Hi Look at the economics of a museum. Count the heads on the payroll. Count the paying customers you see times the admission fee.
At least around here most of them have a budget that looks like: Costs: X Money in from visitors: X/10 Money in from membership fees: X/5 Money from the gift shop: X/5 They either make up the difference: 1) From an endowment. 2) From government subsidies. 3) From other activities (paid research etc). It’s not just electronics that has an issue with this. It’s common in a lot of fields. Bob > On Mar 20, 2015, at 1:33 AM, Bill Hawkins <b...@iaxs.net> wrote: > > There are worse things than breaking up a collection. > > The Baaken Museum of Electricity in Life, near Minneapolis had a > wonderful series of devices that used electricity to examine or prolong > life, or to extract money from suckers. About 20 years ago, someone felt > that there wasn't enough traffic at the museum, so the interesting > exhibits were removed and the museum dumbed down for children. A vampire > might greet you at the door. > > It seems that modern business managers have no time for things that > don't draw crowds or fly off the shelves. If a museum or business wants > to serve a market niche, it must compete with the incessant blizzard of > advertising from the companies that just have to grow. Combine that with > such companies expectations of productivity, and no one has time to > search for interesting museums, never mind go to national parks. > > I would have been fascinated by and supportive of the French HP museum, > had I known about it. I did not even dream such a place existed, but it > makes sense that it was in Europe. Amsterdam has a science museum that > lifts children's interest rather than going down to the lowest level to > draw more people. > > In regard to dumbing down, the movie "Idiocracy" seems predictive. > > Bill Hawkins > > P.S. The Pavek Museum of Broadcasting (radio) is still hanging on. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Van Baak > Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 11:01 PM > >> If that is the case, then this stuff belongs to a museum and not on > ebay. IMHO. > > Hi Attila , > > I completely understand how you feel, but this happens all the time with > niche collections. You just can't find a brick and mortar museum > interested in taking all that inventory. How many people would travel to > city X in country Y to see a collection of electronics made by company > Z? So these collections tend to last only as long as the original > pioneer behind them is active. Once they are gone, there's a good chance > that it all ends up on eBay, scattered around the globe. At least it > doesn't end up in recycling or the trash. > > Checking current vs. completed auctions for that seller, you'll note > that a large number of the good or exotic items have already been sold. > I noted that high value items like hp rubidium and cesium standards > apparently never made it to eBay, suggesting some cherry picking > occurred before the collection went out for bid. > > I once thought "HP should have their own museum". But then they split > into Agilent, then Symmetricom bought out their T&F line, then they > became Keysight, then Symmetricom became Microsemi. With these > companies, there isn't strong technical, moral, or business > justification to allocate office space and resources to host dusty > museums that might only attract tens or hundreds of people a year. They > are rightly focused on current and future products, leaving us bottom > feeders and nostalgic historians to collect and display the old stuff in > our own homes, or on the web. > > For me the greatest museum loss occurred when "The Time Museum" in > Rockford, IL closed in 1999. This was the best collection of clocks in > the world, 1500 pieces from an ancient Egyptian water clock to a vintage > hydrogen maser and everything in between. But the heirs of the founder > were not into Time or into Museums. So it went to a massive > international auction (Sotheby's) and was scattered for all of time. > > /tvb > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.