Museum Godeffroy

Captains of vessels, traders and missionaries received exact instructions and appropriate equipment so that they could collect soft bodied animals into alcohol, properly set butterflies or beetles, and prepare bird and mammal skins and skulls.

Throughout the museum's history it also sold human skulls from the Pacific regions (including Australia) where the company had a monopoly.

Anthropometry and "Missing Link" theories required especially Aborigine skulls and these were sold to scientific institutions and museums worldwide.

The more important material was sold to Otto Finsch and Rudolf Virchow, then pre-eminent German physical anthropologists.

Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, butterflies, beetles and other insects, marine life (especially shells), masks, totems, costume, weapons, personal ornament and anthropological subjects, aboriginal skulls, photographs of native peoples and so on were displayed in small cases.

The Semper brothers, also from Hamburg, Otto (1830–1907), Karl (1832–1893) and Georg (1837–1909) played an important part in the assembly and conservation of the museum's holdings.