When to restore and when not to restore?. This is the question that is often posed and seldom answered these days. So many cases seemingly beyond repair now are being split / dismantled and turning up on internet auction sites. It would appear that the sum of the parts is considerably greater than that of the whole. Whilst we are not proponents of this type of activity we recognize the inevitability of this practice as money is involved.

Couple this with blatant forgeries, again for monetary gain and the venal nature of collecting, the real reason for collecting may get lost in the resultant plethora of conflicting interests.

Restoration, given the time and expense involved for the private individual is only practical where historically important pieces are at stake. This relates to either the artist / naturalist who create the case in question or the case contains an often now rare or for that matter extinct species. Recent examples of well executed taxidermy items such as Carolina Parakeets and Passenger Pigeons have been tastefully restored and data about the items included in the cases.

Victorian taxidermist produced cased mounts of birds and mammals almost on an industrial scale but only in reality a very small percentage of the items preserved we well observed and anatomically correct. Ridiculous poses, incorrect eyes and sometimes where pole traps were used to obtain the birds, missing legs are often seen. Two males used instead of females in nest scenes and grebes placed upon their backsides, a pose almost impossible out of water by the way are tragically encountered. This suggests that perhaps the taxidermist in question did not observe the animal in real life, but mounted it in a fashion that he felt may have been appropriate or indeed required of the time. For the serious taxidermy collector, only a handful of Victorian taxidermist were able to re-create dioramas that reflected the specimens both as in life and also to some extent also in their natural surroundings.

For more information about taxidermy then visit.www.taxidermy4cash.com