RE: paleonet Estimating value of paleo collections

[Alex Cook <AlexC@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is how we do it
Fossils
Holotypes: $1000 (no matter what it is a pollen or a dinosaur)
Material valued over 10,000, individual valuation estimates all in house
remainder  $20 per item general collection fossils
 
$50 per item mineral collection
 
This is used for assett valuation only and not for insurance purposes
 
 
 
 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: John.Laurie@ga.gov.au [mailto:John.Laurie@ga.gov.au]
Sent: Friday, 31 October 2003 10:44 am
To: PaleoNet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: RE: paleonet Estimating value of paleo collections



PaleoNetters,

 

I understand your angst, Andrew. I had similar experiences in this
organisation some years ago. The government had just brought in what is
called a 'capital use charge' which is mostly designed to stop government
organisations building up a collection of obsolescent equipment, by making
them pay a pro-rata charge for its depreciation. In the initial stages the
suits were running about like headless chooks, and any mention of the dollar
value of our collections had them leaping about with their fingers in their
ears humming loudly. Despite being told by people in the know that these
charges did not apply to 'heritage items', they found this difficult to
believe for some reason. This was demonstrated clearly when the organisation
was offered, free (except for the $40 cost of valuation) a 56 kg piece of
the Henbury meteorite. At that time I looked after the all the palaeo and
mineral collections in this place. I thought this was a wonderful
opportunity, as a 56 kg slab of iron is not something that you can walk out
with, so we could have had it on display, so that our numerous visiting
schoolkids could have actually touched a meteorite (all the rest are too
small and are behind glass), so I made the mistake of asking permission of
the hierarchy. Unfortunately the headless chooks prevailed and the
opportunity was missed.

 

On a different tack, it is important that the assorted universities and
other organisations realise that their collections are important heritage
collections and sticking a dollar value on them is a way, albeit simplistic,
of demonstrating that these are valuable collections.

 

Our Commonwealth Palaeontological Collection (CPC, currently comprising
37,415 type and otherwise published specimens) is one of the largest in
Australia and is of course undervalued in this organisation, such that I and
I alone am allowed only to spend about 10% of my time looking after the
collection (accessions, loans, visitors etc. etc.). The way I have tried to
inculcate an appreciation of its value is to keep explaining how
palaeontology works (not an easy thing to do to a geophysicist or
geochemist) and to wave the 'international convention' aspects of the
operation of the ICZN and ICBN. This coupled with the fact that the CPC was
originally set up by a federal government decision in the 1920s, has seen me
make some headway recently. Hopefully this will continue

 

John

 

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Dr John R. Laurie 

Petroleum and Marine Division 

GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA 
GPO Box 378         
Canberra ACT 2601       
Australia 
              
Tel: (02) 6249 9412; Fax: (02) 6249 9980 
E-mail: John.Laurie@ga.gov.au 

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