Times of the Islands Summer 2016

astrolabe
newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
front street, p.o. box 188, grand turk, turks & caicos islands, bwi
tel 649 946 2160 • fax 649 946 2160 • email info@tcmuseum.org • web www.tcmuseum.org
This “real photo postcard” is among the oldest
of the Turks & Caicos. Its sender, Alice
Harriott, titled it “Cocoa-nut & Date Palms.”
I Thought of You on the
Way to the Dump!
By Dr. Donald H. Keith, President, Turks & Caicos National Museum Foundation
One of the biggest problems museums have is deciding what to keep. The Turks & Caicos National Museum is
offered objects almost every day. Sometimes would-be donors say, “I thought of you on the way to the dump,”
implying that if we don’t take the object in, that’s its next stop! The first task is to separate the wheat from the
chaff. What is it? Where did it come from? Could it be a fake? Is there some kind of a story associated with it? Is it
particularly important to the history of the TCI? Then there are practical considerations, like do we have the space?
Is the object infested with bugs, mold, parasites or other pests that might infect other holdings in our collections? If
it is in need of conservation treatments to stabilize it, do we have the facilities and expertise? If not, can we afford
to send it out for analysis and treatment?
Every time we turn down an offering there is the concern people will stop thinking of us “on the way to the dump”
and something important like the Murphy land grant (see “A Lucky Find”) will end up lining the bottom of a bird cage
or the Great Seal of the Turks & Caicos Islands (see “New Acquisitions”) will become a good small boat anchor.
So how can you tell the difference between treasure and trash? Start by taking your treasure or trash to the kind
of experts who hang out in museums. In this issue Deltiologist Jeffrey C. Dodge gives us an object lesson in how to
recognize the importance and value of an easily underrated artifact: the picture postcard. In the normal course of
events a postcard is kept for a day or two and thrown away. But every once in a while, an example will be put it in
a safe place for 100 years or more and bingo! Now, having become a very rare historical document, it is definitely
worth keeping.
Sometimes an object is both treasure and trash, depending on your point of view. The Governor’s Office recently
sent over a massive, cast iron machine that was taking up a lot of space and completely useless—just trash. We recognized
it as the press that goes with the Great Seal of the Turks & Caicos Islands, donated to the Museum decades
ago—a marvelous treasure! a
Times of the Islands Summer 2016 53