York Castle Museum

Object Identification

How we can help

Our curatorial team have a great deal of expertise about our own collections and are happy to help try and identify your objects. Across York Museums Trust, we cover a wide range of subjects including archaeology, biology, costume and textiles, decorative art, fine art, geology, military history and social history.

Please provide as much information about the object as you can, including, if possible, a detailed description, a photograph, and the exact location where it was found or bought. Regrettably, we cannot give advice on items for sale and cannot give valuations.

If you are enquiring about an object we own, that you have seen photographed or published, please try and provide as many details as you can about where you saw it.

To make an enquiry, please contact the most appropriate curator. Click here to meet our curatorial team. Please bear with us if you do not receive a reply straight away. We will get back to you as soon as possible but some enquiries do take up to a month.

Please note, curators based at our sister museum, the Yorkshire Museum, cannot offer this service at present, as they are dedicating their time to the refurbishment of the museum, which re-opens on 1 August with five new themed galleries.

If you find an archaeological object

Click here for more information about the archaeological finds identification service offered at the Yorkshire Museum. This is still operating during the closure.