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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on January 14, 2018 at 1:58am

I am with Steve and Will on displaying the original. At the moment I have zero autographs on my walls but that is for marital peace rather than conservational reasons. I used to have most of my better items on the walls, behind UV protection glass and out of the sunlight. It used to give me a real buzz of excitement to imagine Jimi and the Experience, Marilyn or Greta touching the actual pages I was looking at. The same went for a couple of Beatles sets I had at the time (and still have) until I realised that these were most likely secretarials or fakes. Odd how you can get years of extreme pleasure from something you think is real but as soon as doubt is put in your mind as to authenticity it becomes worthless - or even repulsive. I digress.

Similar display issues arise in many other areas of fine art and collectables. For instance, watercolours are tremendously light sensitive. I cannot imagine someone spending tens of thousands on an exquisite watercolour and only displaying an inkjet copy of it.

Obviously any exposure to light will take its toll eventually but with the right precautions all of us should be pushing up daisies well before the object is so faded that it is unrecognisable.

I would agree that if something is of utmost cultural importance there may be a case for never displaying the original but the number of signed items falling under that category would probably be less than 100 and most are probably important signed documents rather autographs as we think of them now.

By the way, I am not a fan of museums displaying copies. On a trip to Berlin I saw that the film museum was only displaying copies of its most important posters and the JFK museum was only displaying copies of documents signed by JFK on his historic visit to the city. As soon as I see the word "facsimile" I am completely turned off. I would say museums should either display their originals in dim light during limited designated time periods or display their other original objects instead.

Sorry for going off on a few tangents.    

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on January 14, 2018 at 3:27am

I agree with your tangents. 

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 14, 2018 at 6:16am

It is not that watercolors are light sensitive, it is the the pigments which can be unstable, or very permanent. The earth colors come to mind. The binder in watercolor is a gum - very small quantity unlike oil. Some earth pigments retain color for thousands of years - witness Chauvet cave, or certain pastels from the last few hundred years.

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