Spanish Auction

22 September 2025

Today, an auction house in Barcelona, ​​unknown to us, is auctioning a pipe collection. Those familiar with the literature will recognize the material at a glance. It represents a significant portion of the Rhein Collection, a Swiss collection assembled in the 1960s and 1970s. A beautifully illustrated catalogue was even published in 1978. At this auction, our museum hopes to acquire several porcelain and meerschaum pipes that will constitute a significant addition to our collection. One remarkable curiosity in this public sale is a pipe bowl shaped like a high shoe, made in North Africa. A curious specimen that will certainly not be out of place in our museum.

Computer crash

12 September 2025

It can happen to all of us: a computer that "explodes". That's what happened to us this week. Fortunately, it wasn't that bad, but it was very disruptive. Suddenly, the computer became so slow that it took more than 10 seconds for a single letter to appear on the screen. Not workable. The first thought was: insufficient memory. So, a new, larger memory card was installed. That didn't help. A second expert thought the hard drive was damaged. Difficult to check, so we had a new drive installed. Finally, the computer was happy again, and so were we. Fortunately, we had recently made a completely new backup of all the files. So the damage was limited to endlessly copying and recopying data, with the loss of time involved.