The Towcester Museum is continually growing its collections of Vintage Computers to better serve the public and educational community. We welcome the opportunity to consider your artefact for the museum.  We are take our responsibility and pride in the artefacts seriously, being committed to keeping our artefacts preserved for future generations to enjoy!

Handling Artefacts

One of the basic rules of handling artifacts is that you just don’t touch them. Curators have a cache of special gloves at our disposal to safely handle artefacts in the museum’s collection.

There are oils on the palms of our hands that can damage an artefact over time. You might not see it now, but your fingerprint on a historic artefact can actually cause it to deteriorate in a year, two years or a decade. In the museum world, we think on a much larger timeline scale than the average person.

The most sensitive materials in a museum’s collection are textiles, wood and metal artefacts. These materials are harmed the most by the oils on your hands, speeding up the deterioration process. 

Hand oils are not a threat to glass or pottery that has been sealed with a glaze. Wearing gloves increases the likelihood that a smooth artefact will slip out of your hands, unless you wear the kind of gloves with a gripping surface on the palm. Therefore glass, china and ceramics should be handled with clean hands, not with gloves. You should wear gloves when handling unglazed pottery, painted glass or china that has been painted over the glaze.

As a general rule, museum professionals will not handle artefacts without gloves. It is a misconception that we wear gloves to protect our hands! We wear them to protect the artefacts.

Now you know why we ask you not to Touch - the artefacts in our museum are important historical treasures. They are very old, and some are quite rare.