The debate over whether collectible objects should be held in public institutions or kept in private hands is not a new one, particularly in the field of Numismatics. Numerous instances are cited of rare coin types that are now almost wholly unavailable to collectors because most of the known examples are held in museum collections, the most well known instance possibly being Walter Breen’s article on coins “impounded” in the Johns Hopkins University collection.

My answer to the question is “it depends.” It depends on the objects in question and the circumstances surrounding them—should a unique coin be held in a museum collection when there is no intention of ever displaying it? Or should it be held by collector for 40 years to be seen only by close friends, its whereabouts or even existence unknown to the world at large?

Is the public better served by having objects permanently held in public collections or having them circulate in the private sector as part of collections to be bought and sold?

Another way of looking at the debate is to ask the question; Would there be collectors without public collections? Or its converse; Would there be public collections without collectors? In, both cases the answer is “Yes!” But, in both cases, I would modify the answer by adding that they (either the collectors or the public collections) would be diminished by the absence of the other. To be sure, collectors would have more material to collect, but scholarship about that material, particularly in the form of comprehensive catalogs, would be much harder, if not impossible, to produce.