Was it only a week ago I was spending all of my days at the Radisson Hotel here in Fargo for the MPMA’s Annual Conference? Really? Time’s a funny thing — it flies by and you try to absorb all you can, and then it’s time to remember everything and you’re left thinking, “Was that only a week ago?” Or maybe I’m just getting older. (Thank goodness I took great notes, and have a slew of contacts to follow-up with for weeks — months? a lifetime? — to come.)

Once the conference ended on Friday, no longer were hubby and I journalists covering the antiques and collectibles beat but we’d resumed our (ab)normal identities as individual collectors and so bright & early Saturday morning we ‘found’ ourselves at a farm auction.

Every auction it’s the same thing. We tell ourselves we’re not going to get anything, that we’re just going for the educational value (to see what’s there, what the market will bear, etc.) but somehow the paddles always end up high in the sky. That’s how we ended up with that stained glass window from a 100 year old church, boxes of church china, and numerous other items. This past Saturday was no exception.

Now you might think I’m winding up to tell you how ‘we’ ended up with a large bucket of metal weights you put on the horns of bulls (cut ‘em, cover ‘em and not only are there no more points to deal with, but the weights make the horns curve downward). We got them; but I’m not going to talk about that. Instead, what I’m going to tell you about is how hubby and I ended up with at least a quarter of a trailer’s worth of boxes for just $2 — bringing our entire auction damages total to $27 (and for some perspective, our winnings filled the entire van — a conversion van, no less).

More specifically, I’m going to tell you how others at the auction reacted.

As soon as we won, the auction team thanked us for taking so much junk off their hands. “Thank you! I’ll buy you guys lunch!” they said as they scurried off to the next trailer load.

I stayed with the winnings while Derek went to get the van — not just because I’m ‘the girl’ but because someone had to slap hands. (There were a lot of hands, even after I told them several times this was not for sale.) And as it turns out, I also stayed behind to deal with the gawkers & talkers.

Several ladies walked up, one by one, to ask why we bought all those boxes.

“Do you have a store?”

“What are you going to do with all of those old crafting magazines?”

And my favorite, “You don’t have a compact car, do you, dear?”

With all the individuals shooting questions at me I now had to defend myself, my actions, my purchases.

I also realized that Derek and I were quite the entertainment for many of the folks. Sitting in their lawn chairs they talked about us like we were on TV and couldn’t hear them.

“Boy, he sure is making a lot of trips with those boxes.”

“Yah, sure, you bettcha! They bought most of that trailer full, doncha know.”

“What are they going to do with all them boxes?”

“I wonder how many magazines that is?”

To them, our purchase was very large — ridiculously large.

I, in fact, had no idea how many items we’d purchased. While I have marvelous visual spatial skills (I can determine what piece of furniture will fit in what space and pack a car full of odd shaped items far better than my husband), I’d not even considered what the number of individual objects were… At this point all I knew was with a van packed for just $27 each item cost just a few pennies. That was cool.

But then it occurred to me: Just how many objects do I own?

Flash back to the MPMA conference.

It’s Wednesday, September 12, 2007, and I’m sitting in a conference room for a session called “This Old Collection Storage: Extreme Makeover Edition.” Two museum professionals are giving an overview on major renovations in vault and storage space at their museums.

Included in all the talk of storage units, lighting, HVAC systems for climate control, and fire suppression was data on the cost of the projects broken down by each of the above as well as by the cost of storage supplies such as archival boxes, tissue and ethafoam. Or course, in order for the proper size, type and amount of those supply items to be purchased, museum staff needed exact item counts. The numbers were amazing, so I scribbled some down.

9,542 works on paper
3,750 decorative art pieces
700 pieces of silver

Wow, that’s just one museum. Those numbers are huge, right? I know I don’t have 700 pieces of silver — but after this past Saturday’s auction, what’s my paper count at?

I suddenly feel very nervous…

Why did we buy all those boxes? What are we going to do with it all?

Should we maybe get a compact car?

Or maybe I should just visit a museum or another collector with more items and let that change my perspective.

This week, Fargo, ND has been the host of the Mountain-Plains Museum Association’s annual convention. This association of western museums, established in 1953, works to bring together the various art museums, historical museums, and specialized museum collections in ten states to exchange ideas, information, cooperate on projects and exhibits, and generally show support for others in their industry. The Wifey and I, upon finding out such a resource was coming to Fargo, decided we should go see what they’re up to. Most collectors ultimate goal is the Ultimate Collection: the inclusive, cared-for accumulation of neat, beautiful, historic, and emotionally-imbued items. It turns out that museums — casting off the stuffy ’skulls on shelves’ stereotype — have the same interests and desires as private collectors. On behalf of CollectorsQuest.com, D and I were given access to visit with, learn from, and hob-nob with experts and scholars of the museum world. We’ll be writing more this weekend, after the convention ends on Friday.

We are interested in finding out what museum curators can offer to collectors like ourselves and our readers, and to understand what a museum means to a collection. It turns out that the line between a collector and a museum is a blurry gray line: depending on the situation, a collection changes from private ownership to public display easily, provided everyone understand the value in the collection. Monta Lee Dakin, Executive Director of the MPMA, explained that museums can provide valuable education to collectors, from preservation to providing history and context to an item. While museums aren’t exactly appraisers a’la Antiques Roadshow, they can help collectors by identifying fakes, teach where the value lies in an item, and make sure the collection will survive in the best of conditions, whether the collection remains in private hands or is passed to a museum. Monta Lee added, “the museum might be the future depository for that collection, however small, big or small — even small collections like postcards could be very important to a museum because its typically subject matters that interest the museum.”

Museums are limited by the same problems private collectors have: space and money. Once upon a time, a collector’s will could award their entire collection to a museum, or people could trust a museum to accept ‘all-or-nothing’ offers of miscellaneous collectibles. Today, however, museums have become more picky in their acquisitions, to remain true to their collection’s mission and on the understanding that the time, space, and money devoted to an unnecessary item might be better devoted to a more important asset. Deciding what is ‘museum-quality’ or not is best left to the curator or collections manager, Monta Lee said. “[A curator] never knows what’s going to walk in the door,” she said, “so you never say, ‘it’s not significant’. You always say, ‘I’d like to see it.’” Monta Lee encouraged that all collectors who suspect that their collection might have value to a museum should talk to the museum long before they have any interest in parting with their items. Preparation gives a museum a chance to consider the value (not necessarily monetary) of the collection, figure out what is needed or not needed, and possibly direct the collector to another museum if the collection isn’t a good fit.

This issue of folks saying, “You have to take it all,” was made quite real over lunch. Sitting on Wifey’s left was Sarah Allen, Museum Technician for the Knife River Indian Village National Historic Site, who told a story of coming into work one day to a donated cow-pie. “Why do we have a cow-pie?” she asked. “It was part of donation,” was the reply. Allen told Wifey that there already was a bison-pie in her exhibit (half solid, half powder to illustrate the powdered-bison-poo’s use as talcum powder for baby bottoms) so she had no use for the ‘typical’ cow-pie. Now it was up to the museum to find away to dispose of the cow-pie, along with other unwanted items — a tricky obstacle, because once items are owned by a museum they cannot be deaccessioned without a specific protocol followed, if at all.

The issue of museum assets exceeding the abilities of a museum was the subject of a Wednesday morning seminar called “The Sustainability of Historic Places,” focusing on the preservation of historical locations that may be neglected due to lack of funding, public support, or poor financing. Various curators and preservationists met in 2002 at the Kykuit historical site to discuss how to sustain historical locations in the most cost-effective, yet efficient within the goals of the museum, to avoid a historic building being damaged, torn down, or otherwise abandoned by the museum community. As you might expect, preserving one historical building is far more resource-devouring than maintaining an one painting or artifact, moreso if the building itself doubles as a small museum with a collection of its own. A large part of the Kykuit solutions involve turning to the private sector for assistance, including antique collectors and restorers. If a historical building cannot sustain itself as a run-of-the-mill museum, these curators and experts recommend — under supervision — historical buildings be turned over to the care of individuals or businesses who may repurpose the building from a purely exhibit status to alternative uses, ranging from a livable home to a convention center. Many historical places, like the Richland Center City Auditorium we visited earlier this summer, can be a historical place, managed with attention to the historical value of the building, without making it completely a museum’s responsibility through the help of other interested groups.

If having an entire historical building in your care sounds a bit overwhelming, Steve Friesen of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in Golden, CO, told us how collectors are often of great value to a museum as experts and resources. While a curator can do their best, he explained, to know as much as possible about the collections they manage, they are unable to know everything. When in need of help, a museum appreciates the help of a specialist — often a private collector — who can offer their knowledge to the benefit of the museum’s collection. One example Friesen described is an exhibit of classic old-west firearms, owned by a private collector. While this exhibit has obvious value to the Museum, Friesen recognized that he and his crew couldn’t provide the care for the collection that the owner, himself, could. Also, as we learned in the ’sustainability’ session, many small museums are run and managed almost entirely by volunteers, people from the community who have seen the benefit of their work and knowledge to assist a museum in providing the most value to its community.

The more we’ve listened, questioned, and chatted with these professionals, the more it has cemented the fact that museums call their contents a collection for a reason — it’s not really that different from how any of us build our own collections. In upcoming articles, we’ll cover more specifics on what the general collecting community can learn from the experts, the collectors who’ve made collecting an art and a profession.