P3D Museum? I don't think so...

[fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dr. George A. Themelis)]

Mary Ann Sell, Vice President of the National Stereoscopic Association
writes:

>Please consider donating your images to a museum. 
>
>We are donating our ENTIRE VIEW-MASTER/STEREO COLLECTION to a 
>museum and this is desingated so in our will.  We want to preseve 
>stereo history for the masses not just for the select few that have some 
>$$$ and want to spend it on 3-D.

I have a few tough questions for you Mary Ann:

1. Why don't you donate your entire view-master/stereo collection to a
museum RIGHT NOW?  I mean, get up and go to your nearest museum in
Cincinnati and donate your collection so that, as you say, "thousands of
people can enjoy the images"?   Why wait until you die to do that?

2. Do you have children?  Do you have relatives that would like to pass
some of the wealth that you are accumulating now?  Your collection has
value.  It is not very different that a bank account or a house.  Why
"donate" it to the museum and not sell it to the museum?  If a collection
is auctioned, a museum can actually BUY it and then do whatever they want
with it.

3. I assume that you acquired most of your personal collection from other
individuals (collectors, dealers, etc.)  Did you tell them that, instead of
selling these items to you, they could be DONATING them to some museum?  Or
was the desire to acquire these items and as you say, "spend countless
hours looking at them" too strong to pass?  My point is, you have been part
of the system of buying and selling items between individuals.  Why
discredit this system by talking about people storing collections in
closets?

4. How do you know that the museum will actually make these items available
to the public instead of just storing them in boxes in the basement (or a
vault)?  Do you expect me to believe that the museum will put a bunch of VM
model D viewers for people to view the reels?   You said: "None are taken
lightly or overlooked because of photographic defects because each
represents a moment in time during the history of our planet that can never
be repeated."  And what makes you believe that a museum is interested in
these details?  IMO, collectors show more love and appreciation, LIKE YOU
DO, than a museum.

>Please reconsider having your family "auction off" your work and think
>about donating it to a worthly instution ... perhaps somewhere in the
>Cleveland area where much of your work was done.

Well, I don't have a will and don't have a collection of any value right
now, like you do.  Also, I am not from Cleveland so I don't have any
particular ties with this city.  When the time comes, I will decide what to
do with it, but donating to a museum right now is low in my list.  And I
really don't like to be told by "die-hard" collectors that the proper place
for personal pictures is in museums and not in the hands of individual
collectors.

Best regards,

George Themelis


------------------------------