[NHCOLL-L:284] Re: Value of Herbarium specimens

[Doug Yanega]

>1. When Risk Management folks have asked about our collections and how to
>value them, we have often pointed to the fact there is no collector
>interest in our specimens (as there is in other areas, e.g., fossils).
>Will we have to "change our tune" on this point?

This might be unavoidable in one sense, but setting a *specific* value is
probably not possible. This comes up when people talk of the value of
insects donated to museums and such; evidently, the IRS will only recognize
values that are quoted from commercial catalogs, so if you can't find your
artifact (be it insect or plant) in a commercial catalog, you can't give it
an "official" price. I forget who it was that first announced on one of the
mailing lists that the oft-quoted "value of pinned insects guidelines"
(from Florida, IIRC) were NOT considered valid by the IRS, even though some
people still use this as a basis for filing tax returns. I'm sure the same
problem will apply to herbarium specimens.
        Besides which, ebay is a terrible way to judge prices. There's one
shyster on ebay who sells essentially worthless common moths and
butterflies over ebay, and routinely gets prices like 40 bucks for a luna
moth, etc. Luna moths are NOT worth 40 bucks each, unless maybe they're
made of solid gold. The problem is that he's the only person selling moths
on ebay, so all these clueless suckers see his starting prices and assume
that's what these things normally sell for. Makes you want to scream,
really.

>2. When shipping specimens to overseas institutions, we stamp the customs
>invoice as: "Dried Botanical Specimens for Scientific Study NO COMMERCIAL
>VALUE".  Should we now be any more specific since that last part would not
>be technically true?

I would expect it is still technically true if neither of the parties
involved in the exchange intends to sell the specimens. As far as sender
and recipient are concerned, the parcel has no commercial value, after all.
Do paleontologists shipping fossils indicate commercial value on shipments?

>3. When I pointed this out to one of my colleagues, he noted that if the
>buyers of these actually do frame and display them, UV light will
>eventually bleach and ruin them.  Should we as collections personnel,
>redouble our efforts to make sure that old herbarium material which does
>have complete data that might be tossed does remain in active herbaria?

Butterflies and moths exposed to light deteriorate fairly quickly, too, and
lots of specimens with data are bought, sold, and ruined every day - it's
out of our hands. If anything, it almost seems like we ought to think about
joining the shysters over on ebay, if only to drive them out of business by
underselling them. Heck, if we could get 30 bucks apiece for our luna
moths, herbarium sheets, etc., we could give a big boost to our budgets, if
nothing else. Maybe that's our best future hope for museum funding! ;-)


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
                http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82