After reading about the four quilts that are missing from the Salt Lake show, I started wondering:
Has anyone considered microchipping for quilts for identification purposes?
Microchips are about the size of a small grain of rice (smaller than a cotton seed). The ones injected into animals are in a tiny glass capsule (no, they don't break) and consist of a tiny chip with a number and a strand of copper wire wound round it. When stimulated by the radio waves from a scanner at close distance (less than a couple inches), the antenna starts broadcasting the chip number. The scanner picks up the number and then the operator looks the number up in a database to discover who the chip is registered to.
Microchips do not act as GPS devices; that would require magnitudes more power and would generate too much heat at the site of the chip. What they do is act as a unique identifier, which can deter thieves. My dogs, who are both pets and champions, are all microchipped to deter theft and so that if they ever do disappear, I will have an indisputable way of identifying them.
In a quilt, I think the microchip could be hidden in the batting, maybe in the binding, so the bulk would keep it from being felt by someone with ill intentions.
Unlike a label, a microchip would be invisible and difficult to get rid of.
Does anyone think microchipping valuable quilts is the wave of the future?