THE SELLING OF THE BAKER COLLECTION

When William Spohn Baker, legendary collector and authority on all things Washington, died in 1897, he gave his vast trove of books, prints, engravings, documents, coins, and commemorative George Washington medals to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where he had served on the board for about 15 years.

And the historical society was overjoyed to have it all.

But times change, and students will now have to seek enlightenment without some of those treasures.

On Nov. 16, 2019, with little notice to the general public, the 1,102 medals in the Baker Collection were sold in individual lots at a Baltimore auction, fetching about $2.2 million for the cash-strapped historical society. The medals all relate to Washington in some way, whether they were made during his time, ordered struck by him, depict him, or have another connection. The rest of the Baker Collection, including documentation of the medals, remains with the society.

Baker had explicitly stated in his will that the prints, medals, books, and other elements of the collection should be "kept together" and "marked and known as ‘The Baker Collection' with the distinct understanding that no print, medal or book shall on any pretense whatsoever be removed from the building" housing the historical society at 13th and Locust Streets.

The medals are now in private hands, scattered to the winds, and the collection is irrevocably broken.

According to public records, the sale came after Philadelphia Orphans' Court lifted Baker's supposedly permanent restrictions without even holding a hearing. The state Attorney General's Office, which is charged with looking after the public interest in matters related to charitable nonprofits, had no objections to the sale and advised HSP on how to write its petition to achieve the desired result — liquidation.

The sale comes at a time when the historical society is under such extreme financial stress that it laid off a third of its self-described "bare bones" staff last April. Then, this past summer, plans and hopes for an affiliation with Drexel University died, a Drexel spokesperson says now.

The court petition, filed in 2018, says that HSP is a library, not a museum, and is not equipped to care for three-dimensional objects.

To read the complete article, see:
Cash-strapped Historical Society of Pennsylvania is selling off parts of its collection (https://www.inquirer.com/arts/historical-society-of-pennsylvania-george-washington-medals-auction-deaccession-20200215.html)

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