And some are bought at auction, with museum experts waiting up until the early hours to out-bid rival collectors. Julia Bradshaw, senior curator of human history at Canterbury Museum, says they monitor international auctions to see what items are coming up for sale. If objects have a connection to Christchurch, Canterbury or Antarctica, staff put together a proposal to purchase them.
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Shackleton received medals from around the world in recognition of his achievements in Antarctica. “We bought these medals at auction in 2016 because Shackleton has such an important Antarctic story,” Bradshaw says. Most of the medals were awarded before the ill-fated Endurance expedition (1914–1917) and recognised the success of the Nimrod party (1907-1909).