Not always rare and precious, or not all that rare and precious, anyway
Okay, maybe this thing is rare, precious and unique and maybe it should be Innamuseum, as someone was bewailing on Twitter the morn, but I'm also wondering if everybody who was working there or even just visiting, got a memento piece and museums are groaning when they get offered them.
Much like antiquarian book dealers offered The Family Bible or certain other tomes of which a plethora is in circulation. (Aristotle's Masterpiece ahem ahem.)
I am, perchance, rendered unduly cynical by the tale of Alexander Fleming and His Petri Dishes: Penicillin mould created by Alexander Fleming sells for over $14,000. Well before 2017 I was aware of the following practice of the Nobel Prizewinner: Bonham’s sold the mould on Wednesday at auction in London. It is preserved in a glass case and features an inscription by Fleming on the back, identifying it as “the mould that first made penicillin”. That, however, may be stretching the truth; Fleming probably made dozens of the mould mementos. Matthew Haley, director of books and manuscripts at Bonham’s, said Fleming often sent the samples out to dignitaries including the Pope and Marlene Dietrich as “a kind of holy relic”.
In fact I seem to recall some anecdote of some lady (possibly not Dietrich but some other lady) sitting next to Fleming at dinner and him pulling a petri dish of penicillium mould out of his pocket to show her.
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