The first stop we made was in the basement of downtown’s JFK Library where the McCune Collection resides. The McCune Room houses rare and unique books, printing equipment and binding tools left as a bequest to the City of Vallejo by Dr. Donovan J. McCune.
There we were given an outstanding show and tell program, by the docents who showed off their favorite rare books including the fore edge painting below. The painting of the Florence skyline is invisible when the book is closed, but is revealed by bending the book.
(Click to see larger photo)
After the presentation we were turned loose to explore the collection, at which point our volunteers donned gloves and got down to business.
After a picnic in the park we got back on the bus and headed over to the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum.
This museum is an interesting and inevitable mix of maritime history and local history which are inextricably linked due to the fact that Vallejo was once a Navy yard.
Like every other maritime museum, this one is awash with miniatures of ships as well as cases full of old navigational equipment.
They also had this giant miniature 1/3 scale model of a ship’s bowsprit, jibs and forecastle pushing through the back wall of the building and overhanging the stairway.
One thing none of us had ever seen in a museum was a working submarine periscope that allowed the viewer a rooftop 360 degree view of the city.
At the end of the trip, Ralph managed to wrestle all of us out of the gift shop, where their inventory of See’s Candy was on sale, and back onto the bus for the drowsy trip home.
For information on volunteering at our museums, collections or archives, click the link below.
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