Full article - Magnolia Press

Specimen numbers in the Godeffroy Collection
Schmeltz used a consistent numbering system for the species throughout the collections, displays, and catalogs,
allowing to track name changes over time and providing the opportunity to tie specimen lots to these “Godeffroy
numbers.” It is important to note that these numbers reflect nominal species, collected (and sometimes re-collected)
from the given locales and available for purchase from the Godeffroy holdings, and do not necessarily refer to
individual specimen lots deriving from a single collecting event. Quite often a numbered species will be listed in
different catalogs with a variety of localities, but with the number unchanged. A sample of a museum collection
label is given in Fig. 13.
Some authors adopted the “Godeffroy numbers“ consistently in formal publications, an example being Milne
Edwards’s (1873) treatment of Crustacea from the Godeffroy Museum.
FIGURE 13. Museum Godeffroy specimen label (originally affixed to an alcohol vial). Godeffroy number 8557, stating
“Nanina similis—Kandavu—Semper”; a syntype lot of Eurypus similis Semper, 1870 from Kandavu (Fiji), now as Orpiella
(Eufretum) similis (C. Semper, 1870) in the Hamburg collection, ZMH 21477.
Godeffroy Museum publications
The majority of studies based on Godeffroy material were published outside the museum, in various German,
British, and French serials and monographs. Examples include papers by Mousson in the Journal de
Conchyliologie and by Pease in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. The museum itself issued two
very different serial publications, a set of (initially annual) sales catalogs that included some formal species
descriptions of bryozoans and echinoderms (and, as will be shown, inadvertently introduced a multitude of
molluscan nomina nuda) and the expensively produced Journal des Museum Godeffroy. According to the unsigned
foreword of its first volume (written by museum curator Schmeltz, editor Graeffe, or publisher Friederichsen) the
latter was explicitly started to avoid the further fragmentation of Godeffroy collection-related information.
Godeffroy Catalogs
Between 1864 and 1881 eight sales catalogs appeared, edited and authored by curator J. D. E. Schmeltz. A ninth
catalog, compiled by C. A. Pöhl, was published in May of 1884, after the museum had closed and before its formal
MOLLUSCAN TAXA OF THE MUSEUM GODEFFROY OF HAMBURG
Zootaxa 3511 © 2012 Magnolia Press · 13