The Smithsonian Institution's 'Greatest Treasures': Valuing Museum Objects in the Specimen Exchange Industry

In the nineteenth century, the exchange of anthropological specimens between museum curators and collectors was a widespread practice used to fill gaps in collections. Within the specimen exchange industry, one's ability to exchange required a steady supply of described or catalogued artifacts considered duplicates. Exchanging duplicates allowed anthropological specimens to move through institutional and personal scientific collections over time. Italian zoologist and anthropologist Enrico Giglioli relied on the practice of specimen exchange to build his personal collection of “stone age” tools from Indigenous peoples, sourced from a worldwide network of museums and collectors, including the Smithsonian Institution. As a master negotiator, Giglioli was remarkably successful in procuring valuable specimens from major museum collections. Analyses of the negotiation of exchanges by museum-based anthropologists reveals the intersection of object value as produced by museums, agents' desire for rare and underrepresented objects, and professional standards of anthropological practice in the late nineteenth century. [exchange and value, duplicate, Smithsonian Institution, Enrico Giglioli]