Jean Moulin University beholds a collection of 300 tools, weapons and daily life objects from Africa, Far East and America dated of the end of 19th century. Some recent investigations into several series of archives (Archives Municipales de Lyon, Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Lyon, Centre de Documentation du Musée des Tissus de Lyon) have provided some hints of the history of this “colonial” collection. It was gathered in order to adorn colonial mansions in various world exhibitions and especially in the one in Lyon in 1894; then it was preserved in the Musée colonial of the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Lyon, but it was scattered when the museum was closed in 1947. Part of the collection was then offered to the Faculté des Lettres de Lyon, on request of André Leroi-Gourhan who was teaching colonial ethnology. Abandoned and vandalized for a long time, the collection —which first amounted about to 1500 pieces— had been loosing much of its substance until one of us (SAB) was appointed at the University. She decided to propose students, especially Sandra Vaillant, to classify and identify these objects, and to reconstitute their itinerary.