in Springfield, MO. Was last there a couple years ago and saw a Mauser '88 commercial sporter that was identified as a Mannlicher/Schoenauer rifle. Explained to the curator on duty what the differences were between the two and even showed him since they had a proper Mannlicher/Schoenauer on display and properly identified in another display case. Today, that '88 is still mis-identified so again asked the curator on duty about it. He said that it is too expensive to have just one placard re-done, so I offered to suggest about 10 others that need to be corrected or have the descriptions made easier to read and understand. I then asked how often people noticed and made comments and he told me that so far my father and I are the only ones who have to his knowledge. I think it is much more disturbing that so few people have said anything, than they made a mistake with an identification placard.

That's a nifty place to visit. You are probably over estimating the amount of knowledge and attention to the placards the average visitor the the museum has and pays. I've been in there a couple of times over the years, but with grand kids in tow there's simply not much time to do more than see what catches THEIR eyes and try to make it a fun trip for THEM. The fun would run out quickly for them (and my wife) if grandpa would take his time and ogle every piece there and pay attention to more than "oh! PRETTY!". But it IS annoying that a museum would have a mislabled display. One assumes (yeah, I know) that they'd do their research and put up accurate information, but obviously they don't always do that. Years ago we went through Castillo San Felipe in Cartagena, Colombia. They had an old blunderbuss set up as a cap lock that was labled with a year WAY before Forsythe invented his "scent bottle" not to mention the later advent of the common percussion caps the old blunderbuss was set up for. No, I didn't bother to call their attention to it. Almost nothing was labeled in there and what was was poorly done, didn't seem like they were interested in doing more than having a bunch of old junk for the cruise line passengers to gawk at.

FOUND THE SAME PROBLEM AT CODY

I can understand that taking kids can make it difficult to fully enjoy each display yourself, but exposing them to the history on display is far more important anyway. It just struck me that I saw several problems and while talking with the curator he was aware of most of them, but no one, other than myself and my father, had said anything to him about them in over two years. I am not nearly as knowledgeable on the subject as plenty of people, several of whom are regular posters here, where I am just a rank amateur by comparison.

I expect to see mislabeled artifacts at most museums. No one is an expert on every facet of a subject as far-ranging as firearms throughout history. The NRA museum at Springfield is rather small, but covers a lot of ground and has some tremendously interesting artifacts on display, with most being well presented and very well labeled. With the thousands of visitors that go through there each year it just surprised me no one else mentioned the few glaring deficiencies.