who have gotten access to museum collections for the purpose of stealing or buying cheaply. Swords and sword furniture including tsuba can be extremely valuable - into five and six figures...most Americans couldn't tell the difference between a valuable piece and a common one. For example, in WWII, especially the early years, officers from important families sometimes put heirloom blades into standard military mounts. Some of those blades are old, rare and very valuable...but they look like any other WWII Japanese sword to the uninitiated. I know of stories in which a seemingly honest dealer has offered to help the museum "trade up" by replacing a blemished blade with a shiny, better blade...one that was much less important. Sometimes they will offer substitutes that are machine made blade(the old ones are hand made). Similarly with the tsuba, dealers have sometimes switched out a rare tsuba for a more common one.
Having qualified and knowledgeable people look at your guns and swords can be a good thing - they can provide information that might be very useful. However, know why they are there, find out about them and never, ever let them alone with the items.
Bp
Robert B. Pickering, Ph.D.
Director, Museum Science and Management, University of Tulsa;
Professor of Anthropology, University of Tulsa;
Adjunct Curator of Anthropology, Gilcrease Museum
University of Tulsa
Harwell Hall
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-9700
(918) 631-2387 Office
(918) 805-4780 Cell
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christopher James Young
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 3:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Weapon handling and the public UK museums
Hi thanks for all of the replies and the prompt nature to which everyone has responded. You are all pretty much correct in your assumption that our apprehension to show weaponry on a one to one basis has been pretty much two fold;
-one out of concern for the safety of staff but I see now that this might have been a little over prudent and the advice on checking the background of who is making the research enquiry and on firearms safety is great, plus I am due to see some firearms specialists on this in March.
-Another was concern over the value of some probably not all of our weaponry as some of the pieces we have are probably some of the more valuable parts of our collection. We had a chap just recently who was viewing our permanent display of Tsuba sword mounts and wanted to know and possibly view any Japanese swords we may have in the collection but when asked for his details he refused to give them, so we in turn did not facilitate his request.
We of course would follow conservation principles when showing or letting any member of the public handle any item, however I think weaponry or arms and armaments has been a bit of a gap in our knowledge and so we have either only put a selection of items on permanent display or kept the rest locked away. I am aware that my boss has some kind of fire arms licence but I will have to clarify with her whether this is hers specifically or whether we have a museum fire arms licence which I believe is different giving pretty much all museum staff the ability to handle firearms.
Thank you to everyone who has responded and if anyone has any other advice it is appreciated.
Kind regards
Chris Young
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