Helmut Nisters
Franz-Fischer-Str. 46
A-6020 Innsbruck / Austria / Europe
phone and fax: 0043 / 512 / 57 32 14
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
homepage: http://www.netwing.at/nisters/
 
or
 
Natural History Department of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum Innsbruck
Feldstrasse 11 a
A-6020 Innsbruck
phone and fax: 0043 / 512 / 58 72 86 (-40)
 
Dear Ross Mayhew,                   Innsbruck, 2. 4. 1998
 
first best greetings from Innsbruck (Tyrol / Austria). I saw your
annoncement on conch-l.
Let me introduce ourselves to you. My mother, Dr. Irmgard Nisters,
86 years, former lawyer, and I, 44 years, former chemist, we
both are responsible since 1972 as honorary collaborators of the
zoological department of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum for the quite nice, by us well sistemated, but small shell collection of the museum. The collection contains mainly inland-shells from
Europe and Mediterranean-seashells and a few "exotic" species.
As the shell collection together with other scientific collections
has been damaged in great parts by a flood desaster in 1985,
I always am looking to build up and to enlarge the collection
by own excursions with self collected material and by donations
of friends, scientists, private collectors and dealers, who are willing to help me. Since 1985 we had to revise the shell collection from
beginning, we had to wash by hand the whole material and to
put in new plastic boxes, the micro shells into glasstubes. In 1992
the shell collection has been transferred with the other collection
to a new. but more important to a save place.
As I am interested to have species around the world and from
interesting locations I also would ask you for some donation to
the museum in Innsbruck.  It is very interesting to compare the
shells from different localities in their form, shape and colors
and I think Canada is very interesting. As Pectinidae and
Epitoniidae really are one of our favorite shells, I would be
pleased and thankful if you can send me Chlamys islandicus
(of which the museum has only an old and nearly gray speciment)
and some Epitoniidae. I would be interested in any Canadiam
material what you can offer me.
I hope you are willing for a donation to the museum of Innsbruck
and to hear from you as soon as possible. In case of a donation,
we will put your name into the annual report of the museum, the
next will be edited in 1999.
For today it's all and I remain with my best regards, also by my
mother.
 
yours sincerly Helmut
 
p.s:. As I am now on internet and conch-l. since about one month
        I have more opportunity to contact more persons and maybe
        new friends.
 
----------
>
> After years of serious consideration,  i have finally and firmly
> decided not to
> sell or trade for commercial reasons, ANY Canadian mollusc shells,
> except for Placopecten magellanicus (which has truly excellent
> variability, but when trawled, "less than perfect" (to be kind!!)
> lips-gemmaniacs need not apply!) and Chlamys islandica, which i can get
> from time to time from Labrador, in various attractive colors: nothing
> else, from now on.  Although this will have some impact on my
> third-world  development fund-raising project (Schooner Specimen Shells-
> Please excuse the plug!), i take this step in order to improve my
> scientific reputation, which suffers because my activities as a dealer.
> Also, there has been a constant conflict of interest between my
> curatorial work on local reference collections- if i found a rare
> Epitonidae worth $100+, i had to decide whether there were "enough" of
> them in local scientific collections to permit me to sell, trade or
> donate it for the benefit of my project.  Believe me, it was a
> nightmare, and i will admit to making a few foolish decisions.  This
> public announcement of a blanket  ban will remove the temptation, since
> if i henceforth deal in this "forbidden material", i would lose any
> credibility i  may now have, as much of the "shell world" will have
> heard of
> my promise!!  I will not deal in material from Arctic or west-coast
> Canada either, although i will continue to handle  boreal and Arctic
> material from other countries, since this constitutes a good chunk of
> Schooner's business.
>
>         I will continue to trade CLEARLY redundant material on a
> scientific basis-
> local material in exchange for spp which occur in eastern or arctic
> Canada as well as other countries- and similar spp, for  taxonomic
> comparison.  This material will be added to local scientific
> collections, especially the one i started at a fishies research
> institute in the Halifax area (the Bedford Institute of Oceanography),
> which is the best all-round East-coast Canadian shell-bearing mollusc
> collection (actually IN Canada, ie!), if anyone ever wishes to visit my
> little corner of the
> planet for research reasons. (If the gigantic back-log of material at
> the Museum of Natural History in Ottawa is ever curated, it will be
> about 10000% better than mine, but for now much of its best material,
> including a magnificent Arctic colleciton from a recently-mothballed
> research institute in Quebec, remains uncurated, hence inaccessible.). I
> will also trade material for photographic services, by the way.
>
> Sincerly,
>
> Ross Mayhew.
>
> PS: I will also trade Eastern Canadian material clearly redundant to
> scientific
> requirements (ie, nothing uncommon), for the small plastic containers i
> use at the BIO collection, since the company in Florida i once obtained
> them from seems to have gone out of business, and other sources are
> more expensive.
>