Saturday, July 28, through Monday, July 30
Putnam Museum & Science Center, 1717 West 12th Street, Davenport IA
Hidden treasures of the Quad Cities, and those who posses them, will be celebrated July 28 through 30 at the Putnam Museum & Science Center, the Davenport venue's interactive exhibition The Great Collectors & YOU allowing families to look at, learn about, and potentially trade personal artifacts encompassing everything from geodes to wood samples to priceless findings from famous Quad Cities families.
With its items assembled by the Putnam's early contributors such as the Palmer, Ficke, and Figge families, The Great Collectors & YOU will treat museum guests to discoveries from rarely seen collections from around the globe. Among the items coming out of the Putnam's vault for this exhibit are a Buddhist shrine collected by C.A. Ficke and African specimens and artifacts collected by the Figge family, with Putnam staffers on hand to provide background and history behind the amazing finds.
Meanwhile, an interactive feature within the exhibit – Your Trading Place – allows museum visitors to take an active role in learning about items in their very own collections. Guests are invited to bring objects from their collections that they'd like to learn more about, and share the stories behind those items with the Your Trading Place staff. Collectors of all ages can consequently conduct their own research using resources within the exhibit while Quad Cities collectors analyze the treasures – determining, for instance, whether that piece in your child's collection is a geode, a trilobite, a fragment of fossil coral, or a shell from the Mississippi River. Items that are accepted for trade include leaves, seeds, mounted pressed plants, wood samples, shells, dried cocoons, teeth, antlers, snake skins, turtle shells, clean dried bones, dried or pinned insects, rocks, minerals, and fossils.
The Great Collectors & YOU will be viewable to the public July 28 through 30 during regular museum hours (Saturday and Monday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday noon – 5 p.m.), and more information on the exhibition is available by calling Curator of Natural Science Christine Chandler at (563)336-7287 or visiting Putnam.org.
