Invisible acquisition

30 September 2014

The Amsterdam Pipe Museum is permanently improving the quality of its collections. Some purchases are invisible for the visitors, because they are no enlargements of the collection but just an improvement of quality. This is the case with the impressive figural pipe bowl known as 'Le Grec', the Greek, with a mask at the bottom of the pipe bowl. For years we had this pipe in the collection, although with a chipped nose, which is not according to our quality standards. This week we acquired the same pipe in perfect condition from a Belgium collector. It is a nice example how quality in a collection can improve, a change only visible for the most critical visitor.

Pedigree research

20 September 2014

This Summer time intervals between appointments and visitors were used for a new research project on the original owners of our museum objects. For museums the so-called pedigree, the previous owner(s) of items, are considered more and more important. This information tells another history of the objects that can lead to a better determination and a sharper dating. In our registration, that started in 1969, the information on the owner before the person who brought the item in was already noted. Where possible we traced previous owners. This research brought up interesting new information, from some items in our collection we were even able to reconstruct the pedigree from the moment of creation, over several generations, up to the present. The final step is bringing this information on the internet. This adaptation will be ready by the end of the year. Result will be that the collection database will have grown with thousands of text lines illustrating the ownership over several generations.