Code Name: Investor's Museum

I confess. The projects I've worked on haven't worked out very well.

Perhaps the ideas are too grand.

So I decided to try a new idea. This is an idea that can fit in a room or that can line a blank wall in a hotel.

The purpose of the idea is to raise awareness of the importance of ownership. I've given the project the working title of an "Investor's Museum."

The goal is to create a museum filled with interesting items. The items in the investor's museum are owned by people in the community and entrusted to the museum.

Imagine a room filled with interesting objects such as paintings, antique furniture, collectibles, historical artifacts and other items of interest. Each item would have a number and a QR code. Taking a picture of the QR code loads a page about the item. The page would have a description of the item, an appraisal value. The page would also include software that allows patrons to bid on the items. The bidding contract restricts the buyer from taking the item out of the museum. The buyer will place a new price on the item.

The investor's museum is a game. The museum creates a market where people can buy and sell art pieces in a controlled setting.

The information about the different items would be displayed on web pages. These pages should become a valuable reference tool for people who buy and sell antiques as the pages would give some clue as to how the price of artworks vary with time.

This particular project can be implemented without substantial cost. To get the program going, one would need a room in a shopping mall or shopping center. There is a great amount of vacated retail space on the market right now.

The items for the museum would come from the thousands of people who have interesting items in their attics and garages that they would be willing to sell for a good price.

The basic program for the web pages and bidding process is easy to write. The software that handles the money would be difficult.

I am not going into the full details of what the project is doing. The basic idea that I want to put forward in this first post is that the investor's museum would be a privately held museum. The items in the museum would be owned by the public at large. Each of the items would have appraisal and pricing information so that people can learn how the prices of antiques and artworks vary with time.