Hello Marien I will be seeing Peter at the Sanibel Shell Show, the first weekend in March. I will see if he can enlighten us on the issue. Leslie Dear Conchologists, I have two questions especially for our German friends. 1) Peter Dance (A history of Shell Collecting [1986: 210]) writes about the H. Dohrn collection in Stettin "Stettin Mus. but totally destroyed in 1939-1945 war. Included collections L. Pfeiffer, Troschel and Römer". Now this is quite unfortunate indeed, but I have (seen) from the H. Dohrn personal LIBRARY his copies of "Malakozoologische Blätter" (with his stamp), and Drouet's "Essai Mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de la Guyane Française", the latter stamped ""Städtisches naturw. Museum Stettin". Apparently, some of the Museum's volatile holdings survived WW-II. The question is: did his molluscs collection survive too, at least in part? Is there anyone who really knows what happened? 2) The well known German (later Chilean) conchologist R. A. Philippi contributed much to the "Verein für Naturkunde zu Cassel" of which he was an important member (together with Louis Pfeiffer, and other conchologists). He reported annually on the growth of the zoological collection of the Verein, and even described some new species of molluscs in its "Jahresberichten". From the contents it is obvious that the Verein's collection contained many type specimens, and/or other material that could throw light upon taxa described by Philippi, Pfeiffer, Jonas, Dunker, Speyer and other German authors (most of them known to figure their new species sparingly). My question is: what happened to this collection? Is it still in Kassel, has it been obtained by another German Institution, or...? Marien Faber www.mollus.nl