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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Curtis, post: 24777393, member: 26430&quot;]<b>Part 2: Family &quot;Museum&quot; / &quot;Stuff&quot; </b>...</p><p><br /></p><p>My grandfather (KLJ, c. 1927-2021) grew up near Fort Henry, Tennessee and in the 1930s went around scouring the ground for &quot;treasures.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><i>In this photo I&#039;ve redacted stuff that was added to the collection later:</i></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585235[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>He curated and framed a &quot;museum&quot; display of his finds, which consisted of Native American stone tools (dozens of arrowheads, spearheads, hand axes, grinding stones, etc.) and military stuff that he attributed to the Civil War (1861-5) and Revolutionary War (c 1775-83).</p><p><br /></p><p>Some of it possibly from &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Henry" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Henry" rel="nofollow">The Battle of Fort Henry</a> ... February 6, 1862, in Stewart County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War.... the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater....&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>If I recall correctly, he thought the large iron object was cannon ball shrapnel,&nbsp; possibly Revolutionary War Period. There were two Sieges of Fort Henry, one <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Henry_(1777)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Henry_(1777)" rel="nofollow">in 1777</a> and again <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Henry_(1782)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Henry_(1782)" rel="nofollow">in 1782</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585232[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>These objects weren&#039;t curated or conserved to professional standards, so you can see damage to the bullets from his wire-mounted display! (I think the lead bullets were tightly wrapped in the same thin copper wire from the 1930s/1940s until the 1990s.)</p><p><br /></p><p>My cousin has the best stuff, I think: the Revolutionary War powder horn (<a href="https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/revwar/guco/gucohorns.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/revwar/guco/gucohorns.html" rel="nofollow">like these but not decorated</a>) and bullet casting <a href="https://www.motherbedford.com/Museum106.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.motherbedford.com/Museum106.htm" rel="nofollow">&quot;scissors mold&quot; like the ones pictured here</a>. We were still like 12 or 13 when it was divided; I think she got 2 or 3 of the best stuff, and I got a few dozen of the smaller pieces.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585233[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>We have another collection of World War I artifacts from my father&#039;s grandfather.</p><p><br /></p><p>My father has also added to the collection of stone tools.</p><p><br /></p><p>He was a professor (now retired) and somehow used these in his classroom teaching on early human communication and culture:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585237[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>He / we have lot of other collections. Not necessarily valuable stuff, but stuff that one of us found interesting.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s all kind of a single family collection/library, currently dispersed between two homes and safety deposit boxes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a portion of my father&#039;s collection of masks (I think this wall is Central/West Africa). I don&#039;t know much about them, but I doubt that most of them are actually old. He&#039;s happy to buy replicas, so that&#039;s possible (or maybe it&#039;s just junk, I really don&#039;t know):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585239[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Also lots of fossils all around. I haven&#039;t photographed any of those.</p><p><br /></p><p>The best part (aside from the coins, to which it&#039;s a close second) is the library, which has been continuously assembled since the 1970s. Not sure how many volumes but it must be in the five figures.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is maybe 1/4 of it or less:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585242[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>These two shelves are most of the Ancient coin lit:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1585249[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m 45 so hopefully I&#039;m not going to die right away, but with no kids or siblings, I need to figure out where this stuff will go next.</p><p><br /></p><p>(We already got rid of a couple thousand books when my parents retired, and it was stressful making sure they wouldn&#039;t just end up being recycled!)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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