Ethics of selling Berlin Wall pieces

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crewsaider

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#1171242 8-Nov-2014 08:11

The RNZAF contributed aircrews to the Berlin airlift and the Air Force Museum in Christchurch may well be interested in a piece of the construction that began it all.
Contact details at:

www.airforcemuseum.co.nz/

Geektastic

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#1171287 8-Nov-2014 11:41

Elpie:
Geektastic:
Elpie:
freitasm: Have you contacted Te Papa?

Yes. They never got back to me.

My wife used to work there. I could ask her for a contact if you like.

Yes, please :-)

PM'd you.

gzt

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#1171301 8-Nov-2014 12:39

crewsaider: The RNZAF contributed aircrews to the Berlin airlift and the Air Force Museum in Christchurch may well be interested in a piece of the construction that began it all.

Blockade/Airlift began in '48 and ended in '49. Construction of the wall started in '61.

crewsaider

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#1171333 8-Nov-2014 15:24

gzt:
crewsaider: The RNZAF contributed aircrews to the Berlin airlift and the Air Force Museum in Christchurch may well be interested in a piece of the construction that began it all.

Blockade/Airlift began in '48 and ended in '49. Construction of the wall started in '61.

Very true. I should have said "...piece of the construction that followed and was a further large part of the history of a divided city"

Elpie

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#1171354 8-Nov-2014 16:29

Geektastic: It was just a wall. There was nothing especially horrible about it. To those of us who effectively lived next door to it, it was just a fact of life.

I guess it's my Maori heritage but I cannot look at these pieces without feeling an upwelling of pain and despair, almost as if the concrete has absorbed it. They creep me out big time. I see them as tapu and needing proper respect and care.

On another note: I left a message with Te Manawa museum telling them that I must hear back from them urgently as these items are at risk of being thrown out if they don't find a home this week. They called back within ten minutes and I am taking them in for assesment on Monday. Maybe all my previous calls did not sufficiently indicate the urgency!

richms

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#1171362 8-Nov-2014 16:57

Its just concrete. If they dont want it trademe it.

Richard rich.ms

sir1963

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#1171367 8-Nov-2014 17:02

The biggest issue is "proof", there have been enough bits of concrete with spray paint on it supposedly from the Berlin wall to have constructed it 2 or 3 times.

Saw lots of piece of the wall for sale when I was there 20 years ago..... all of them mostly fake I am sure.

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Elpie

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#1171416 8-Nov-2014 18:14

sir1963: The biggest issue is "proof", there have been enough bits of concrete with spray paint on it supposedly from the Berlin wall to have constructed it 2 or 3 times.

Saw lots of piece of the wall for sale when I was there 20 years ago..... all of them mostly fake I am sure.

That's the hardest part indeed. My late husband was living and working there when the wall came down. I used to have a photo that was taken with him hacking at the wall on that day 25 years ago but blowed if I know where it is now. His old passport has long since gone and besides, just because it would have showed he was in Germany doesn't prove he joined the thousands of others in demolishing the wall. I also used to have a photo of him at the Pink Floyd Wall concert. He came back to NZ just after that. So, all I really have is my knowledge that he hacked those pieces out himself and the t-shirt he got in Berlin at the time that commemorates the event.

I know there are tests that can be done to prove the concrete and paint match certified authentic pieces. On the day they demolished it nobody was certifying anything, they were just pulling the wall down.

Since they are quite big pieces and even the barbed wire is quite long, any museum that wanted to check authenticity has a lot to work with. I hope one of them accepts it.

Fred99

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#1171419 8-Nov-2014 18:18

sir1963: The biggest issue is "proof", there have been enough bits of concrete with spray paint on it supposedly from the Berlin wall to have constructed it 2 or 3 times.

Saw lots of piece of the wall for sale when I was there 20 years ago..... all of them mostly fake I am sure.

I have proof that I was there with chisel and hammer. Whether that's proof that the pieces I have are genuine or not depends...
OMG - I should have been wearing safety glasses. I'm also choking the hammer.

Batman

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#1171420 8-Nov-2014 18:19

mattwnz:
Elpie:
freitasm: Have you contacted Te Papa?

Yes. They never got back to me.

Contacting government operated / funded organisations can be like that. You may have more luck with a local museum. I've got a bit of it myself from a souvenir shop in Germany. Ebay will give you a price indication .

It is possible they have had scammers doing the same trick to them so they are more suspicious.

Maybe call someone with authority.

Geektastic

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#1171523 8-Nov-2014 22:47

Elpie:
Geektastic: It was just a wall. There was nothing especially horrible about it. To those of us who effectively lived next door to it, it was just a fact of life.

I guess it's my Maori heritage but I cannot look at these pieces without feeling an upwelling of pain and despair, almost as if the concrete has absorbed it. They creep me out big time. I see them as tapu and needing proper respect and care.

On another note: I left a message with Te Manawa museum telling them that I must hear back from them urgently as these items are at risk of being thrown out if they don't find a home this week. They called back within ten minutes and I am taking them in for assesment on Monday. Maybe all my previous calls did not sufficiently indicate the urgency!

I just see them as concrete - I'm not buying that objects can be imbued with mystic power...

They are interesting as a part of history though in the same way that a plate from the Titanic would be or a letter from Churchill etc.

Geektastic

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#1171525 8-Nov-2014 22:51

Fred99:
sir1963: The biggest issue is "proof", there have been enough bits of concrete with spray paint on it supposedly from the Berlin wall to have constructed it 2 or 3 times.

Saw lots of piece of the wall for sale when I was there 20 years ago..... all of them mostly fake I am sure.

I have proof that I was there with chisel and hammer. Whether that's proof that the pieces I have are genuine or not depends...
OMG - I should have been wearing safety glasses. I'm also choking the hammer.

You have proof you were SOMEWHERE with a hammer and chisel - that could be a Chch building site...! ;-0

In fact...is that a young David Hasselhoff?!

Elpie

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#1171530 8-Nov-2014 23:18

Geektastic:
They are interesting as a part of history though in the same way that a plate from the Titanic would be or a letter from Churchill etc.

I had a box of letters a long time back. It was correspondence between my father-in-law, who was a writer of murder-mysteries (published author) and an old friend of his. The letters were amazing reading as the two men discussed the scenarios of the perfect murder. the correspondence spanned years but to a quick glance it was just a box of old papers.

I had a cleaning lady coming in twice a week and she happened to come in on a day when I had been reading these letters. The box was picked up and thrown in the incinerator. The friend my father-in-law had been corresponding with was Alfred Hitchcock. Boy, that man had some evil ideas of what would make the perfect murder! That was a personal loss to me but, I suspect, it was also a loss to the world when those letters were burned.

Bung

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#1171558 9-Nov-2014 06:07

Te Papa inherited lots of things from the old National Museum that have never been shown since. That's why there's talk of spreading the collections around other museums. If an item isn't relevant in "Our Place" they should have an idea who would take it

ScuL

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#1185326 29-Nov-2014 11:36

This thread reminds me I have a piece of the iron curtain. I broke it off the fence myself at the former border near Braunschweig sometime in 1990, I had just turned 10 so no conscience :)

Haere taka mua, taka muri; kaua e wha.

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