I went to a small ‘dinosaur museum’ last summer in South Bend Indiana. I wasn’t expecting much, but found myself disappointed that all the large displays (except one) were ‘replicas’. I’m not sure why I felt this way, since all fossils are ‘copies’. But ‘replica’ makes it seem fake.
edit: I think this is being misinterpreted. In my mind, all fossils are ‘copies’ of the original. The bone is gone, replaced by stone. But for some reason, calling something a replica doesn’t carry the same…majesty as the original copy. Maybe it’s just the thought that it could have been tampered with when making it out of plastic or fiberglass.


Very often, it’s the other way around, museum are a storage plage for scientific/historical/artistic artifact and the be in display is a bonus.
Government own many objects that have an important historical value, and they can’t sell them (beside law, imagine the scandal if the French gov sell the mona Lisa or if US gov sell Neil amstrong spacesuit) so better having them in public display