Jaques d'Alltrades wrote in
:

I wonder how many enquiries they get per month? I really don't know
but I also wonder how much of their staff they can afford to dedicate
to ID requests. Just a thought...

Well, the British Museum probably aren't any better off.

Most museums have specific resources devoted to ID-ing weird stuff that is
brought in off the street by the general public. It's part of the public
service remit, (or it used to be when I did my museum studies postgrad
course in 1995).

Often there's a day when whatever curator pulled the short straw sits in a
booth and tells endless Aunty Marys that her granny's flatiron is certainly
interesting, but probably not valuable, and unfortunately the museum
already has one in the collection...

Kew as a botanical gardens probably has a different tradition.

Victoria