Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's webinar presented by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. This program is being recorded and will be available to reference later today. My name is Sheena Simmons. I'm a research associate at the NCPTT and I'll be moderating today. Before we begin the presentation I'd like to share a couple of technical notes. On your screen you'll see several boxes including one labeled chat on the left hand side. You can use the chat box to say hello, ask questions, and share information. If you post a question in the chat box you'll receive a response from me. Any questions will be noted and I will verbally ask them to our presenters toward the end of the program. At the bottom of your screen is a box labeled web links. You can click on the title to highlight it in blue and then click the browse to button and it will be taken directly to the site. Now I'm very pleased to introduce you to our presenters Fran Ritchie and Julia Sibalski. Fran Ritchie is an assistant conservator in Anthropology Objects Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History. Prior to that she worked in the Museum's Natural Science Collections Conservation Lab as a project conservator for an IMLS grant funded project researching materials used to conserve historic taxidermy. Her work expands upon previous experiences preserving taxidermy specimens across the United States from Alaska and Wyoming to Ohio and Illinois. She is a graduate of the Art Conservation Program at the State University College at Buffalo, holds a Master of Arts in Museum Anthropology from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of Bachelor's of Arts in Art Conservation and Anthropology from the University of Delaware. She is a professional associate of the ICC. Julia Sibalski is a senior associate conservator of Natural Science Collections at the American Museum of Natural History where she began working in January 2010. Her present efforts support the ongoing care of the Museum's scientific collections, habitat dioramas, and other science materials on exhibit including risk assessment and new research of special importance to natural history materials. Julia received her undergraduate degrees in Fine Art and Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Master of Arts in Art History and History and Conservation, the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, where she and Fran put on an advanced conservation graduate course in conservation strategies for natural science collections. Prior to working at the American Museum of Natural History Julia interned in various museums including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the New Bedford Wailing Museum. With that I'd like to turn things over to Fran and Julia. All right, thank you so much. This is Fran. I will be presenting first and then I will hand over the mic to Julia. We have a lot to cover today. I think this is a pretty rich topic and we're excited to be talking about it. We divided the webinar into three different sections. The first one's going to be a general taxidermy background, and then preventive measures you can take to protect your collection from water damage, and then finally what to do if disaster does strike and you need to recover your specimens. I want to give a general taxidermy background because you need to know how taxidermy is constructed in order to understand its weaknesses and the special considerations that they require. The thing that confuses people the most when I talk to them about taxidermy, about what I do, is that they don't understand what's inside of it and how it's made. It's been surprising to me even my hunter friends who get their own animals mounted don't even know what goes into creating a mount. I think it's really important. The different types of mounts that you usually encounter are shoulder and trophy mounts that you can see here. You see that lovely bison mounted on the wall at Sagamora Hill, Teddy Roosevelt's historic home. You can see in the photos on the left, the specimens, sometimes they have a wooden panel display board behind them like on the moose, and sometimes they don't like the ram. These are full body mounts, and they are mounted to different bases. The one on the left is a plain display base that's just nice and fancy in some collections. These are historic mounts that were made many years ago in the last century, and then other times you'll see them attached to display bases that are supposed to replicate their habitat where they came from. In the top one, that one that branch looks like perhaps it was de-installed from a diorama or from an exhibit at some point, but the mallard on the bottom, that habitat base was created on its own just to have a habitat base for its display. Then this black-footed ferret is a full body mount that was removed from a diorama, so it has no display base at all, and you can see the internal wires that are protruding out of the legs in the blue circle. Those are used to attach it to the base, in this case is the diorama, but sometimes you can then use that to attach it to a display base or the habitat bases like we saw in the previous photo. And you'll note in the top photo that when it was removed from the diorama, it was then inserted into foam supports, which are an easy way to create a temporary base when you're having to work on these specimens. All right, but how are they made? Taxidermy is defined as preserved skin that's mounted or attached to an internal support that poses it in a lifelike position. The internal support is often referred to as the mannequin, and there are many, many different ways that taxidermists and even kind of wannabe taxidermists have attempted to construct these mannequins throughout the centuries, so you never quite know what you're going to encounter. The first two techniques that you see on this very rudimentary timeline were not super successful, the wooden frame that you see the horse, and then stuffing methods like the walrus. And the walrus is actually a really great story. As you can tell, the taxidermists who mounted that had never seen a walrus in in life before. That specimen was brought back during an expedition, so he didn't know how much to stuff it, and he just stuffed it until the skin completely stretched out. So it's not indicative of what the species looks like in real life, but the museum in the UK has not changed this mount because it's kind of, you know, shows the history of it. But the stuffing method is when taxidermists would just kind of gather up anything that they had lying around and stuff out the skin until it was full. So as you can see, does not produce a very good result. The three most common way techniques that we see in museums are these last three, and you also find these in private collections. So I'm going to focus on those today. And then I want to point out too that this timeline represents approximate dates that are different techniques that were used, but they continue to be used past the dates on the timeline. So some of these you still might see today, such as stuffing or the binding. The first one is probably the most common because it's a very accessible way to make a mount, and many birds and small mammals are still constructed in this way. This is the binding and wrapping method. In this one, you create the muscles of the animal by binding or wrapping loose material over an internal frame that's constructed of metal or wood or bone or a combination of all of those. And a very common material that you'll find is called Excelsior or Woodwool or a variety of different names. And that's those are really fine slivers or fine shavings of wood. And you can see in the photos on the left, there's a lot of loose material as well as a bound mannequin that represents the carcass of a bird. And the photo right below that one indeed has the bird carcass sitting right below its mannequin that was formed using the binding method. But you can also construct larger animals out of this. And the image on the right is a little rat that I made during a rogue taxidermy class. And you can see that there's a metal rod sticking out of my little woodwool bound popsicle. And so the rod helps create the frame that the loose material is bound over. Mounts that are constructed in this way can be very successful if you're good at binding to create those muscles. But they can be very heavy and there are many components to the mount. So they may respond differently to changes in the environment. And if you think about it, you know, a big form that's full of condensed woodwool, if that gets soaked, it will take a very long time to dry out and can cause problems. The next one is what commercial taxidermists today are most likely to use. And these are polyurethane foam mannequins that are prefabricated by taxidermy supply companies.  And then once you receive it, you can make adjustments to fit your actual skin by carving the foam or by adding your own binding materials. And this can be very nice because it creates lighter mannequins and they might not soak up as much water because of the density of the polyurethane foam, but the foam itself will deteriorate over time, especially if it's not mixed well when it's made. And a good example of this, if any of you have some old headsets that had foam components or outdoor furniture that had foam padding, if you've had these for many decades, you'll know that they deteriorate over time and they yellow and they just kind of crumble away. So that can happen inside your taxidermy mount as well. I found this photo. This is from the White Memorial Conservation Center, a natural history museum. It's a really great image of the two different techniques that I just talked about. The one on the left is the bound method. You can see the wood wool body, but then they used cotton around the legs and the neck. But you can see how you can see the wire that's protruding out for the tail. So they had their little wood wool popsicle just like the rat that I pointed out. And what's great about this one is that they use the original skull of the animal. And so you can see that was built on there. And there is like a modeling clay type substance that's in the eye socket. And then they inserted a plastic or a glass eye to form the mount. But then in the center, you can see the difference between the bound one and the polyurethane foam. That's the foam. And so they didn't include the original skull in this one. You can do that. You could they could have cut off the foam head and use the actual skull, but they chose not to. But they still have that clay material with the eyes embedded inside. And they also still have that metal wire that's protruding out that they would have added themselves drilling into it. And then finally on the right, you see the squirrel as finished. And you can just barely make out in this photo.  And that's to hold the skin in place while it's drying. And finally, what we have many times in museums is the hollow cast technique. This is what Master Taxidermist might still use today because it creates very realistic mounts, but it's very time consuming, which is why a lot of people will go with the polyurethane foam mounts. This technique was created during the heyday of natural history museums when lots of dioramas were being built and collecting taxidermy was more popular and more accessible. And it was a really great rise. It's created more sculptural taxidermy mounts. So the first thing you do then is you sculpt the animal form using the original bones and measurements of the animal. And then in photo number two, you take a mold, make a mold of that sculpture. And then in number three, you cast that mold by building it up in a paper mache technique. And the paper mache could be literally paper and different adhesives, but it could also be layers of things like burlap and plaster or plaster like substances. So sometimes you're not exactly sure what was used. And the results are really great. Not only is it sculptural, like I said, but it also creates a really lightweight mannequin, which is especially good for really large mounts like elephants and giraffes or seals because the weight of the mannequin then won't cause damage to the thin skin of the animal. But of course, depending on what materials that were used to create that mache, it might be penetrable by water. If you use that paper versus that plaster like mixture, the paper will absorb water in a water event. And I'd like to everyone to take note to the last photo number six, where they're draping the skin to the mount over the form to mount it over the form. This photo really illustrates why I've been referring to all of these as taxidermy mounts and not as stuffed animals. If you call it a stuffed animal, then it really truly refers to the technique that we saw earlier on that walrus, which is not accurate to this art form. I get very offended when people call them stuffed animals when they're actually these beautiful works of art. And here's a slide of some extras. I just mentioned the main categories, but people have used and continue to use a variety of materials. I've come across a leatherback turtle that had fiberglass as the stuffing on the inside as the bound material. So you really never know. The boar that's in the top or left corner, that has a plaster like head, but then a body covered in burlap. I didn't really investigate it too much, but that was in a vintage antique store in Austin and was being sold for like $200, which is really crazy. The giraffe right below it, you might be able to notice, has a solid plaster mannequin, which makes it very heavy and very unwielding. And that can cause damage just because it's so heavy. And we've also come across solid wax forms that are also heavy. I wanted to include the middle image, that back of a trophy mount, because I often get asked what it looks like when you take a trophy mount off the wall. And you can see that whatever the internal support is inside of this one, it's all attached to that wooden board. And then the preserved skin is then nailed across that board. And this board doesn't extend out beyond the animal like that moose panel that I showed you earlier. And then the photo on the right of that primate, you can see pretty well the different finishing materials that are added by the taxidermist to create a more lifelike animal. In this particular one, there's wax, there's paint, the glass and plastic eyes kind of count in this. There could be real or fake teeth. This one was real. And then I've also come across things like rubber that was used to replace some of the skin in the feet of an orangutan. So you really never know and you have to kind of look at them carefully to see what you have. All right, not only do the techniques vary, but also the way that people have prepared the skin to mount it over the mannequin. The reason why you want to have a skin preparation, why you want to preserve the skin is that you want to prevent it from rotting. You want to dry it out to prevent feather or hair loss. And you want to help prevent against pest damage. To do this, you need to scrape the flesh side of the skin to remove all the soft tissues like fat or muscle or ligaments. And then you want to wash it out or maybe pickle it using chemicals to degrease it. And then you apply it once it's ready or you apply a preservative or a tanning agent. I'll talk about those in a second. So or right now, these range from simple preservatives that are basically things just to dry out the skin a little bit more. So chemical pickling, like I mentioned, or using an arsenic soap or today it's very common for small animals, especially birds, that you would just use borax and spread that on the inside of the skin. And then it ranges to using semi tanning agents like alum tolling that help preserve the skin, but they don't have that long term stability that comes from cross linking in a full tan. So the full tan that we've encountered has been vegetable tanning or chrome tan. And then there are just a variety of any other commercially available tanning agents that are available to taxidermists or for places that will tan it for you. And I have a big star by it because I just want to point out it's once you think about it, of course, like in a water damage event or a water event, the amount of damage that you'll have on an specimen probably will also depend on not only how it was mounted, but how that skin was prepared. So if it wasn't a true tan, if it was just a pickle or you just use borax, it might really soak up all that water and reverse and Julia will hit on that a little bit more. Hopefully all of you have heard about the hazards of arsenic and arsenical soap. Not only was this used as a skin preservative for the animals, but it also had the added bonus of deterring pests. The arsenic soap preparation was a guarded secret, all those recipes, but that was prior to 1803. At that time then someone did finally publish it. And the soap was mixed in a variety of different ways. I've come across old recipe books that list about seven different ways that you can apply it or that you can mix it up, but it was always applied to the inside of the skins before mounting it. Arsenic is a heavy metal, so sometimes you might see it coming out of the seams or around the eyes or the mouth as white or gray particulates. But then again, sometimes borax is also a white particulate. So you kind of need to know the history of your taxidermy to know whether or not it's arsenic or borax, or you can use testing methods to find out. It's poisonous to pests, but it's also poisonous to humans. So it can be a skin irritant, it's carcinogenic, it's really not good for you, and people used to use it in the textile wallpaper and artificial flour industry as in dye or pigment form. And so they knew even at the time back in the day, you can see in this illustration that it was harmful for humans, but I guess that was before OSHA and sometimes they just didn't care. And in fact, I even came across some advertisements for women and men to ingest it for youth and beauty. And I'm sorry, I'm not sure if the slides are all jumbled up on what you guys are seeing as well. Our screen is a wider screen than maybe what you're seeing. So if the words are jumbled, sorry about that. So then because of this arsenic, you want to protect yourself from the taxidermy.  And that's certainly true in this, but in this case, you also need to protect yourself from the object. So when you're handling taxidermy, especially a historic collection, because arsenic did eventually fall out of favor of being used because of the health risks, but you never know. You want to assume that pesticides are present. And it's not just arsenic, I should say. There is a long history of use of several different types of residual pesticides that could still be on your mounts, even if they're vapor based. So the personal protective equipment that you would want to use your PPE, always nitrile gloves, a lab coat or an apron so that you can take that off and wash it and you won't be taking home arsenic particulates on yourself. You want to wear a respirator or a dusk mask. And since these are heavy metals, sometimes it's okay just to wear a dusk mask because they're not going to be necessarily floating up in the air. You don't want to put your face in the fur, but the dusk mask will help protect you. But if you are in an enclosed room or you're handling lots of specimens, then of course it is better to be safe than sorry and go ahead and wear a respirator. You'll also want to wear a respirator during a water event because you never really know what you're going to be encountering. A Tyvek suit can also be really handy. You can throw that away if it does get contaminated, so you don't have to worry about washing it and it can protect you everywhere. You want to label specimens that do test positive for pesticides or if you have, if you think that they are going to, if you have suspicions that they have pesticides on them, go ahead and label them so people know. And you want to label the storage spaces as well. And this will help with future staff and visitors who are working in that area so that they know to be careful and to always wash their hands afterwards, even if you're wearing gloves. When you're working with the pieces, you want besides wearing your PPE, you want to limit your working time in the spaces. If you're treating them, then you want to treat them in a well ventilated space or under a fume hood. You always want to use a HEPA vacuum because it doesn't emit exhaust like other non-HEPA vacuums so that everything is contained. And you might want to use designated tools that you store in enclosed containers to prevent cross-contamination. When you display them, you want to keep this in mind as well. You don't want to use the pesticide-containing objects for your hands-on programming to help protect the public. You want to display them out of public reach or ideally put them in enclosed cases. That's how you protect yourself. Now, how do you protect the taxidermy? In general preparedness, we're going to talk about how to handle taxidermy under normal circumstances, but then we will also be touching on how to handle it when there has been a water event. For handling, it's really important to examine the specimen before you move it. So you want to identify any protruding components that might catch on things or be cumbersome if you're moving it, especially long tails or really sharp claws or really big ears. Look for weak, fragile or broken areas, areas where there's already damage, like if you see a really big split in a hide, and then locations where it should be supported. So if there's already a display base, then you want to use that as long as the attachment to the display base is stable. Otherwise, as you see in this image, there aren't display bases on these taxidermy pieces. So she's handling it by the torso. She's not using the tail to hold it. She's not picking it up by the legs. And then before you move the specimen anywhere, you want to check for items on yourself that might knock the specimen, such as a long necklace or a large belt, large belt buckles or back in the day, I used to tell people to watch out for walkie-talkies. So if you're still using those, watch out for that. You want to wear your PPE during handling as well, such as this night trial gloves. And you want to know your route so that you know that there are no obstructions or hazards because you could be walking down the hall and then whoops, actually someone has a chair there that you'll need to move, but you don't have an extra set of hands. So make sure you know your route. And also make sure you have a pre-cleared space where you want to set down the specimen once you bring it to your location. And you might need to have materials around that are ready to support the specimen. If it doesn't have a display base or a handy way to set it down, like in this photo, you'll want to have things like foam pieces or weights or blankets to help pad it out. All right. We're going to have a video of some handling. Let's see how this works. Okay. So here you see a cart full of mostly birds, but there's a small mammal on the tray as well. I'm going to speed this up just a little bit. So it's going to look a little stop animation-like. But here the small mammal was transported in a small tray. It doesn't have a display base, but it does rest pretty nicely on one side. That is mashing down the hairs a little bit. It would probably be better if we put something softer around it. These birds on the branch, everything's pretty stable. That was taken off display, and so they inserted the branch on a piece of foam. This is a custom tray that was built for this nest with a bird that helps you move it by the tray only. These are some bean bags or bags full of shot or sand that we can use. This bird is supported by individual pieces of foam since it doesn't have a good resting point on it. And then finally, this one also does not have a super great resting point. So by using that large bean bag, we're able to make a little nestled crate for it or nestled spot for it, and it can rest just on the wood alone and not mess up the feathers. Go back to the presentation, perfect. All right, and then how to store it. You want to store your taxidermy ideally in enclosed cabinets. I know that's not really possible for those of you from small places where you have everything on display or if you're a private collector, but if you don't have it on display, you want to store it enclosed somewhere to help protect it from water. You want to store it in its original position as in resting on the side that it's supposed to rest on or supposed to be displayed on, which can be a little bit difficult if it's really large. Use additional supports, as we said, and then if they're very large and they can't be in a container, in an enclosed space, you could store it covered in plastic for extra protection, but you want to be aware that this could eventually crush any delicate areas like ears or hairs over the long term. So make sure that you see that. And then shoulder mounts, you can put, those are good to store on a wall covered with protective sheeting as well. And then this is one of a picture from just a storage and enclosed storage cabinet as it was opened, and you can see that trophy mount, even though ideally it's better to have it on the wall. In this instance, we weren't able to do that. So we rested it on the easiest point for it to be rested on, which is the horns, the really heavy horns, and then the top of that display, the wooden display on the back. The full body mount, the deer in the middle, that was taken from diorama. And so it just has metal wires protruding and they were stuck into foam pieces and then weighted with some weights to make sure that it didn't topple over. And then the full body mount on the far right, that did have a habitat base, and so that could just kind of be on the shelf as it is. Ideally, though, we would add an additional protective tray so that it wouldn't knock into other things and cause damage on the habitat base. And how to display it, you want to avoid potentially wet areas.  You want to really think about where you want to put it in your house. You don't want to have it on the basement floor in case there's flooding. You don't want to have it under a pipe that has water running through it or directly under a sprinkler. If you put it, if you display it on an outside wall, sometimes that can form condensation depending on where you live. You don't want to display it near windows or on window sills just in case you have those windows open and accidentally forget to close them when it's raining outside. And you also don't want to store them in or display them in the kitchen or the bathroom because of steam and other condensation that forms from those areas. And something that I learned from one of my conservation mentors that I really like to tell people is don't forget about grandma. Chances are if you're storing or displaying your taxidermy and other family heirlooms or valuables in a place where you wouldn't let your grandmother take a nap, then you need to move it. So you wouldn't put your grandmother under a pipe that's known to leak or in a damp basement or a hot attic or whatever. You want to treat your special stuff in the same way that you would treat someone special in your family. It's impossible to talk about wet recovery without talking a little bit about disaster planning and response in general. A basic aspect of disaster preparedness is that you should have a written response plan. I'm not going to go into detail but there are plenty of resources available that can support you in drafting a plan that is appropriate to the scale and needs of your collection. That plan should involve the designation of someone who will lead a response effort and individuals who can support them in damage assessment and salvage efforts. All of those, all these individuals need to understand their roles and be ready to respond. Also as a part of your plan you should have identified materials that you are likely to need in the event of a disaster and have them gathered in a safe place or have identified a ready source where they can be acquired at short notice. Alongside your plan you need to have collection inventory records. To respond effectively you need to know what you have and where it is. Now here's Julia. A little mic transfer. All right this is Julia. So I'm going to pick it up from here for a little bit and we're going to talk about what happens when disaster strikes. So you've done everything that Fran has suggested as far as preventive measures but nevertheless you come into work and as you walk through your collection storage area you see that water is gushing down the wall and it's four inches deep and rising fast. So now what? Well human safety is obviously always going to be our first priority so depending on your situation you may call 911 or you may contact your internal security or facility staff or someone else but usually those initial efforts are going to focus on stabilizing the environment, getting people to safety, shutting off any possible source of water. If there is one that you can shut off blocking the spread of water maybe using containers or plastic sheeting sandbags or whatever else might be at hand perhaps removing standing water and then it's inspecting the area for other hazards and it's after all of that that's taken place that recovery activities can really take over. All right so in the meantime while all that's going on you can be planning and preparing. So as Fran mentioned assessment and salvage are really best driven by a recovery team that's led by a designated leader and so in the event of a water disaster that leader should immediately alert the response team to the disaster and ask them to stand by for instructions and then when it's safe to access the affected area that leaders should probably walk through the area to get a sense of the extent of the damage and that's really your first opportunity to assess the space and the facility, think a little bit about what materials are going to be needed and sort out how you should allocate the support that you have or whether maybe you need to think about recruiting others and then when it's appropriate to do so leaders can pull together their team and together they can review health and safety considerations, your plan for assessing damage, assign roles, talk about a plan for salvage and then begin gathering up materials. Your damage assessment should really be a survey that allows you to efficiently identify your affected locations and taxidermy specimens. In our experience here we've learned that if a large collection is affected a flagging system can be a really efficient way to move through a space and identify cabinets, shelves or mounts that have been checked and then mark those that have been affected by water for triage. We've used colored post-it notes to do that so that every location is examined and then marked with either a red or a green or maybe you have a third category. Note to indicate whether or not follow-up is needed or what kind of follow-up that might be. An assessment sheet or a log can also be a good tool for recording this kind of information and we recommend taking photographs as well. The process can be, you know, can take a little bit of time but it's really important to keep accurate records of the condition and the location of all your collection materials because it'll allow you to be more strategic in planning your salvage and it also has legal and insurance uses. So when you begin your assessment keep an eye on evidence from your environment. Obviously if there's water on around or under a shelf or a storage cabinet there's a greater likelihood that the taxidermy specimens inside are going to be wet. So looking on under and inside of furniture for pooled water and splashes is obviously a good idea but also looking for condensation, looking at absorbent materials like housing materials, boxes and trays, drop ceiling panels, carpets, and wall board where water marks and stains may be visible. Notice any odd odors or even the appearance of mold blooms which can show up as black, white or gray. So this is an example of a case where water may be very obvious like this on the outside of a storage cabinet or in this display case that happened to be sealed but water still found its way inside but here's an example where there's condensation on the underside of a drawer inside of a storage cabinet. Soaked materials like this may be really obvious such as the spalling wall and the carpet. This was a plumbing leak but sometimes they're less obvious. I think the housing materials on the right are soaked but maybe not calling out as loudly. So in inspecting your taxidermy you're obviously looking for liquid water that may be visible or around a specimen. Also check for dampness and when you're wearing gloves it can be a little tricky to check for dampness so you can use a dry paper towel or a chem wipe that's just gently pressed onto the fur to give you a visual indication of whether you have damp fur or feathers and again odd odors can be a really important cue and then when you encounter taxidermy that has been affected by water we want to observe whether there's any damage evident and so broadly speaking there generally four types of four categories of damage that you're likely to encounter. The first is a biological attack so mold is the most important example. Almost all of the materials that are used in the construction of taxidermy are susceptible to mold so you'd be looking for like a musty smell or evidence of mold blooms. Mold can begin to grow in as little as 24 to 48 hours and then chemical tack is another category so adhesives and other mannequin materials that are used in the construction of the taxidermy may be water soluble themselves or they may maybe water sensitive. You may see things see hides beginning to detach, softening of mannequin or finishing materials like those you know the materials used around the eyes and inside of ears and then collagen in the skin can degrade and turn into gelatin if it has prolonged immersion into water so you'd be looking for shrinkage sometimes dramatic deformation and changes in texture strength and flexibility you may also see changes in color and darkening in the skin. So I'll show you an example of that. This is an example that where the skin's really been badly gelatinized and misshapen after getting soaked with liquid water. You can see it's dark in color and it's pulled away from the mannequin. It's also become really rigid and inflexible. And then structural failure. Wet skin is much weaker so you'll see damage it seems where seams have broken open or torn around the stitching. You may see new tears that form at the border between wet and dry areas in a skin or enlargement of existing splits and tears. You'll see weakening in saturated mannequin materials which may may kind of present themselves as a physical instability or even a more dramatic collapse of amount. And then labels can also detach and research collections in all collections but in research collections especially it's critically important to keep objects together with their labels. I think I also wanted to point out like hollow mannequins that derive strength from their from absorbent materials that have been layered with adhesives and bound mannequins are really particularly particularly vulnerable. So and the last category here is distortion of fur and feathers or physical changes such as distortion of fur and feathers where you'll see really damp matted fur clumped and disengaged feathers and you may see movement of dirt and colorants so that would that would manifest as tide lines staining may see migration of paints or dyes that have been used. So here's an example of a elephant foot where the seam has actually split open exacerbated by exposure to water. We have a couple mammals here where the fur is clumped and matted you can see some streaks hopefully you can see them on the kangaroo mount on the right and the matted fur on the moose's ear on the left. Staining on a tusk this tusk was in a flood and since this was an HVAC related leak the dark materials are really likely to be compounds from inside the mount itself that were mobilized by the water and a rather sad bird on the right. And then this slide I just have here as a reminder that of course taxidermy is often incorporated into objects or dioramas that include other materials that are also susceptible to water damage. So in this diorama we had streaming water saturating foreground materials in some cases the plants were affected structurally and the water turned soil into mud that then kind of flowed into the surrounding decking area. So once you have a basic understanding of the nature and extent of damage in your collection you're in a position to make decisions about how to approach salvage. The aim of wet salvage is really to stabilize collections through a process of controlled drying and as you're doing that it's really important to come up with a clear and logical sequence for how you're going to prioritize your salvage efforts. We recommend prioritizing based on value first and that may not necessarily be monetary value that may be historical value scientific value what are the treasures in your collection and then from there prioritized by vulnerability followed by condition. Taxidermy in general terms is just a highly vulnerable medium but that said some mounts are going to be more vulnerable than others. So here in this chart I've kind of broken that down a little bit so you can see that absorbent and bound mannequins are going to be more vulnerable than the newer foam mannequins that aren't absorbent. Untanned and taut hides are more vulnerable than full tans. Ivory and teeth which are very responsive to changes in humidity are particularly vulnerable. Hairless skins can be more vulnerable because intact hair and contour feathers sometimes have kind of a sheeting effect on water and prevent it from soaking down into the into the hide. Weakened and embrittled hides are going to be much more susceptible to gelatinization and may really almost crumble and come apart if they're fully immersed and then damp housing materials clearly present an issue for whatever whatever they contain but whatever approach you take to control drying it's going to require handling handling your taxidermy specimens to some extent. So I wanted to share some considerations to keep in mind and some guidelines for handling wet taxidermy as I mentioned before the wet materials are going to be weaker compared to compared to when they're dry and much more prone to deformation and other new structural damages and saturated saturated materials can also be much heavier than they look. So as you would do when you are handling dry taxidermy you need to assess the condition before before picking up your mount looking for old repairs. Whenever you can it's great to handle specimens indirectly using trays boards or other supports and try not to move things any more often than you need to because you know every time an object is moved to that that's increasing risk provide additional support during and after movement where needed locate the labels and any object fragments and try to keep them together with the specimen from the very beginning clear your pathway handle heavy objects with help when when it's needed you may want to salvage wet materials working from top to bottom and if it's safe to do so you can leave undamaged unaffected objects in place resist the urge to fix objects on the fly you may see something that's just you know bugs you and you want to fix it but I want to keep moving ahead and and you know not be manipulating objects on a one-off basis and then of course don't forget your PPE. So it's really important when you're working with in a salvage situation that everyone's protected from mold and so that's going to include your protective clothing gloves respiratory protection and goggles you we want to limit your exposure as much as possible and people who have allergies or asthma may you know it may be appropriate to give them different assignments in the response effort if you when you come across mounts where mold has formed we want to quarantine those so that the spores aren't spread to other objects moldy specimens can be air dried in an isolated space preferably that space can be vented to the outdoors or maybe you can vent it you can ventilate it using a HEPA filter to air scrubber so I'm going to outline three approaches to drying taxidermy collections and all of them really aim to arrest mold growth while mitigating the other types of damage that I just described and there are other variations on some of these methods but I just want to point out that none of the methods I'm going to talk about involve heat so it's important to avoid drying methods that involve warming the specimen or the ambient conditions above the normal range because it both increases the potential for mold growth when you have high humidity and it also increases the possibility of damage and distortions in your mounts I'm sorry that this this is a little bit cut off but so the first the first drying method is air drying in which wet taxidermy is basically laid out in a drying area that you've identified and have set up with fans and dehumidifiers the first first one of the first steps you want to remove excess water from your mounts and you can spread them out on tables that you've covered with plastic and then absorbent materials like blotter, unprinted newsprint, white tallying you don't want to be introducing colorants but and then you can use those materials to gently blot damp skin and fur and even labels so that they have a better opportunity to dry flat and then when those materials become dampened you'll want to change them out as as taxidermy is drying or as it becomes wet and then begins to dry you know you will probably see deformations and distortions in in the hide places where the height is starting to delaminate or detach if the taxidermy if the height dries that way and it's unsupported it's likely to you know stay in that distorted position so if height is flexible if you if you see those those issues and the height is still flexible you you should gently support the mount to try to retain the original form as it dries and you can use clips like hair clips barrettes nose clips gentle pressure that doesn't dig in but can you know that you can use to manipulate you may want to use small weights that don't impede airflow or you can also use things like cotton twill tape and then around around your objects you want to use fans and dehumidifiers to bring the temperature and relative humidity as close to normal room conditions ideally kind of pulling dry air into the room and pushing humid air out and you you want to monitor the effectiveness of your efforts somehow psychrometers or a possibility or data loggers can also be used we've also experimented here with using FLIR cameras if you happen to have one available benefits to air drying is that it's low low cost and really requires little or no specialized equipment but it's only going to be an efficient method if the ambient humidity is pretty low it can be space and labor intensive it's suitable for salvaging a smallish number of damp or slightly wet mounts but not for really heavily saturated mounts with absorbent mannequins and you know there's still a risk of of mold growth particularly in those wetter examples so this is just an image of an air drying situation you can see some of the mounts aren't you know could be better supported but there's a lots of space around all of the mounts there isn't they're not using absorbent materials in this image but there is plastic here's another example of air drying using a dehumidifier and a fan ideally you'd arrange the equipment to try to encourage a directional airflow a better option for taxidermy that's moderately wet or has to be left in situ is sometimes drying with dehumidified air or desiccant air drying so that this involves a control drying enclosure that's used to exhaust humid air and replace it with dry air with dehumidification equipment and fans or hepa filtered air scrubbers setting this up usually requires partnering with an outside vendor that has access to the equipment and the supplies although it can be you can rent equipment and set it up yourself if you know how the this chamber can be constructed in situ around collections for example in a diorama situation or if you have something that is too large to move but it can also be set up elsewhere on site or off if there's if you do need or want to move those collections again you'd want to remove excess water and provide physical support and the area really the sealing of the area is important to maintain a lower humidity that permits a more efficient air circulation than air drying alone drying with dehumidified air is faster than air drying and as I said it's suitable for objects that you may need to leave in place it also may allow you to dry a larger quantity of wetter mounts there is still risk of mold growth in mounts that are large or have absorbent materials are heavily saturated and here's an here's a picture of what that might look like so you can see that the the diorama in this example has been sealed off with plastic sheeting that's taped taped all around the edge then the the kind of taller dehumidifier in the foreground is feeding air into that space via the angled tube and then the air is being exhausted by the more squat air scrubbers that are at either end of the diorama right and then the third approach that I'm going to talk about is vacuum freeze drying in which wet specimens are frozen and then later dried by means of sublimation freeze drying requires partnering with one or more outside vendors wet specimens in their housings are frozen and then moved to a specialized vacuum freeze drying chamber where they're placed under vacuum and the temperatures closely controlled to sublimate ice directly into gas freezing will will arrest mold growth so this is this is an approach that that is you know used when it's really important to immediately stop the possibility of mold but for taxidermy there's a much higher likelihood of damage to the collagen to teeth and bone that may be preserved in the cranial and post cranial components that have been incorporated into the mannequin if there's wood in the mannequin or other components that are partially or completely saturated so when other methods are not available or are unsuitable freeze drying will reduce the potential for mold infestation but I think it's really important that those benefits are weighed against these potential damages it wouldn't be my first choice and now I'm going to give it back to give it back to Fran who's going to talk a little bit about cleaning yeah thanks Julia in our final few minutes that we have here I'd like to talk about cleaning some dry cleaning we feel it's important to talk about this because it's a need that comes up in all taxidermy collections including those that have been subjected to water events so right now we're mostly talking about things that haven't gone through a disaster but but if you had had a small water event and everything feels dry then you can also employ these techniques ideally we'd always recommend that you consult with a conservator before executing a cleaning procedure because even the safest methods can cause irreversible damage in some cases but we realize that particularly in smaller institutions and private collections there may be financial or geographical barriers that make contracting a conservator difficult so we're just going to touch on the dry cleaning methods which tend to be the safest across the board the best way to clean is to test in a small discrete location first and you need to understand that not all parts of the mound will respond in the same way to your cleaning techniques so of course stop if you observe damage and then consult a specialist in general you will encounter three different types of dirt and some of these methods lend themselves better towards one type over the other so there's the dusty dirt there's a greasy dirt and then there are dry films and stains especially after water we always like to use as I mentioned earlier the HEPA filtered vacuum and then we use a soft bristle brush and we brush the dirt and dust into the vacuum you want to use your vacuum on a if it's variable speed you want to use it on the lower speed and you will cover the nozzle with a screen or a cheesecloth just to make sure that it's protected you don't want to suck up anything that you didn't realize was loose and then there are other areas that some of the harder components of the taxidermy where you could use things like webrol cotton pads or electrostatic cloths or disposable rags which are basically soft paper cleaning cloths to kind of wipe away that dust very gently and of course as anywhere you want to test first but in these cases you might risk pulling off slipping hairs or loose feathers or unstable fragments so we always like to use a brush to begin with and there are different kinds of sponges that are available especially soft white cosmetic sponges that you can buy and then soot sponges that are specifically for fire damage these are much more aggressive obviously than the wipes and pads but they're really they can be very effective on greasy dirt and they're really good on the harder components so I saw there was a question about elephant tusks if you want to try to clean a superficial deposit on a hard surface like an elephant tusk then you could try the sit sponge or the cosmetic sponges and in some cases you might need to add water but we would rather that you talk to a conservator first before thinking about doing that so we have a video on cleaning some mammal mounts and a bird mount if Sarah can move the screen for me okay I'm just sharing my screen and then we'll start this one and once again I'm going to speed it up so that you can fit in everything so you see I have all my supplies gathered I have a pretend tax stormy mount which is a coyote skin here's my HEPA vacuum that I have on low setting and then I'm going to come over and van away I have my gloves on slow it down a little bit again um there we go so those are the cotton pads I showed you the electric static cloth before this um there it is there's the electric static cloth it's kind of thin you can cut it to how you want the weevil pads again and that's cotton so that's very absorbance we use that for cleaning a variety of different things the box of rags they're very soft you can cut those to shape as well and you can use those to help support your animals those are the sit sponges that you can cut to different sizes and these are the cosmetic sponges that you can also cut we like to use a variety of different brushes my personal favorite is the fan brush just an artist brush that you can buy and that's because it kind of grooms the hair while you're working on it here's a piece of plastic screen that I'm putting over top and I always have hair bands so I just use those sometimes you can use rubber bands to attach it on top and I'm going to brush in the direction that the hair and the feathers grow if the hair is stable then you can do a little bit more grooming and you can brush in different directions um but just test that out and you'll notice that I'm brushing um with the vacuum parallel to the surface I'm not actually putting it on top of the specimen on top of the hair so there's that guy and then I am pulling over a piece of caribou hide and it has some some hairs that are falling out so it's a little bit more fragile so instead on this one I'm going to take my plastic screen and gently place that on top and then kind of run the vacuum over top of that um to get any loose um dust that's coming off of it and then um if you feel like you need a little bit more agitation sometimes you can take a brush and um go over top of it but um you'll just have to test it out and see what works and then I will show the final video that we have which is this really quick one on bird cleaning so the same kind of thing my vacuum is on a low suction setting I'm holding it not directly on top of the feathers and I'm brushing in the direction that the feathers grow um to get that dirt and dust off of it and then as an added bonus um our favorite thing that we like to do when we're cleaning taxidermy is to clean the eyeballs so this is a wet technique that we will show you um I have my little glass of water on the side and um some q-tips or we call them cotton swabs so the first one I'm going to dip into the water and then wipe off the excess and then gently rub it over top of the eye to get any dirt and grime that's off of it so you move that around and go around the edges and then I can do kind of a final polish um by taking a cotton swab that isn't dipped in water all right and we'll go back to the presentation perfect um and finally when to call a conservator so you've had all this stuff happen um this is our uh don't try this at home section when we give a warning um we don't want you to try the um wet cleaning methods um they can make it a little bit more the dry cleaning sometimes isn't very effective but wet cleaning can go arrive very quickly um so it's better to talk to someone who has a little bit more experience um cleaning those um and then common household and hardware shop materials um don't often work um they might be ineffective or worse they might cause new chemical or structural damage um there are many different options for how to restore a damaged piece of taxidermy and there are ethical choices that we think about that reflect the preservation goals as well as that artistic and historical scientific or other values that surround the special the specimen and the collections and so we often work with the stakeholders of the collections to determine appropriate treatment approaches and there are also structural repairs particularly in the mannequin that can require significant intervention um and you need to have a really solid understanding of construction um and materials in order to even try to um work on that and we don't just work um with conservators um and we also work with taxidermists there's often a confusion on when you should contact a taxidermist versus when you should contact um a conservator taxidermists bring important skill sets to the table and many of them are accomplished wildlife artists and sophisticated naturalists a skilled taxidermist might be able to restore damage very quickly and with impressive accuracy but the key thing to remember is that not all taxidermists um are equal with this because um many of them lack experience restoring taxidermy of historical significance and they might not prioritize the original materials and construction methods um which is important because if you have a mount that was mounted by teddy rosevelt you're going to want to keep that because the importance is that it was teddy who who mounted it a taxidermist skillsets it's also best suited to the materials that they regularly use and some of those might lack the long-term stability and reversibility that we prefer in conservation so you know an age hide will respond differently to the environment than a fresh one will so if a taxidermist isn't used to working with aged components they might not really know the special considerations it's important to talk with any taxidermist about the materials and methods that they propose um and to consider whether whether they're compatible with your preservation goals before you work with someone in our experience um it's worked out really well to partner with a conservator and a taxidermist on projects of importance but fear not the last thought that we want to leave you with is that before you consider anything a lost cause you should definitely consult with a specialist because many damages that appear to be a total loss can actually be addressed quite successfully um by by specialists um the top pieces in these photos are pieces that were um in a fire so they're covered in soot and they had water damage um so the before treatment are the top photos and then the after treatment are the bottom photos um of course if you need help um feel free to contact me or contact Julia or both of us um if you need help finding a conservator you can go to AIC's website um which is where you signed up for this webinar and there are find a conservator options there but you can also email us um to see if we know of any people who work on taxidermy who are in your um your region um we'd like to thank all the institutions who have shared the case studies today and we would especially like to thank Linda Devenhausen who helped us um with some of her case studies that were really phenomenal and of course our interns who helped all along um some recent projects who were featured in some of the photos um so thank you everyone for listening I don't know if they're gonna want us to respond to questions now or if we will um have perhaps like a blog write up or send out some emails we're seeing maybe a couple questions coming up that's fine with us um we could hang on for another couple a few more minutes hi I have um we have six questions from the attendees and I can ask them in the order in which we receive them that's okay with you yeah okay um the first question is can you recommend a good source for litmus type tests for arsenic to test mounts currently in a collection so that they could be flagged for safety if necessary um we didn't get into this today um the kits that I know of are the spot testing um they actually require the use of some pretty heavy-duty chemicals like hydrochloric acid and so it's best to do um with someone when you have a conservation lab or someone who's used to handling those chemicals um I think that they did used to sell some kits but there have been some back and forth on how successful they are if you can get them and how long of a shelf life they have so um I think I'd need to do a little bit more background research before um talking about that and there are also um analytical techniques to use such as x-ray fluorescence um and they are very expensive pieces of equipment but um you can often borrow them from institutions who have them um I think that question was asked by the person in Colorado um I bet that there's probably an XRF unit um at the Museum of Nature and Science in Denver or at the Art Museum so you can ask people to come and spend a day or an afternoon looking at many different mounts um you can also check out the history that woman she wouldn't be able to do this but if you're in a museum you can ask around for people who've worked there for a long time if they remember people using um pesticides or look for things in storage Julia has something to add I just want to um add one note which is that um you know our collection at the museum um we don't we don't do a lot of object by object testing um we know a little bit about how certain parts of our collection were treated historically but in practice we've decided that the most pragmatic approach is just to assume that everything is contaminated and then approach everything with you know that level of precaution you want to show me another one yes so that's the next question is there a specific velocity for drying in the air drying process to avoid more damage and in an airy environment would you just air dry without the fans that's one that I will I have to kind of do a little bit of research before I go and uh answer based on my intuitive and my my you know limited experience um but I can certainly follow up on that okay one more question then uh is it possible to freeze items in a normal freezer without causing too much damage and what an industrial grade freezer that gets to at least negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit suffice um my understanding is that if you need to freeze things um a freezer that goes to about zero um Celsius is is preferable um I don't think that one can say that you will necessarily avoid damage in doing that though um I think that that's going to remain a risk um and I I don't know specifically how that risk would change if you go to a lower like if you needed to use a lower temperature simply because that's what you had on hand but I don't think that there are um in terms of um mold I don't think that there are benefits to choosing the lower temperature um that's another thing that we can you know we can try to provide a little bit more information about okay yeah I would recommend drying first as a as a preferred approach over the freezing okay uh do we have time for any more questions or shall we address them elsewhere yeah why don't we why don't we follow up any in um some other format is that okay okay well thank you Fran and Julia and thank you all attendees for joining us today we ask that you please take a few minutes now to complete the brief evaluation survey linked on the screen and you can find more information about both FAIC and NCPTT on their websites thanks so much


All right, now let's get into a little Q and A and we'll go from there. Let's see Sass I hope Ada goes below 20 cents. So I'll be heavily accumulating those levels. Yeah, that's what I did I think it'll do probably well.  Hey Not that I'm gonna knock it But that's what they did with dogecoin and it was very effective It was very effective and dogecoin crime. I'm wrong. I think it hit like 67 cents at some point that was back in the day when Elon went on Saturday night life and they said don't sell into a dollar, but of course everybody sold and So don't look past that so people will people. I mean jh I'm with you on this one. Trust me. I'm not like oh we go by to Terra Luna Luna classic but don't Don't dispel the power of community. That's all I'll say Do I put mention my meal of course? What am I an animal? Of course, I do Robert's your peanut metaverse projects being front runners in the next market cycle. I don't know about metaverse I would go more towards gaming and I think gaming's got more of a utility and a function metaverse I don't know didn't work out too much for For Zuck and his projects, but whatever Let's see what else Hi, Rob. Who's is Ben that you're talking about Ben from another cryptiverse. He's just I Think Ben's buying a little bit, but he's like I'm not touching alts Che young chow. Do you watch baseball? There's a history correlation that if the Phillies win that our economy will crash Phillies world series whenever thousand twenty-two I doubt that we're in October, but we'll find out Couple concepts are correctly Dan's not your dad. Nothing advice. Very true Quality content. Thank you. Sup. What's up? And then look I know it was like not the most Positive video, but I know people want to Get that hoping in there, but I Just tell you the truth and just how I see it. I don't like I Don't see There's there's there's bear runs Bear runs bear relief rallies a bound those will happen So just stick around and you know if you want to take profits on the way I would definitely do that. I just don't think we're gonna see Bitcoin hitting all-time highs by December like some people have said that's ridiculous and Again, I just look at and go this is not what I always keep thinking you want to know What's in the back of my head? This is what's in the back of my head. I'll show you This is always in the back of my head Where'd it go? There it is so cardano, I started to accumulate cardano actually in 2007 now 2018 is when I really started around February and I'm doing it. I'm still doing today and Back then I was probably how much was I spending like 25 bucks a week. It wasn't that much books a week and Like again, you don't have to be a billionaire and if your goals be a billionaire you get pride to spend a lot more money but that's not my goal and I Just take a look at it and I just think this is what I did last time Let's do the same thing again worked out pretty well and if you First of all blow this up. I always this is what I'm always going mine You won't time the top perfectly you just won't but I mean if you put 25 bucks a week And if you could time the top, you know, you would have invested 4 to 600 bucks and you would have got 162,000 That was your How much you could cash out it's pretty good It's really good and then let's do something else and then throw me Forever in the chat throw me some some cryptos you want to see over time and I'll show you let's do Let's do Ethereum.  Let's go into like some degen stuff Not that degen polka dot if I did 25 bucks a week a thousand That's pretty good. Actually, I guess it's not that good. Let me hit the calculate button There we go Invested 1600 and balance with 78,000. No, not that great What about oh I have a lunch that's not wrong here 3000 I'm gonna do this. Let's see 20 bucks weekly 2018 I guess so now always depends on what you do It's better than just having your money sit around in the in the same as account So that's what I'm always thinking about just so you guys know Alrighty, where are we? S less Oops, I missed one No, I mean, hello Makes some time sure Norman says is the Fed pivoting? No, I don't think so So being I mean they could and again like what I said like like I said before even if they pivot I think we still have some downside Again, just look at these numbers, but it a little bit different back then But there was still high inflation so even though we do we still got it and if everybody's right If most people are right with that people say that the Fed's doing too much And they're raising the rates too aggressively and we still have to go through that time frame That's what it is. I'm okay with that bad day for us people How is the market's doing? I thought it was uh, I Thought it was rallying for some reason. Let's see. That should be 500. Oh, I guess I'm wrong Well, that does make sense It's the S&P 500 is down a little bit Not too bad though What's the Nasdaq doing? I would assume it's thinking but you know Wrong before Not that bad. It's down point zero five. So pretty much stagnant And I gotta tell you one thing that gives me a little bit of a glimmer of hope is that you know last month as much as The traditional market went down. I mean Bitcoin was only down point to point two percent for the month of September So it's holding on there During thoughts about amp now I'm I feel sorry for ample of those other currencies or those other projects that were labeled as securities and that's In that court case by the SEC I think that kind of killed them for a bit The truth and facts are all I want that's good because a lot of people don't want that I Think if we DC the solid products like ADA Bitcoin polygon, we're gonna be alright come next floor potentially Just that's why it's like so important Just keep on these things because like in the if if if you want to set it and forget it That's a good strategy for like the S&P 500 because over time it usually goes up does pretty well Don't really think about it, but in crypto like there's all these different nuances So you really got to stay on top of it, but when but there's a reward at the end Not for all projects. Just know that if you invest in ten eight will probably bite it The ninth one might be okay, and the tenth one might be big Jay says can we see you jump in that green screen if Bitcoin Erica? Yeah Once it has on okay, I'll definitely do that Hi, Rob. I got two tickets for the Bitcoin conference in Edinburgh. Hey, that sounds fun I got a ticket for you. I will not make that. I'll be in Puerto Rico Actually, no, I'll be in Houston next couple weeks or next week, and then I'll be in they'll be in Puerto Rico for that Wow, Jay just pretty that's pretty aggressive. I don't think I'd say that. What? Where is I can't find it mad cow? All right. All right So on gala I own both of those Even though there was some some lag time. I thought it was super positive. Yeah, me too Hotski says Cardano staking is literally the best liquid staking there is other layer ones. They'll come close So it's a cure eligibility feasibility Ease of ease of use. I'll give you that for sure. It's super easy and very very I tell you if Cardano knocked out the park with with staking they just did Have fun with slashing rewards and all those things for Ethereum. I'm not like I'll stake all my crypto or most of them I'm not doing that with Ethereum. I don't trust that whole process It's a waste. I even went through a video I got about halfway through and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this. That was it I know people like but it's so easy. Sure Ah Too phantom. No, that's it. It was now 2019 So there's a great question Connor says Rob Do you think Bitcoin will remain as correlated to the NASDAQ and S&P next cycle? No Well, it depends here's here's where it becomes uncorrelated when it doesn't become a speculative asset I know people will say How dare you say that Bitcoin is a speculative asset because there's so much use case and El Salvador is using it and and I use it on my card and da-da-da everybody calm down. Look Bitcoin will probably be huge. I just don't know how many years it's gonna take and Who knows it could be the world reserve currency I don't know but right now for people to say that Everybody's using it and it's a global phenomenon. It's not and it's a horrible store of value if you're talking about the short term It's all about time horizons. You're talking about a store of value over 20 years Yeah, I guess your point right if you're a third world's country and you make 400 bucks a month 200 bucks a month and you put that in Bitcoin and it goes down 20% That's not a good store of value. I hate to tell you that so I would go do stable coins So really comes out of this once we actually see real world use case utility for the masses Then it won't be a correlated a speculative asset and then we'll start to decouple But I don't think it's gonna happen until I could be wrong. Oh No, Jarky's back Jarky, thank you for giving everybody those memberships. Everybody loves you everybody Leo says 75 points are 50 points Tomorrow I don't see how the Fed goes. Yeah, PPI numbers a little bit hot, but we're gonna go 50 basis points But if they do go 50 basis points expect a big fat rally because everybody's talking about 75 So I Personally think 75. I don't see how they can go 50.  Hey everybody. Jarky the legends, right? Spects. Oh, it's a great question TRT community. I like that. It's a good one if the SEC labels everything besides Bitcoin either securities Well, that's shut the other alts down like Aden dot. No and This is what everybody this is my my thinking first of all Securities we buy securities all day long over on Robin Hood. They're called stocks, but they're just registered with the SEC That's the difference. That's all really it is But to register with the SEC it takes time and it takes paperwork and it takes money Which some of these projects do actually have some don't because their startups and the time Constraints so this is what how what I see happening Most crypto is trash I'll say it again most crypto is trash and a lot of these products need to go away I just have to tell you my the truth that are what I think and I think with if Gary Gensler and the SEC and the CFTC and they come down and go, okay, you guys got this we got this and Here's what we believe to be securities and what we believe to be commodities and not that they can do that It's Congress's job.  We talked about this yesterday Senator Lummis from Wyoming And it lays out what would be considered a security and commodity and and what the SEC and the CFTC will do Once they get that part down and say, okay fine Bitcoin and theme are commodities, whatever Everything else is security. So now these projects. They're gonna have to go and register with the SEC So they try out their lawyers. They try the paperwork to try out the money and they just get it registered however long it takes Maybe there's a fast-track option. I don't know But a lot of these smaller companies are projects like hey, we can't afford that We don't have the time frame running money.   We're gonna do a buyout That's what Facebook does all the time. It's no reason why Facebook is relevant They're like, hey Instagram We like pictures. We're gonna absorb you. Hey, what's that? We don't really have that that's that type of functionality We like what you're doing over there with with telecommunications and the mobile app We want to buy you and so on and so forth That's what's gonna happen. I think with these bigger projects They're just gonna start to absorb and buy these smaller projects and become bigger They're already registered. They're under the umbrella of the Cardano the polka dots the you know near Protocol and whatever else and that's what I think will happen and that's what I think has to happen and I'll be okay with that Consolidation of efforts sometimes that actually works out Okay, oh Jupiter Jupiter lays it out there CPI will be higher than estimated tomorrow 75 basis points times three incoming next year makes I Don't know if I can say that That's interesting interesting concepts Bobby shouts Bobby I did get your your question about Does coin ledger still integrate with the Voyager and Celsius I have a I have that question out myself because I Use we talked about this yesterday about the tax software I use coin ledger and I integrated with I was able to integrate today with Voyager, but only Intel it was January 2022 So I have a I have a query out to those guys and see what's happening I'm not for sure and Bobby says Rob Thanks for the content, but I'm funny hard to get excited about crypto with the IRS in the future So here's what you got to remember Yeah, I know the IRS sucks and Look Even like even though I moved to Puerto Rico all the crypto that I bought before I still had to pay capital gains tax Because you don't start to do anything until you move there, which I didn't move there until 2021 late whatever so Let's just say Let's use that example. I did with with Cardano, right? And it was let's say was $500,000. Okay, you made $500,000 off of 5,000 whatever it was. I forgot Let's just say a hundred thousand heck who cares see about a thousand You keep it for over a year your capital gains tax is roughly 20 20% roughly, right? So, yeah, you got to give the government 20,000.  That's 95,000 20% of 95,000 You're looking at 18 19 thousand dollars So 19,000 roughly and then you get to keep $81,000 and you get to give you get to give you have to give the government 19,000 Hey Worst things out there to do, right? So I understand IRS isn't my favorite thing either But we all got to pay the piper then you got to take a look at it like what can I do with this money? What do I do? What can I do with it? Maybe I put into other assets like real estate, which you know I can use as tax deductions along the way For the depreciation value. That's why I love real estate so much So I'm always talking about it and of course I can do a lot of things with real estate I don't have to sell the house. I can do long-term rentals find a renter or go there Or maybe I want to do short-term rentals and maybe I want to deal with the hassle. Maybe I just hire a company Property management company and they take 10 15 20 percent. I don't do anything So that's where things get interesting Just saying there's much there's many options out there This is a good one Brad says the last 13 to 14 years have been generally great returns post financial collapse Yes, all the product you checked he's seeing in the after the point. Yes, that's true I messed that up. We'll see what they're like post blacks one. Yeah, we'll see It's a good point and Brad's I will add on to Brad's comment Which is this some of the projects that you're investing into right now are not coming back They're not I'm gonna show you something There's this Website I'm gonna find it. Yes. Got it Called coin market cap. I Used coin get go but whatever coin market cap I think Binance owns that now, but you can take a look at historical data snapshots. So let's just see Well here remember that though the four-year cycles I was talking about July 2013 Let's just go to 2013 just for giggles That was like the all-time high Here's what the top cryptos were Bitcoin. It's always been Bitcoin. First of all, that's why people invest into it Number two is like coin Name coin. I have no idea what that is pure coin. I don't know Nova prime coin feather coin Terra coin dev coin Free coin digital you get the picture None of these are around except like coin, which I don't understand why Double loonies So now let's jump forward Let's go in 2017 16 actually, you know what let's go 2016 December 18th real quick Bitcoin Ethereum XRP like one again Monero theorem classic what? Dash remember dash. Ooh dash was big Made safe coin still man. I remember steam. It was the best. It's supposed to be the next great thing nem auger Factor Dutch coin still there look at that wave stellar. I don't know what economy is Lisk, I remember a list our door bit sure z-cash still around Byte coin emmer coin golem. Oh, that was a big one. Let's go down then to 2017 December 17th Bitcoin Ethereum Bitcoin cash That's number three. No way XRP like one again iota was number seven dash was number eight nem was nine I can't believe that Bitcoin gold whoo number 11 eos. I'll beardy remember those days. I was beautiful neo Cute a bit connects the biggest scam out there populous only say go So when I do all these things just remember this when you're investing into the next hot thing It could be it really could be But more often than not it's pretty risky. So just head your bet and go from that's what I would do I can't give you financial advice, but just remember that the things that were hot back then Sometimes I know where to be seen now. Ah Jane chow saw your tweet on French people with oil gas ish and Twitter Did you get a response from them to verify the diesel crisis? Yes Some people said they were driving through France as they were going to wherever they were going And he said that that was true, but other people said no, it's not as bad as what people think it is Remember, there's sensationalism sensationalism cells. There's also a strike apparently In the natural gas refineries or whatever in France. So That could be I could definitely play a role in that All right from the Brenton Florida construction site. Hello Jeff Bobby shouts taking theta and t-fuel Thank You Jarkie appreciate it Much respects always here, but you are awesome when right I'll get to the next one Jeff Yeah, oh Jafar says it's if there is easy to get slashed. I don't know how long that how much it does Yep This is true. You just got to start gaining weight. It's very hard for me to do that though Yeah, Jared says a good point the best time for a hundred basis points was two or three months ago You know what that's a good point. They would have done that. I think we're gonna Probably gone a lot farther. Oh Man sec is saying every NFTs a security as well Wouldn't doubt it but everything's a security it's a to Gary when you're a hammer everything's a nail So Jeff says not a percent sure but I think Alex lied to us. Hey, I'm also gonna have Two heavy weights in the Celsius space Aaron Bennett and Tiffany They're mostly Aaron's got a great YouTube channel and Tiffany's been getting some good Information about what's going with the Celsius project and talking to ex-employees. I'm gonna have them on Sunday I'll try to get that video out and I just wanted to give I just want them to get us up to speed Because if you're on Twitter a lot of fragmented stuff that's out there and the things that I just I see I think people need to know about and I want to put this in a timeline and a Coordinate a matter and then talk about Simon Dix's plan, which I think is probably the best plan We're gonna have and go from that.  I think people already people already know how much I put over there also on Voyager and Yeah, you know I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a stick of step back and tell you this 2017 when I went way overboard on crypto and it crashed 90 something percent most of it already 5% 85% of a Bitcoin 95% for alts I put a lot of money in there and I was going through I was being sued from my business for Trademark infringement real pain in the a and Took me three years to get through that and I had to pay a bunch of money And it was rough times. I must admit it was rough times and I thought damn I'm never gonna get to this never use of this, but as time goes on a little bit of a break Thankfully had good people around me and I realized that money wasn't the end all be all I Know right now it sucks But there are better days ahead of us just that it's gonna take time If you stick around it's just like the army you just stick around and show up good things happen Just you got to keep showing up. I know it's not the best thing the greatest thing But it does get better and I gotta tell you in 2017. I was pretty Pretty low for a bit and it did work out especially after that lawsuit whoo So there we are 40 minutes and how do I get the late notifications? I need to don't sue new YouTube They will know they will not notify you. You know, I take a look at how people find these videos 5. Something percent is through notifications 5% 40% are in suggested videos And the other one is just search So like that's just how it goes Yeah, that's your crypto. Oh That's a good one. You're says Robin your upcoming solar videos. I'm not gonna put a video out, but Like to get into that more please include the 2023 federal tax credits and the cost calculations I will do so I predict doge and shib will ironically do quite well since neither of them really passed the Howie test Yeah, it's abatable Yeah, capitalists. Thanks, Jarkie and your opinion will sweat moon now I Sweat the cryptocurrency Platform the great app I've been talking about It will not moon anytime soon. It'll probably drop farther Just will just like everything else is gonna drop I think but I think it'll do really well as time goes on Look, it's actually a an app that you can actually use and has utility So again, you can download the app links in the description You walk a little bit to give you these sweat and if you're outside the United States You get sweat and you get the the crypto itself and you put in a crypto wallet But if you're in the United States, it's like a rewards program and you can use that to buy like Goofy little things like I got some some headphones. That was pretty cool and go from there So I think it'll work out just it's gonna take some time just like everything else But I still believe in it and I'm still locked up for another 11 10 11 months, that's true I think about it. There's always a strike in France. That's true Yeah, 50% Bitcoin 20% of you from the last members and gambling random alts That's a good way to do it from George your work cryptos are us. That's the way Well the next bull run me the last big one now Everybody thought this 2021 was gonna be the the last big one But I think if you can just take a look at the institutions that are lining up and buying I don't see that at all and especially with the amount of Attention that it gets from the US government and all governments for crypto BJS Rob gets the vinyl light is asset. I'll see if you can come by. I don't think that's gonna happen We'll see Gensler works for the devil. Well, if you think that the government is a devil, then you actually have a good point Ah VGX Rob says I invested 40k on the VGX I'd be a credit card balance Transfers. No, no zero percent promo periods have ended. I'm dying for interest. That's a heavy interest. That's for sure That's why I was hoping there would be a better better play than that than the FTX and another thing but the FTX deal I need to Again what I saw it looked like it was all cryptos at 70% not excluding VGX That's a good point. That means baseball cards of securities, too Hmm hanging there, bro To VGX Rob find a credit assistance program. I'll be get our debts write stuff off live lean and get better get better for sure Let me Ah, see SD says I get notifications all the time. Great What digital news now, but I should get some people on here to talk about that for sure I will do that. I will do an update right now. We're waiting for people to vote and People to vote on that FTX acquisition of Voyager Assets see what it is. I need to take a deep dive into that Ben still waiting for a 99.99% Bitcoin down for buying homes. Oh, look at that I found by checking my subscription feed.  We all got tricked. I'll get duped and if you cuz Celsius doxed all of us. So everybody knows how much we have on there. So not surprising and everybody knows now I Have six figures on there. Oh That's right Yeah, we're gonna do and Simon's got 10 million on there. So I don't feel so bad, but you know, Simon's an OG Bitcoin Investor and he's done a lot of different things with a lot of big companies like the Coinbase and the bitfinex and all those things in his company bank The future and even he got duped. So I know when people say do diligence and things like that sometimes He's got some good swindlers and that's all I can tell you and one more thing that sells squeeze thing that's going on That makes no sense to me whatsoever. The only thing they're doing is exit liquidity for the machine skis. That's it. Oh Said it's right. I Could be wrong, but I don't see it and then lastly Unless the financial system goes off the rails, even then I think we'll try to patch things instead of reversing It's very Potentially true. That's what the financial system is just one big band-aid on another band-aid another band-aid See what how far we can get because right now if you just look at it. It's not looking too good. I'm surprised that the S&P 500 NASDAQ has held up as strong as it has. I'm only I don't even know what the market is in crypto right now because I just stopped looking I'll look in 2024 maybe that'll be a good time. That's it. So look everybody There's a road ahead of us and there's two ways we can look at it The ultimate doomsday or just to get through it trudge through When you're going through hell just keep going Winston Churchill, right? And that's what's going on right now. Not a big deal.  So that's it for today. So look you like today's video Give it a thumbs up consider subscribing all that good stuff, but that is all we have So I appreciate everybody sticking with me. I appreciate you for coming by and I'll see you guys in the next one Adios for today


Welcome to Toffy TV, it's a matter of action. Everton won Chelsea nil. What a result for the Blues tonight. Outstanding performance in terms of battling not silky football wise, but we knew it was going to be difficult against the top class side. But a brilliant win for Everton, absolutely brilliant win. Carl Antielotti went with what I thought he may go with all week, which was obviously Mason Holgate at right back and Ben Goff free at left back and left meaner and keen to try to cope with Olivier's your room. Obviously Ben Goff free's pace up against Teemo Vayner who is rapid and Goff free done superb all night. Brogylfi Sigurdzim back into midfield, had seen a few comments before kick off. Some people were nappy with that but I'm going to say it on here now and I don't say it that often. Sigurdzim was excellent tonight, he really was. So we went with the silly, trying to have a solid base which was the way to go against Chelsea. We couldn't have gone toe to toe in terms of attacking, trying to leave ourselves open. They would have cut us to shreds tonight and Antielotti changed it tonight. Bit more of a pragmatic approach, bit more of a defensive approach and Everton have won the game. Absolutely delighted with it. First off, although we started quite well actually it was great to see the fans back in the stadium. They'd make a difference actually and seeing the players come out to the applause and everything and the cheers and seeing the faces light up really. Absolutely brilliant to see Sigurdzim say he got goosebumps on the back of the neck and hair standing up on the back of the neck with the crowd being there. So fantastic as hopefully we can all be back in the stadium as soon as possible and have it really bouncing with 40,000 of us and for football fans up and down the country. Excellent tonight. I thought Everton started quite well and had one really good move which the Chelsea couldn't quite get out of his feet and then another good move, a sweeping move which Ritchie forced to shave out of Mendy but that was after Everton had taken the lead with a penalty. A long ball down the field by Jordan Pickford. Dominic Albert Llewman wins it comfortably in the air against Thiago Silva and then gets there before Mendy, the keeper who clatters into stonewall penalty and Guilffy Sigurdzim takes it absolutely brilliant. Gives Mendy the eyes and rolls it into the corner.  Chelsea were a constant threat. Rhys James at the inside of the post but it was an excellent save from Jordan Pickford to deflect it on and we had to be aware of the pace of Verna. We had to be aware of James. I thought it was really good for Chelsea tonight. I thought he had a great game. Olivier Girou was a constant threat but Everton worked really hard and yet he mean it had the header over the bar off a corner but Charleston like you say had a shot which Mendy got something behind and kept it out and there was a couple of moments where just the wrong decision didn't quite get us in when we'd advanced really well but what was really impressive in the first half was the fact that we always got back into shape. I thought Ben Godfrey was exceptionally left back and you know we got a hard time leading 1-0 delighted to be leading 1-0 and you knew that Chelsea were going to come out and be even stronger in the second half and he came out and got on the ball but Everton always carried a threat really did. I thought we had a second penalty in the game done brilliantly. It was pulled down by Ben Shill but it was a penalty but Caldor Lubin was observing it again and he was fractionally off from Alex a Wobie's ball. We had a couple of moments where it just couldn't find the right pass and then at the other end Chelsea like you say were always a threat and they just mounted a post with a free kick with Jordan Pickford done that taking a step one way and the ball went the other but luckily it the post and came out Olivier's you really flashed a shot over the crossbar but other than that Pickford you know he'd made the save of James free kick in the first half he wasn't you know massively troubled even though Chelsea did have a lot of the ball and that was due to Everton's defending bodies behind the ball throwing themselves in the way of things Michael Keane outstanding. Really say any of the players who were on the pitch at the back well I don't think that Charleston had his best game but he worked hard I thought he likes a Wobie who's on a good run now a good spell of form that he was excellent Sigarton like I said was excellent Worked his socks off got tackles in Alan and the Corry were brilliant Goffrey was brilliant Meen and Keane were fantastic Holgate was excellent and that little bit of Nadal as well from Holgate and Goffrey the little bit of you know mixing it with them we've seen it with Goffrey on one side we've seen it with Holgate and Seymol Verna on the other and you need that together and some players high five and each other when they got blocks in that kind of thing it's what you want to see and it's absolutely mad because Everton have come away with a clean sheet tonight the two clean sheets we've had are against Spades and Chelsea the two really really good sides and it's so frustrating some of the cheap goals we've given up in games but I'm just absolutely delighted with the winter night because Chelsea are an excellent side they really are and it's a brilliant win for us tonight it really is so delighted delighted for the 2000 they've got to go brilliant retain to go to Sumparch and what a result they've witnessed tonight yes we'll have to play better as we go forward creatively but I didn't know whether this team had this performance in them this kind of performance which had kind of regard as a David Moyes Everton from years ago type of performance to the walls and grind and how to win and they've done it tonight so up to seven, twenty points now four points off the top of the table and we've just got to hang on as best we can we're in a tough run now but that's a big win tonight for us a really really big win so I'm absolutely delighted man o de match, there was a lot of them Michael Keane was fantastic Jerry Mina was brilliant took one off Don Z which might have made it 2-0 but I'm gonna give it to Ben Godfrey who I thought was brilliant a left-backer game, was outstanding had one great run in the second half and just to be playing out of position and performing against Werner who I think is fantastic so Ben Godfrey was my man o de match but to be honest there was seven or eight of them who could have won it and I'm quite sure people will have a different of opinion sound, it's all opinions isn't it that's it for me matriaxing everyone else you know I made up we won the game they are atopside and we've beat them and now hopefully this will kick start us make sure you subscribe to the video with thumbs up and if you want more videos join us on Patreon have a great weekend, see you later


We like First Saturdays because of the art and the exhibits and the music. I came, I think, to the very, very first First Saturday. Jonathan and I used to come here on some of our very first dates to some of the very first first nights. And now... Ta-da! My most memorable moment was a concert that you had out in the parking lot. I wish them all the very best as I continue to do it. Happy Birthday! I love this museum. We love talking first day. And my favorite thing about First Saturdays is art. I used to bring my children when they were younger to the Brooklyn Museum. And now I bring my grandchildren to First Saturdays. It is fabulous. It's awesome. It's awesome. The cake was awesome. Awesome! And hooray for First Saturdays. And I'll cry if they ever stop First Saturdays. I've been coming to First Saturdays probably for about five years. And one of my favorite events that First Night has is the tango night. I come to Brooklyn Museum on Saturdays because I think it's just a great thing for the community. Happy Birthday! I wish you a happy anniversary and I'm looking forward to many more years of wonderful experiences.