Documenting Collections

Some collections are precious enough to want to physically protect them from fire, flood and burglars, and to take out insurance. Unfortunately, however, physical protection measures often reduce ease of access – especially the extreme solution of storing the collection in a bank vault; and insurance can’t get the collection back – it only provides monetary compensation. Whatever forms of protection are taken, however, it is best supported with full documentation of the objects concerned. An index and digital versions of the objects will enable full details to be provided to police and/or the insurance company.

Another circumstance  in which collection documentation is useful is when drawing up a will. This will require a clear statement of what collections you possess and what you want done with each one. This could involve passing them on to a relative, friend, or organisation; sending them for sale at auction; or even destroying them. Regardless of the chosen destinations, having a clear understanding of what collections you have and what they consist of will be an important pre-requisite to making the will; and lists, indexes and digital versions of the objects concerned will be helpful. The statements about what you want done with each collection can be made in the will proper or in an auxiliary document referred out to by the will. This latter approach enables updates to be made without having to get the will rewritten and witnessed, and can be employed by using a phrase such as the following in the will proper, “My Executor may be guided in the location and distribution of these items by the document ”XXXX” stored as an electronic file in my laptop”. I have such a document myself in the form of a spreadsheet with the following columns: Ref No, Category, Description, Location, Preferred Destination, Alternative Destination. The following note is included at the top of the document:

If the Preferred Destination doesn’t want the item, it is to be offered to the Alternative Destination; and if the item is not wanted by the Alternative Destination either, the Preferred Destination can choose the destination.

The categories are defined as:

  • Family History: Of little value to anybody outside the family
  • Family Heirloom: Keep until the family wants to realise its value
  • Temporary Value: May have some immediate use and then has no value
  • Has Value: Somebody, somewhere, may want this
  • No Value: Can be thrown away

For all these purposes – police, insurance company, and will – a clear list of what objects are contained in your collections, preferably accompanied by images of the items, will be very useful. Today’s computing technology makes it easy to assemble and maintain such indexes, lists, and digital images, regardless of the type of collections they are referring to.

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