Archer County (Texas) Commissioners Return Jack Orbin Loftin Fossil Collection to Family

[Oxytropidoceras]

Preservation of Loftin fossil collection is paramount

to new owner by Mandy Kinnaman October 27, 2016

Archer County News, Texas.

http://www.archercountynews.com/news/preservation-of-loftin-fossil-collection-is-paramount-to-new-owner/article_48c22cac-9c6f-11e6-a305-7f0753bf4cdc.html

 

County currently refuses to adhere to Loftin family

wishes by Barbara Phillips, Archer County News,

Texas, November 17, 2016

http://www.archercountynews.com/news/county-currently-refuses-to-adhere-to-loftin-family-wishes/article_e3aceb18-ace0-11e6-a72e-d32fd80d9f7c.html

 

Archer County Commissioners vote to return fossils

to Loftin family by Barbara Phillips, Archer County News, Texas.

http://www.archercountynews.com/news/archer-county-commissioners-vote-to-return-fossils-to-loftin-family/article_4b27d8ba-b7f0-11e6-8689-2b606db8bd0d.html

 

Jack Orbin Loftin, Obituary, 1929 - 2015, Star-Telegram

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dfw/obituary.aspx?pid=174244748

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

[Shamalama]

Just goes to show that if you donate any of your specimens to a museum, university, or any other organization you should have proper documentation. It should detail who owns the fossil, who donated the fossil, who is receiving the fossil, what are the terms of the loan (length of time, what can be done with it, etc.) and how the fossil will be disposed of should the owner pass.  My sister works for the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg and has told me of some of the issues she has had to deal with over the years from donated items.

[MarleysGh0st]

42 minutes ago, Shamalama said:

Just goes to show that if you donate any of your specimens to a museum, university, or any other organization you should have proper documentation. It should detail who owns the fossil, who donated the fossil, who is receiving the fossil, what are the terms of the loan (length of time, what can be done with it, etc.) and how the fossil will be disposed of should the owner pass.  My sister works for the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg and has told me of some of the issues she has had to deal with over the years from donated items.

That documentation should also make it clear if it is a loan or a donation.  If it's a donation, the museum owns it; if it's a loan, you do.  And the documentation for a donation should also clarify what the the receiving institution can do with it.  The number of specimens in a research collection is usually much greater that the number on public display.  If you want to make a donation on the condition that it be placed on display, the museum may not be able to accept it.

[tmaier]

I don't know if this has happened for fossils, but in the case of antiquities, items that had been donated to museums have been sold by those museums. Sometimes the person who donated it, or the surviving family of that item, did not want it sold like that, they wanted it to be in a museum. So that was a surprise.