Concerning Richard Gerrard's interesting comments to my previous dissent on the question of valuation, I need to point out that I did not say that "saying commercialization is bad" would in any way lessen the illicit trade in natural history specimens (or the legal trade either). What I did say was that when natural history museums start assigning dollar value to their specimens, this will be a tremendous boost and assist to the commercial market, both the legal market and the illegal market. Natural history museums have already seen many fossils appear on the market at prices they cannot afford. Are museums ready to see a similar trade in other natural history specimens flourish? We don't have to go back very far in history to find a time when natural history specimens were bought and sold to the highest bidder, leaving many museums out of the game entirely. As just one example, in the UK there is still a flourishing illegal market in egg sets. Many UK museums have had eggs stolen from them to feed this market, as well as eggs taken from protected species in the wild. Recognizing this illegal trade by slapping a monetary value on the egg sets in museum collections is only going to help this market. And I have yet to hear anyone address the issues raised when a museum administrator begins to view the collection as containing many duplicates of egg sets with dollar values. There is only one Mona Lisa, but there are many elephant bird eggs. The temptation to sell collections will be played out with very different considerations than it has been in art or history museums (and the record in those museums is not always very pretty). Regarding DNA, it sounds rather benign to say that biotech and pharmaceutical companies will be "perusing" our collections in the future. No, they will be offering big $$$ for permission to do destructive sampling of specimens. Think for a minute about what is required for DNA extraction. As more countries such as Costa Rica (and I believe also Australia, though perhaps it has only been proposed there) seek patents for their living natural heritage, these companies will turn increasingly to museums as sources of material. Before this happens, natural history museums need to think long and hard and engage in a friendly, open debate about what the best way to proceed is. I need to repeat what was said in my first post: before the mechanisims of valuation are discussed, a lot more attention needs to be paid to whether or not it should be done at all, and some thought needs to be given to such things as commercialization of the genetic data bank that preserved specimens will be seen as in the future. We are NOT talking about art objects here, we are talking about natural history specimens. Just because valuation has been helpful (or non-hurtful?) in art museums does not mean that it will work the same for natural history specimens. Think of what a fundamental change you are about to make. At present, without dollar values assigned to collections, it is possible for collection management personnel to successfully argue that all natural history specimens are equally valuable and all deserve the same level of protection in a museum. Once dollar values are assigned, you will no longer be able to make that argument. Are you prepared to give this strength up? Are you prepared to cope with the unscrupulous board president or administrator who wants to deaccession "just a few" of the "duplicate" specimens for monetary gain? John Simmons