In a recent reaction on one of my posts, a site member suggested to me to get in touch with a museum regarding my pigeon mails flown out of besieged Ladysmith. It was a legitimate remark and an issue which I have been pondering for some time. I own quite a few ABW-related items that would clearly benefit a museum collection and I know of other private collections for which any dedicated museum director would swiftly offer the hand of his only daughter in marriage. Although there are definite benefits in transferring important items into public collections, I also see serious drawbacks. Museum collections are usually large and can only display a small fraction thereof. Also, Museums tend to try to cover a wide range of subjects to cater for the requirements of collectors, laymen as well as classes of gum chewing tik-tok addicts on their forced visits. A focused collector is often knowledgeable about a specific subject and is able to present (through sites as these) interesting items to an eager, appreciative audience without them having to leave the house. Because museum budgets are often very tight, the staffing levels do not always allow to restore, conserve, describe and photograph every single collection item, leaving many interesting items un-exposed. I have also found that some smaller town-museums in South Africa have retired knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff and replaced them with people who are very friendly, but have little or no affinity with the subject matter and have only the vaguest of idea of when the Boer War actually took place. This is worse than it sounds, as these people have keys to cabinets containing items each with a monetary -let alone historical- value well in excess of their annual salary. It is then not surprising then that some see in a Veldpond only 8 grams of gold, capable of keeping them in nappies and groceries for months. Another issue is that the larger the concentration of items of historical and/or monetary value in one place, the worse the effects of a catastrophic event such as fire, burglary, mass looting or whatever. Although such risks are probably equal or even higher for some private collections, by nature the spread of items lowers the impact of such event. All things considered, I feel that keeping museum quality items in private collections is not such a bad thing. Your opinions please.