About The Artifact Collection

The Bakken Museum has roughly 2,500 artifacts listed in 18 categories.  Items may belong to more than one category.  For example, an electrostatic kit from the 18th century may be listed as a generator, a storage case, electrodes, a Leyden jar; whatever items were in the box that held the kit.  On this website, items are listed by their most noticeable attribute.  You can learn a lot about a collection by studying the categories it is sorted into.

More links will be added as time goes on including pictures, essays and commentary.  If a picture of an object is shown, the object is in the museum´s collection.  (A note about the pictures: Several were taken many years ago, in black-and-white.  Some are more modern, in color.  Some are portraits, taken by professionals.)

If you would like to consult The Bakken Museum about an instrument or artifact that you own, please contact Juliet Burba, Curator of Instruments, at 612-926-3878 ext. 217 or via e-mail using her last name @thebakken.org, and if possible, include a photograph of the artifact.

The Bakken Museum does not provide monetary values for artifacts; if you are looking for such information, contact dealers of antique scientific and medical instruments. Here are two guides to information on dealers: http://www.surveyhistory.org/dealers.htm and http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/index.htm