Philliness and the Family Jewels!

Cash-strapped Philadelphia museum to sell minerals, gems
10/22/2006, 1:08 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Trustees of the cash-strapped Academy of Natural Sciences are selling more than 15,000 minerals and gems that haven't been cleaned or displayed for decades in a deal estimated to be worth several million dollars.

Workers began boxing up specimens for an unnamed private dealer after trustees voted Tuesday for the sale, acting academy president Ian Davison told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Sunday's editions.

The city's natural-history museum received permission for the sale from Orphans Court Judge Joseph D. O'Keefe. The academy must return to court for permission to sell its remaining 7,000-odd pieces — including silver, gold, diamonds and everyday quartz — because William S. Vaux, who donated them 123 years ago, requested that they never be sold.