Dear Lee,

It was a shock. Last week “our” mummy was sold. As children we went to the local historical society with our school class to see the reproduced log cabin, to peel an apple with an iron peeler, to see old maps of our area, etc. But the best was at the end. We ran upstairs in the old Victorian house to a room with a mummy case that held, we were told, a real Egyptian mummy! But times have changed, and museums have learned not to hold onto things that are not related “to the core collection.” That is a nice way of saying “our” mummy doesn’t help explain our local Midwestern history. Sad news-the mummy is gone. Good news-it auctioned for $1,136,000 at Christie’s and the money will be used to find and display local items that will excite new batches of schoolchildren. Rethinking and pruning a collection is a very good idea for collectors as well as museums. You can open up more space, make some money, and mount a better display. Still-we’ll miss our mummy.

P.S. Have you visited our website, Kovels.com? There are thousands of prices, information about repair and restoration services, and lots more free features for collectors. It supplements the news found in this newsletter.