THE North Vancouver Museum and Archives is looking to unload hundreds of artifacts not considered suitable for when the museum eventually gets a new home on the city's waterfront.
City of North Vancouver council gave the go-ahead Monday night for museum staff to take 473 antique household items, photos, documents and rarities and prepare them to be auctioned off or sent off to other museums.
Staff and volunteers have been busy screening the museum's 20,000 piece collection to weed out items that are in poor condition or have no connection to North Vancouver's past or won't fit within the themes a revitalized museum and archives will be organized around.
Any revenue from the sale of the antiques, all of which have been determined to be valued at less than $1,000 will be used to pay for the upkeep and expansion of the collection that will eventually go on display.
The museum has hoping to pare down its collection to about 12,000 items, which can rotate on display when the new museum opens. Items OK'd for sale will be sent to Abel Auctions in Coquitlam next month.
Among the curiosities headed for the auction block and other museums are a set of dentist's tools and numerous sets of false teeth and 50 birds, stuffed and mounted.
Purging the unneeded items is a "cleaning of the attic of the community that is way overdue" in the words of Coun. Guy Heywood.
The museum amassed and stored thousands of items from the 1970s to the 1990s before there was any plan or focus of what the museum should display.
