Do museums ever sell their coins?

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by Gam3rBlake, Jun 27, 2022.

  1. whopper64

    whopper64 Well-Known Member

    I was thinking about how many rich families want to be remembered and or publicity for being benefactors. Look at professional sports, billionaires in need of self-gratification and to belong to the elite groups to say they are the owners of a professional team. What has happened to baseball, football, and basketball is a shame when you consider that most of the owners are simply just egotistical so they need a plaything to toy with. And, yes, just think of all those millions, even billions that could have gone to help humanity in many ways.
     
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  3. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    When people say stuff like this is one of my pet peeves. If you do anything besides medical research/medicine or food, shelter, or water related it’s literally by definition a waste of money that could have been helping humanity instead if it’s not directly related to sustaining life.

    The vast majority of sports owners in the USA now aren’t doing it as an egotistical toy, they’re doing it to make money. Pro sports teams in the major sports are highly profitable besides the Phoenix Coyotes and the league just subsidizes their losses. Even the ones where it is their toy like Jerry Jones are still making tons of money off their toy.

    Also aside from the joy sports bring to people, the number of kids they’ve kept off the streets giving them something to do etc the organizations are a massive business that provides countless people employment far beyond just the athletes. So no the billions spent on sports is not wasted in anyway
     
  4. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    If he were still alive, perhaps you could ask James Smithson. Or Dale Carnegie. Or...
     
  5. Treashunt

    Treashunt The Other Frank

    This is exactly why I am opposed to donations to museums.

    Any donation will go into a drawer and never be seen again.

    I figure 99.9% of items are never displayed.

    If kept in the free market, then someone [note likely me] will have the opportunity to obtain it [them] and enjoy the ownership.

    If you want to donate -- sell the item & donate the money
     
    NSP, masterswimmer and John Skelton like this.
  6. MIKELOCK34

    MIKELOCK34 Well-Known Member

    Same thing happens with insect collections. I collect insects and have seen friends donate collections to colleges which are tossed in the bin because school has no room for the collection. If a major collection is donated to a museum, especially an organization such as the Smithsonian, it is “gone forever.” Good luck trying to get into the Smithsonian to do any research…………..
     
  7. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    Pretty much none of them. Most societal problems are continuing problems. Yes if you throw enough money at them they can be solved, for today. But tomorrow or in a short time they are back. We have thrown trillions at poverty and percentage of people in poverty hasn't really changed. Throw a bunch of money at the hunger problem and you can feed everyone who is hungry. Tomorrow they will be hungry again. Build housing for all the homeless, and in a few months you will find many of them (and a growing number) back living on the streets. Pay to put all the addicts and/or alcoholics in rehab and get them clean, and within months after their release you will see the drug and alcohol problems rebounding.
     
  8. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Yeah, there will always be problems -- but that's a lousy reason not to try to improve things.
     
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  9. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    Nothing wrong with trying to improve situations or improve the lot of those people you can, just realize that the PROBLEM is not going to be "solved" probably no matter how much money you throw at it.
     
  10. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    Probably is not certainly...
    [​IMG]
     
  11. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    If you define "solving the problem" as "entirely eliminating suffering", then you're right. Maybe it's just that "solving problems" is a misleading turn of phrase, and we should be talking about "addressing problems" or "reducing problems".

    I came across this on Twitter this evening, and it resonates with what I have in mind:

    upload_2022-7-13_21-19-18.png
     
  12. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    Hard to take it seriously that you just came across an obscure left wing activist's really old obscure tweet "this evening"

    Responding would be to political so i'll just leave it at that
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2022
  13. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    [pausing to turn down the heat]
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2022
  14. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Let's try this again. To anybody who saw my previous post, sorry for the tone.

    I posted what I thought was a fairly generic metaphor about "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good", "do what you can even if you can't do everything", etc. I included the identity of the guy who posted it, because that's what you do when you quote someone.

    If you went and looked up who posted it, then looked up his politics, and then decided how you felt about what he said -- you're doing it wrong. Unless what you're trying to do is illustrate the definition of ad hominem fallacy. (I hope the linked site satisfies your standards.)
     
    Pickin and Grinin and Kentucky like this.
  15. willieboyd2

    willieboyd2 First Class Poster

    Benicia is a small town near San Francisco California. It was the home of an Army base during the California Gold Rush and was briefly the state capitol in the 1850's.

    The Benicia Museum has a few small Roman and Greek coins on display.

    [​IMG]
    Benicia Museum - Roman and Greek coins

    :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2022
    -jeffB likes this.
  16. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    You dont have to look up that persons politics, it's been their pinned tweet for who knows how long and the picture was from a tweet from what appears to be years ago according to the code which made it seem unlikely you just stumbled upon on obscure tweet from someone with a small following from years ago that never went viral. There's far better sources you can find quotes expressing the sentiment. There's far worse things that could have been pointed out in their post history if "I was doing it wrong", if you want to use sources like that you can't complain when its pointed out
     
  17. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you?

    I just found the browser window from which I took the image, and I clicked on the tweet. He posted it on July 13, 2022, at 7 PM. It's not pinned. (I haven't looked at the accounts he's replying to, but I'm guessing you won't think much of them, either.)

    upload_2022-7-14_22-29-56.png

    Apologies in advance if the mods decide that washing dishes is political.
     
  18. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    It’s pretty easy to look up a Twitter account and their posts and see what’s pinned and when things were posted. I’ll just leave it at that
     
  19. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    It's even easier to take the first thing Google comes up with...
     
  20. Rushmore

    Rushmore Coin Addict

    I'm going to Greece in Sept for a cruise and will be staying in Athens for three nights before I get on the ship provided I test negative. On my to do list I'm going to visit the Numismatic Museum of Athens. Anyone ever been there before?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numismatic_Museum_of_Athens
     
    -jeffB likes this.
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