Mini Museum: Spinosaurus, Steve Jobs Turtleneck, SR-71, 14th Cent. Samurai Sword

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hansfex/mini-museum-3-the-third-edition?ref=f1jioe

by hownottowrite • 9 years ago

47 40 9 years ago

Very clever and a pleasing way to have some conversations. Much like a brightly painted Pet Rock. Good for the Inventor, I hope he enjoys much success! It actually kind of inspires me to make a tongue-in-cheek version as a gift for people in my close circle that would get a kick out of a cutting from "First Shiner Bock Can of Summer 2017" and "Blood splotched tissue sample from getting poked while changing guitar string" pressed between glass. Too fun.

ashark5• 9 years ago

The profit margin on this has to be bonkers. Maybe not on the first one, but now that they've got the process down? Yikes.

gibbitz• 9 years ago

New from the Franklin Mint. Order now and we'll include the Obama Half dollar!

state• 9 years ago

I thought Steve wanted to put a "dent" in the universe. Not a "ding".

nier• 9 years ago

Weird. I wouldn’t care to see most artifacts if admission was free, but I have a problem with someone cutting them into pieces.

codezero2• 9 years ago

Agreed, but I assume most of these were in terrible condition to start with. I'm surprised they don't mention it in their FAQ so I could be wrong.

As an example they have this to say about the 14th century samurai sword:

  While lovely, the blade has a number of micro-fractures that made it unsuitable,
  and potentially dangerous, as a collectible.

bykovich2• 9 years ago

The critical issue here is not something's value as a "collectible." We're not caddisfly larvae.

partycoder3• 9 years ago

I do not agree with destroying unique/rare artifacts, especially fossils.

ashark5• 9 years ago

Vertebrae are among the cheapest parts of a dinosaur. Spinosaurus isn't an especially rare dinosaur. Morocco, where they sourced this, sells dinosaur bone by the crate-load (literally). It's also a hotbed of fakes and mediocre pieces fixed up to look nicer than they are, so DO NOT buy anything from Morocco unless you know exactly WTF you are doing. This piece was destined to be sold to a dupe at a huge mark-up for use as a paperweight anyway. No great loss.

Mosasaur is an impressive but common fossil in Kansas. You can offer a museum there a complete skull for free and unless it's remarkable for some reason they'll turn you down (or take it and sell it if they're shady, I guess). Complete skeletons aren't uncommon in private collections. Probably one of the easier impressive-looking ancient predators to acquire to hang over the entryway in your secret lair if you're a budget-consious supervillain. A hunk of jaw not connected to a larger find is a trash-tier item among Kansan collectors.

I'm guessing the story's similar for most of the other things on there (I don't know much about the rest).

[EDIT] I hadn't noticed how many of these things are fossils on my first look, so I guess I do know about more of them.

Broken Megalodon teeth are also so common that you couldn't give them away to a collector or museum—they have little to no value except for impressing kids or use in an art project (so, like this). That's not to say it doesn't cost money to get one, but they're not remotely rare. A large, whole (including ROOT and TIP!) one with intact, finely-detailed serration? That's another matter, but that's not what this is.

Broken dire wolf jaw, not that rare or scientifically valuable. Dunno about the Ankylosaur pieces but judging from the rest, probably not rare.

Don't know much about giant sloth fossils, but claws in general tend to be among the rarest single pieces of any given megafauna. Wouldn't be surprised if that cost them more than any of the other animal fossils to acquire. Still, unlikely it's anything a museum would care to have.

Jurassic tree: common enough you can buy really big, polished slices of it for under $100 if you know where to go. Unimproved, large hunks for less. My great-grandma had a an ~20lb piece eroding away in her rock garden, and she didn't even live near where you can pick it up off the ground and wasn't really into fossil collecting.

Crinoid: another Moroccan piece so this was going on the suckers' shelf at a touristy rock & fossil shop anyway. Not sure about this particular variety, but there are thousands of segments of these in the rocks outside my kids' school, and probably tens of thousands more in the creek next to it, all eroding away.

Mind, I don't mean to knock this product, just noting that destroying these fossils wasn't any kind of blow to science or global heritage or anything.

partycoder3• 9 years ago

Nothing wrong about owning them and preserving them but I feel bad about destroying them, if not for scientific purposes.

There are many of them but they are non-renewable. There is a finite supply of them.

And if we create market demand for them they might go very quickly. This is how we pushed rhinos into extinction. Rhinos seemed at some point to be very abundant, now they're gone for good.

dogma11385• 9 years ago

You can buy fossils including Dinosaur ones for fairly cheap in many places in the world.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Fossil+Collection+Spin...

Most fossils are "trash" and often end up in aggregate especially marine fossils.

goodJobWalrus• 9 years ago

How does one know these are genuine?

singularity2001• 9 years ago

If this thing takes off will all art be shredded one day?

givinguflac• 9 years ago

Pixelcaso. Someone will do it.

overcast• 9 years ago

The execution is neat, but I really object to destroying these unique historical items, by chopping them up into tiny pieces for profit.

1001101• 9 years ago

I shuddered when I saw the Enigma. I'm sure other people have similar reactions to some of the other constituents.

schoen• 9 years ago

This has been a big problem with illuminated manuscripts such as books of hours (which represent massive amounts of beautiful medieval art and calligraphy). For centuries, some bookdealers have been willing to disbind a complete or nearly complete volume and sell individual leaves, because of course people love to be able to display a beautiful page on their wall.

I just went to an antiquarian book fair and there was a dealer selling medieval illuminated manuscript leaves (who's been there for many, many years), with a sign specifically addressing the concern, and basically saying "we didn't do it!". But it's hard to verify and the incentive is still strong, because you can get more from selling a hundred-page illuminated prayerbook as 100 $1000 leaves than as a $40,000 whole.

Overall I think people who care about the past in certain ways would prefer for artifacts to remain whole, even if that means we don't get to own them ourselves, much as with King Solomon proposing to cut the baby in half.

vacri• 9 years ago

Yeah, it's far better to leave them in the back of the stacks with others of the same kind, where no-one will ever see them or discuss them.

None of these items are unique, except perhaps Chuck's wedding cake.

bykovich2• 9 years ago

This is an atrocity.

skookumchuck• 9 years ago

I read about an enterprising person in the 1960s who swiped the dirty bedsheets from a hotel room that Beatles had slept on. The sheet was cut up into 1 inch square pieces and sold for a buck each.

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

The practice somewhat predates the 1960s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic

Solinoid• 9 years ago

It belongs in a museum!

jeron2• 9 years ago

what if they put mini museums in museums? better yet, what if future mini museums included pieces of old mini museums?

nether• 9 years ago

Looks like a slick way of preserving cultural artifacts that would have otherwise been discarded.

Neliquat• 9 years ago

Good art makes you feel something. I may not agree, but I accept it as good art. Hopefully backdoor funding for actual preservation.

notlion• 9 years ago

So I guess we've finally reached Ferengi levels of consumerism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUvARUC9k9Q

Mini Museum: Spinosaurus, Steve Jobs Turtleneck, SR-71, 14th Cent. Samurai Sword

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