Posts: 2274
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008

Posts: 339
From:
Registered: Aug 2018

posted 10-02-2024 05:24 PM               

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Mini Museum is a trusted dealer of historical artifacts. However, I would not recommend purchasing anything from their site, because their prices are ridiculously high. For example, they charge $70 for a piece of Apollo 11 Kapton foil which is the size of a grain of sand. For a 1cm square, it's $7000. It's not difficult to find similar pieces for $100 from equally reliable sources.

Mini Museum specifically markets their items toward amateur collectors who don't know enough about the hobby to find better sellers/auctions. They buy a $500 item, cut it into 100 pieces, and sell those pieces for $100 each. And the buyers end up with a speck of material that cost almost as much as a full piece would. So you're better off buying Kapton from a specific, trusted space dealer (thespacecollective.com and beeninspace.com are two examples).

However, I do want to point out that I don't think Mini Museum is a bad store. In essence, they are simply charging a steep "finders fee" for casual collectors. There are a lot of people out there who want to own pieces of spacecraft, fossils, or ancient civilizations, but don't want to spend a lot of time learning about the hobby. They just want a little piece of history, and they want to know it's genuine. Mini Museum provides that. So it's not a bad company - just one that can only be recommended to the most casual of collectors.

Posts: 599
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023

posted 10-03-2024 06:14 AM               

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I agree with the above poster.

I bought a friend's daughter one of the mini museum displays with lots of bits of historic, space, geological and paleantological items. She absolutely adores it and shows it off. It has sparked an interest in her that is wonderful to see. (Personally, I wouldn't give it house room, but the idea behind it is genuinely good.)

Posts: 1125
From: Dallas TX
Registered: Jan 2004

Posts: 2274
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008