King family donates postcard collection to museum

Since it’s opening in 2001, the Museum of Belize has welcomed more than twenty thousand visitors from home and abroad. And while there are two main exhibitions on display: the history of the Mayas and Belize City, as time passed, several additions have been made. This morning, the museum added a new segment: a four hundred and ninety-seven piece collection of picture postcards, property of the late Eric King and family. According to King’s children, the collection that started out as a hobby has transcended to become an important part of Belize’s history.

Alistair King, Son of Eric King

“It was something he loved doing, and he was a stamp collector as well, so these postcards and a lot of these stamps, came about when he went to different parts of the world he would go an buy a lot of these postcards and stamp collections. So that’s how he got into a lot of these photographs, he and Miss Meg Craig, Father Dieckman, Mr. Emory King, all of them used to get together and compare notes. That was their life, they just loved doing that.”

“We feel very good, very proud about it and I’m glad that Belize has benefiting from it, as he would be. He was big on Belize, he’s buried in Belize, so this is his legacy here right.”

Gilvano Swasey, Curator, Museum of Belize

“A lot of people come to us and say will you buy this from us, but we cannot buy these things because first of all they are priceless in that sense and then if we start buying then we won’t be able to do any exhibitions. The main reason why we have these exhibitions at the museum right now is because everything was donated to us. It doesn’t have to be the hard copy, like for example with the King file, we have turned it into media. Of course, they will always get recognition whenever we put the image out, we will let people know that it wasn’t just the museum who found these things. So if you have a piece, an object or whatever…object would be better if we get the real thing than a copy of it. But if it’s an object, if it’s images, say it’s some old family shots that you think is important, we welcome for you to bring it to us.”

The museum of Belize is open to the public Tuesdays to Sundays.