It's a shame that they don't make their catalogue filterable by license. A lot of museums have everything available under CC0, but the British Museum only has some stuff under a creative cc BY-NC-SA.<p>It's ironic too given that it's a museum that's famous for having stored a lot of the world's most important archaeological treasures while destroying the chronology of the most important sites in the process.
I was surprised that I couldn't find Henry Maudslay's thread cutting lathe... Turns out the Science museum isn't a part of the British museum like I had assumed.
It could do with a flag field for "probably stolen from the collection by staff" and another for "ownership contentious"<p>The first would aide people who stumble over stolen goods and the second would be interesting.
I searched my US state, ready for horrors, and the first items shown were Reelect Ronald Reagan buttons. So I've now gone down a rabbit hole of searching US presidents, they have a surprising button collection. I like "Impeach the Cox-sacker" <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1985-1233-17" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1985-1233-...</a> and on the subject of Nixon, why is this $1 bill in <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_2016-4060-1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_2016-4060-...</a><p>Also, bizarrely, Nixon is listed as "Richard Nixon," Trump as "Donald Trump," Kennedy as "John F Kennedy," the Bush's as "President George Bush" and "President George W Bush," and for some reason Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama." Are they worried he'll be confused with all the other Barack Obamas? Why are only the Bush's "president?"<p>Searching "president," lists "President Saddam Hussein" so not only the Bush's. They also have Hussein toilet paper <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_EPH-ME-5" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_EPH-ME-5</a>