[JoshWard]

It's an interesting topic. I wonder what will happen come my time as let's be realistic there aren't that many people in my generation who are collecting and restoring these items. So who will inherit my collection? Only time will tell...

I have worked in museums and heritage for a good few years now but sadly I can think of few organisations that would take on a collection of radios. There aren't many specialist museums out there focussing on vintage electronics/radios beyond ones already mentioned in this thread and making them sustainable is very hard.

Lots of small 'hobby' museums often have a collection of radios and will usually take on items of historic interest. I am talking here about the farmer who has filled his barn with all sorts of curious from ploughs to Pye radios with the odd car thrown in. They are run out of passion and interest with minimal overheads so finance is less of a worry. When these places close, usually on the death of the owner, sadly the collections then often get broken up. There are quite a few car museums/collections that have gone this way in the past few years. These places are a museum in name but are unlikely to be accredited in any way- that is to say they don't carry out environmental monitoring or preventative conservation on artefacts etc so the reality is all the items in there are slowly degrading. My grandad has amassed a vast quantity of old electrical fittings over the years so recently he has been fixing them to boards and has now given them to one such local museum.

My favourite type of museum, the local rural life museums, usually have a radio or two but these tend to be set dressing or relevant to a local manufacturer. Such rural life museums often already have vast collections with no space to display them (an issue in all museums!). I have seen far too many times the sad look on peoples' faces when they bring a box of treasures in to a museum only to be told they don't want it as it doesn't fit in with the acquisition policy of that particular museum or there is just no space.

Personally I tend to be a bit sad when I see a radio in a museum. They are rarely working. If they are then they have usually been fitted with modern internals. To me a radio should be a working item.

One exception I know of to this is the Black Country Living Museum where I believe our very own Phil G4SPZ volunteers. They have a period radio shop/workshop which is one of the best radio displays I have ever seen in a museum (outside of Dulwich!) because it really felt alive. Annoyingly when I visited it was locked so I had to peer through the windows but it still left a great impression on me.

I know the BVWS runs an auction service and I believe a lot of the sets that appear in BVWS auctions come from the estates of deceased collectors. It's very sad to see a collection broken up but at least the sets end up with people who will appreciate them and hopefully use them as well.

Edit: As above- local auction houses will also often hold special sales when a collector passes away. One of the auction houses I attend has done a couple of special 'radio sales' over the past few years.