Depository of expensive fossil holotypes

[Hans Henderickx]

Dear Taxacom members,

I'm an independent researcher for the University of Antwerp (this
University has no Natural History collection). Regularly I make holotype
descriptions of new fossil beetles, pseudoscorpions and scorpions from my
personal amber collection. Besides there scientific value, the stones have
a significant collector gemstone value, often over 1000 eur on the market,
and they represent an important personal investment for me. Most museums
are not willing to pay such amounts, I have had 'offers' of 'maximum 50
euro-there-is-no-budget). A holotype description however requires a
depository in an official museum collection, meaning that from the date of
publication, the described fossil is no longer my property. I used to
solve this with the phrase "the specimen is temporarily in the collection
of Hans Henderickx, but will subsequently be deposited in the Museum
National etc.", allowing me to keep and study it some more for at least
some years. With the recent description of my fossil scorpion P.
cenozoicus gen.n. et sp.n. I encounter a problem: already after a few
weeks the Museum requests a rapid and definite archiving of the piece in
their collections. Since I'm working on the descriptions of several other
of my amber fossil new species, I'm facing that in the next few years, I
have to 'give away' the most important pieces of my amber collection, or
stop studying and describing them. How can I solve this?