Yet the fate of the marine invertebrate mail-order business was ultimately to be tied to those bought by Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. At some time after the museum's founding in 1859, a collection of 430 glass sea creatures were purchased by either Louis Agassiz, the first director, or his son and successor Alexander Agassiz. This set was not the largest ever sold and the models were no different from any of the others made by the Blaschkas, but their effect was to be greater than all the rest combined.