In no small part my delightful experience with Trash or Treasure was due to the great people involved, both the Plains Art Museum staff and the appraisers from Ivey-Selkirk. Certainly their respect for the objects and collectors themselves was communicated to all. They genuinely appreciated hearing the stories behind the objects — often saying things like, “That’s a great story,” and making other statements about the intrinsic and personal value the objects held. And I overheard them complimenting folks on how pretty pieces were too. But what really convinced me that these events are wonderful is the opportunity to learn more about what you have.

What I’m really getting to is the intimidation factor we collectors feel. We tend to belittle our collectibles, often making self-deprecating remarks about our collections, our collecting habits, and ourselves as collectors — striking first before someone else can. We tuck ourselves safely into groups by collecting theme and club not only for the fun of trading and networking with other collectors of the same objects, but for the relief that comes with feeling understood. Less often we mingle with collectors of other items because we believe (fear) they’ll judge ours. So it’s understandable when presented with the option of having professionals who deal in such high end items look at and evaluate our considerably lower-end items we assume that they will look down upon them.

But really most collectors of objects — any objects — and those professionals who make a living off of collectors get it. They get us. Sure, the fine arts guy may not personally love my woolie, but he can appreciate my love of the woolie and the fact that there are others like me. (And let’s face it, that’s where their money comes from!) The passion is understandable because while the object changes, the love of objects doesn’t.

When we attended the MPMA conference I was told by Monta Lee Dakin, the museum professional organization’s Executive Director, that museum staff values collectors. Not just because they want us to donate our stuff for free, but because they know collectors are working towards the same goals. We all want to preserve stuff — and the stories of stuff.

Dakin said that the museum world has worked very hard to not appear as ivory tower types. They want to work with collectors; they welcome our involvement. They are not bothered by phone calls & requests for identifying items. In fact, as Steve Friesen of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum said, they often count on collectors for the information they possess. “We can’t know everything; we’re often generalists who rely on collectors who specialize,” he said. He told many stories of times he has worked with private collectors. Sometimes the museum is helped; other times, the collector benefits from the information and experience of the museum staff. In either case, it’s a win-win.

All of this surprised me because, like the Trash or Treasure event, I felt that unless you had purchased something at Christie’s no museum would want it — or want to help you. But collectors shouldn’t hold this opinion. We should keep in mind what we have and contact the right professional, be it a museum or an appraiser, but we shouldn’t be intimidated by the museum or the high-end auction house. While contacting either museum or auction house isn’t a guarantee that your object will fit either of their goals, not contacting them certainly brings you no closer to yours.

So don’t be intimidated by professionals. Don’t limit your collection, your collecting, out of the unnecessary anxiety that the object won’t be loved or appreciated. Like parents with children, we have to accept that not everyone will love our objects as much as we do. But information from, and contact with, the world outside our doors isn’t a bad thing.

Derek’s review of Saving Stuff got me thinking…

The book is mainly about how to properly store items for centuries of survival, which is all well and good — except I wanna see my stuff!

Sure, it’s better for the photograph if I scan it, then properly put it away and use the digital scan to get copies for display. But is that better for me?

Call me crazy, but that photo of Aunt Meda Mae (who, by the way, is neither my aunt nor the aunt of anyone I know — I only know she’s Meda Mae because her name’s scrawled on the back, and, as I don’t know her very well, the title of ‘Aunt’ seems both the most respectful and friendly), that photo is imbued with magic.

In any old photo the magic lies in the fact that a person posed for this specific piece of paper. As noted before, my love of old photographs tells me that there’s something of the person’s spirit in that paper — or maybe it’s the other way around, and I love old photos because I feel spirit in that paper… Heck, I don’t know which is the chicken or the egg there, let alone which one came first.

Suggesting that I settle for a copy rather than the original makes me reply, “Why bother?”

Why own it to perserve hide it? That seems like cheating. I definitely feel ripped-off at the idea of putting the vintage photo of Aunt Meda Mae away for centuries, displaying the copy instead.

You know who should worry about preserving things? Museums. That’s their job. Well, that and displaying stuff; and I love museums for doing both.

Folks who work in museums are very much like the History Detectives, though most of them are far less well-known. But they should be. Their work and their dedication to it makes them some of the most fascinating people.

This is why I enjoy finding and reading good blogs by these folks. Like this post by Leslie Madsen Brooks. (It covers, among other things, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 145 cans of 100-year-old Captain Cookesley’s Consolidated Pea Soup and Custer’s dumbbell, so go read it.)

My point today, if I must have one, is that while I’m an excellent curator of my own personal collections I’d likely make a terrible museum worker. Not only would I want to keep everything (as in, “keep it in my home”), but I’d have a terrible time taking things off display and putting them into the archives (storage). If I can’t decide what one item of mine to take along for appraisal, what do you think it would be like for me to choose which things to favor with display? Or is it showing more favoritism to properly preserve it?

See what I mean.

While I’m certain that things must be preserved least they go the way of the dodo, I am equally certain that I am not the person for the job.

PS Leslie also has another blog where she’s just concluded post five on Museums and Social Networking Sites — sadly, Collectors’ Quest & its Community is not on her list (dare we pray for part six?).

I regret to inform you that your vinyl collection is doomed. The more you love it, appreciate it, listen to what it has encoded into its grooves, the faster the cruel turntable stylus is going to carve away microscopic bits of data from the record itself. With every pass of metal-against-plastic, friction degrades your music. Unfortunately, there are still music performances on vinyl that haven’t made the leap to CD or mp3 formats, which are far more enduring (however also far less romantic) means of data storage.

The answer to surviving this degradation is to break out your old records for one last go. Embark on one last frictional farewell through the grooves - but this time, hook your turntable up to your computer and record the sound directly into a digital format. In this way, the music enjoyed for years to come without endangering the source material.

Now, I’m on a Mac computer, so this mini-tutorial is geared towards those of us on the Light Side of the Force, but the principles are universal. You’re going to need :

- a turntable with RCA ‘line out’ jacks
- a Dual RCA to Stereo (Male) cable
- a Griffin iMic
- a free USB port on your computer
- a little program called Audio Hijack.

The previously mentioned Numark PT-01 Turntable has the requisite audio jacks, and if you have any kind of electronics around the house, chances are that you have the RCA-to-Stereo cable in a drawer somewhere too, given to you as an extra part from some other device.

Of course, the first thing to do it to hook all of these crazy future-things up in sequence, all of which perform the function of translating the analog sound from the vibrating needle of your turntable, and into a format that your computer can understand. The rounded, circular RCA ends of the ‘RCA / Stereo’ cable get plugged into the ‘line out’ jacks on the turntable itself, and the other end of this cable (with the single plug) gets plugged into the Griffin iMic.

The Griffin iMic has two places where you can plug this cable in. On older models, these are marked by icons for a microphone & a stereo speaker, as well as a switch to choose between them. Plug the cord into the jack with the ‘microphone’ icon, making sure that the switch is positioned towards said icon. The jack with the ‘stereo’ icon is more for sounds coming out of the computer - and we’re sending sounds in. The newer models are slightly different, but also suitably self-explanatory.

The iMic’s USB cable (the wide, rectangle one attached to the iMic itself) gets plugged into your computer, which will usually recognize it as an external device and be immediately ready to take audio input. If you’re working from a Windows computer, you might need to install the software that comes with the iMic, but you’re on your own there. I dare not to tread in the chaotic, syrupy mess that is making sense of Windows. Now, your computer is ready to listen.I legally purchased a copy of Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba Software (linked above) for 16 bucks, and it’s been a great investment.

The user interface is completely intuitive & it’s done a great job recording my records into a variety of formats - though mostly mp3 and AIFF (which is the format the CDs are usually in). Not only can you record vinyl into your computer using Audio Hijack - but you can record audio from any source that your computer can hear. Input possibilities include your radio, a microphone, the TV, podcasts, and audio that streams into your browser (without given you the option of saving those awesome sound files directly). You can snag songs from MySpace pages and put them on your iPod, and other such things involving modern lingo and odd capitalizations.

Once you select an audio source from the menu on the left of the AudioHijack screen, and hit the ‘HIJACK’ button, your computer will start to listen to the source and play it back for you. Hit ‘RECORD’ and it’ll start to make a file of the sound - and it’s that simple. You can edit the sounds that you’ve captured using things like Quicktime Pro (to cut out extra bits at the beginnings and ends of recordings) and SoundSoap. SoundSoap is a popular (but expensive) program that will help you remove pops and crackles from your recordings, but it’s far from magic, and you’ll end up losing a lot general fidelity in the process.

With this process, I’ve archived a vast number of albums, and it barely takes longer than the actual listening time of the album. Your process may different slightly, but there’s the general layout of it. Save those records while you can, and by all means, ENJOY THEM!

Once black Americana was a collectibles area reserved for blacks ‘of a certain age’, including celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Spike Lee, and Whoopie Goldberg, who wished to chronicle and document the struggles of their race, or historians of many colors. One collector told Pamela Wiggins why she collects and decorates her home with black Americana items: “I had to ask why she’d be interested in owning something so offensive… She wanted to own all types of Black Americana because they were a reflection of her cultural heritage. Her ancestors dealt with more hardships than she would, thankfully, ever know. But acknowledging these difficulties and triumphs through her varied collection reflected an important aspect of her lineage when incorporated into her home’s decor.”

But now younger African-Americans and others are buying these items and reproductions to decorate their homes. Some without the same motivations.

According to Howard Dodson, director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “There are two kinds of collectors of black Americana: those who are interested in collecting as a financial investment and those with a passion for finding ‘the missing pages of history.’”

Black Americana certainly is a wise investment. In an area where much was destroyed because it was offensive, ugly and degrading — destroyed as we Americans tried to purge the proof of our racism — authentic items are rapidly increasing in value. (It is also said that many African-Americans bought lots of racist items in the 1970’s and then promptly destroyed it all.)

Even reproductions have more value than you might think as collectors want to get their hands on something.

However, along with the usual concerns that valuable documentation of our history is not being properly saved, there is the question: Should Black Americana Be Bought & Sold?

There is also some concern that part of the drive in purchasing black Americana is pimpin’ black culture. That this adoption of old images and negative stereo-types is being glamorized in a perverse way. Like hip-hop’s bad ‘rap’ (pun intended), collecting black Americana is sweeping the nation in a concerning way.

Perhaps most concerning to me, a white woman of a certain age, is the number of white folks who are buying reproductions of black lawn jockeys.

Yes, white people with black lawn jockeys. In 2006 (and 2007 too, I guess).

Some claim it is to validate and honor Jocko Graves, the son of a free black soldier named Thomas Graves, who fought with George Washington. The story goes that Washington assigned the youth to safely remain on the Pennsylvania shore with the horses while they crossed the Delaware. Jocko was also to keep a lantern burning so George and the soldiers would know where to return after battle. When Washington and his army returned they discovered Jocko had frozen to death — still holding the horses and the lit lantern.

The story continues that Washington was so moved by Jocko’s devotion that he commissioned a statue in Jocko’s honor. Titled “Faithful Groomsman” the statue stood at Mount Vernon in honor of the young patriot.

This story is, at least in part, presented by Waymon LeFall who has written a children’s book, “The Legend of Jocko, Hero of the American Revolution”, as what he calls “a missing piece of African American history”. LeFall says that “lawn jockeys are not racist reminders of the days of slavery but monuments to an African American hero.”

But Professor Kenneth Goings, chairman of African-American and African Studies at Ohio State University and the author of the 1995 book “Mammy and Uncle Mose: Black Collectibles and American Stereotyping”, says this legend isn’t true. And in an October interview with ‘The Daily Journal’ Goings says the lawn jockeys are “very, very much racist symbols” and says that he’s amazed people can believe anything else. He continued to say black lawn jockeys are part of the Old South mythology: “They are meant to evoke that Old South, grand plantation, “Gone With the Wind” mythology, and I’m not sure they can evoke anything else.”

As a white woman perhaps I shouldn’t say anything on the subject of such racist symbols and what they mean… Afterall, I don’t want a man telling me (or the world) how to feel about witchhunts and symbols of misogyny. But ‘I do declare’, the black lawn jockey shouldn’t be on any white person’s property.

If you aren’t black and you collect black Americana, at least keep it within your home where it can have the context of your explanation — that it is for historical reasons, family ties, belief in Jocko’s patriotism, or whatever non-racist interest you have.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely appreciate the intentions in preserving the vanishing American history — and interest in the black experience. (I do the same in the name of feminism.) But if you’re white and have a black lawn jockey, don’t expect anyone else to know you believe in Jocko or that you’re a history buff. Don’t expect them to visit you to find out what your reason is.

Perhaps the one area in which you are least likely to feel “like a museum” or a curator is that, at least in the beginning, you may not have defined your collection. Museums have a plan which includes the definition of their collection, generally before their first purchase is made. In part they do this for funding as they have to answer to a board of directors, benefactor, or other funding source — often they do before they get or expand a location.

You might not think so, but in many ways you and your private museum have many luxuries that ‘real museums’ don’t have. Some of the larger museums may ‘win’ in the bigger budget department, but you don’t have the same accountability — unless it’s to get the spouse to agree to that floor-to-ceiling shelving unit for those Smurfs. You may attend an auction with the intentions of acquiring a specific piece and it the price goes too high, you are still allowed to spend your alloted amount at the auction on something else. This may not be so for a museum which has been given (granted) funds for one specific item. You may have to ask or include your spouse in decisions regarding purchases, but this is relatively little compared to grant proposals and accounting for every penny in your budget.

However, you can learn from museum curators.

One of the first things curators do is to define the purpose of the collection.

What is it they are trying to preserve?

Why is this important? To whom?

What is scope of the collection?

Is there a specific time period, artist, movement etc which has a natural contained set of parameters, or must they create a somewhat artificial yet natural cut-off point?

They not only ask themselves these questions, but they answer them. This becomes their Mission Statement, outlining the philosophy of the collection as well as identifying specific pieces which are ‘must haves’, and the objectives of the museum. (The Smithsonian website has an excellent section on this.)

Thinking in terms of what your collection means, its scope etc. is challenging. It often requires that we put into words what we do not consciously think about. For most of us, our collections weren’t planned. It started with just one impulsive Smurf purchase, and before you knew it you found yourself buying new shelving just to house them all. But answer the questions; this is where the really intersting stuff lies.

Why do you collect these things? What does it represent? Is there a central piece? What does each piece mean, and what does it mean as a collection, a whole?

At first, some of these questions may seem silly. How can you seriously discuss preserving the integrity of Smurfs, circa 1980? Or write down ‘why Smurfs are important to me’ in 100 words or less?

But once you start to answer these questions, you are on your way to a definition. With definition comes purpose. Now you can begin to articulate what you are looking for to form, organize and complete your collection.