As I was cleaning some correspondence from my desk, I came across a question from a gentleman asking how to donate firearms to the Cody Firearms Museum.

This is one of the more common questions we receive. For the fast answer, a possible donor would contact the Curator of the relevant museum of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (in this case, me) and the Curator would determine if the object or objects would be appropriate to the collection.  If the Curator agrees to accept the gift, the donor would deliver the object(s) to the museum. The Curator or other staff member would produce a receipt and initiate all of the internal support processes.

If a tax deduction is desired, the donor must have an appraisal performed (preferably before the object arrives). This appraisal cannot be paid for by the museum and the museum cannot arrange the appraisal.If the donor is giving us the object to be sold to support the institution and the object is sold within a two year period, then the auction value becomes the value for tax purposes.

Once an object comes in, that is when the work starts. Besides processing the paperwork for the gift process (necessary for the signing of a deed of gift), the staff needs to accession the object into the collection. This process can take 6-8 hours and helps to create a record for the object, record the condition of the object, perform any necessary conservation or cleaning, and store the object.

If the object is to be exhibited, then there is an entirely different raft of issues and activities – but we can cover those later. In the meantime, you can see what happens on the large scale by looking at the re-installation of our Whitney Gallery of Western Art.

Cheers,

Dave K.