RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1250 Copyright © Rinker Enterprises, Inc. 2011

So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh - Part I

          So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
          So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
          So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
          This dusty old dust is a-getting’ my home,
          And I got to be driftin’ along
                         “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,”
                          lyrics by Woody Guthrie

Linda’s and my move from Vera Cruz/Emmaus, Pennsylvania, to Brookfield, Connecticut, in June 2006 did not seem like a move.  First, Linda planned to remain at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury for two years.  When she finished, she would retire and we would return to Vera Cruz.  Two years turned out to be four and one-half.  Second, I did not sell 5093 Vera Cruz Road, the former Vera Cruz Elementary School, which contains an apartment, the offices and research center of Rinker Enterprises, and my collections.  We returned to Vera Cruz on average three weeks of every month for the first two and one-half years we lived in Connecticut for the purpose of visiting with Linda’s mother Catherine.  After Catherine passed away in February 2009, we still maintained a pattern of visiting at least once, more often twice, a month.

In the fall of 2009, I made a decision to sell 5093 Vera Cruz Road.  A process I thought would be over in a few months took eighteen.  I sold “The School” on December 15, 2010.  While the new owner has rented me space for a year, I now face the inevitable “what is going to happen to all that stuff” decision.

In anticipation of a move, Linda, I, Ron Kemp, “Cap” Schmeltzle, and others have been packing things for the past year.  Linda and I moved our most prized possessions to Connecticut, realizing that while the move might be temporary, it was better than storing them at “The School.”

Fate has strange ways of intervening.  In less than a week, Linda, I, and our possessions, at least those that we plan to take along, will move from Brookfield and Vera Cruz to Michigan.  I am making decisions – hard decisions – I never thought I would have to make.  My initial hope was to retire and die in Vera Cruz.

The distance of the move has impacted the decision making process.  Much of a move’s cost is based on weight – the greater the weight, the greater the cost.  When we moved from Vera Cruz to Brookfield, we paid a mover to transport the larger pieces.  We moved the smalls between Vera Cruz and Brookfield one carload at a time.  This is not an option in our present situation.  When Linda and I return “home’ to Pennsylvania, we plan to fly and rent a car rather than drive.

We rented a 2,500 square foot townhouse in Brookfield.  Because we planned a short stay, we moved a minimum of things.  Yet, all the empty space soon filled up, much of it with items we bought while living in Brookfield.  Linda keeps mumbling while packing: “How did we acquire all these things?”  How is irrelevant.  Did is the operable word.

The good news, depending on one’s point of view, is that we bought a 2,800 square foot home with a finished basement and two large storage areas in Kentwood, Michigan.  Not only can it house what we have in Brookfield, but also many of the furniture, fine arts, and decorative pieces currently stored in Vera Cruz.

The big question is: how long will Linda and I stay in Michigan?  We plan to retire to Pennsylvania when Linda’s academic career ends.  But, this is what we thought when we moved to Connecticut.

Davenport University asked Linda for a three- to five-year commitment.  She agreed in principle.  Given this, does it not make more sense to leave the greater bulk of our things in Pennsylvania and only take “what we need” to Michigan?

The answer is no—a big, bold no.  I do not want to live without the things I love.  I love Linda.  Do not misinterpret this.  As long as we are together, everything is fine.  However, I also love my things.  I want to be surrounded by them.  I want to see them when I wake up in the morning and go to bed at night.  I want to use, hold, and enjoy them.

Things are a reflection of who we are.  Our Connecticut furnishings reflected more Linda’s tastes than mine.  I had no problem with this.  It was temporary.  Besides, I could always escape back to Vera Cruz.

Kentwood will be the first blending of our things.  We created a decorative scheme that mixes family heirlooms, personal favorites, and joint purchases.  The final selection of what we are taking required compromise.  The Vera Cruz 1950s living setting with its 1962 Wurlitzer jukebox will remain behind.  Some of Linda’s prints and artwork will be sacrificed in favor of my canal-theme paintings and prints and Fraktur.

When children, relatives, and friends find out you are moving, everyone put in their dibs for things.  It took convincing, but Linda finally accepted that “we come first.”  Disappointment will reign, especially among some of the children.  However, we were not ready to give up certain things and refused to be forced to do it.  While I foresee problems if we sell rather than move some of these things when we leave Michigan, this is now and that is then.  “It is time to move on” has multiple meanings in any move.

I am an accumulator.  I dislike the term hoarder, although many who know me would say it applies.  I saved much of my high school and college homework.  It is not being moved to Michigan. There are dozens of boxes filled with the research I did to answer the questions that appeared in “Rinker on Collectibles” Q & A columns.  This is not moving to Michigan either.  The big question is whether it is moving to the dump/landfill.  I saved it in anticipation of a time when I would separate the material and place it in the subject folders in my research file cabinets now stacked in a row in the auditorium of “The School” with multiple layers of boxes filed on top of them.  “The longer you keep something, the harder it is to throw it out” applies.  I also have to make a decision because four and one-half years worth of Q & A column answers are located in Brookfield.

I love my things, but I worship my reference library.  I spent thirty years creating one of the most comprehensive antiques and collectibles research libraries in America.  I know of only one better.  It belongs to She Who Will Not Be Named who lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio.  The reference library contains more than just books.  It also includes more than a dozen vertical files filled with more than fifteen years of clippings from trade papers and periodicals filed by subject matter.  Four drawers in one cabinet contain catalogs from reproduction houses and other materials relating to authenticating.  There is an extensive collection of old trade catalogs.  The auction house catalogs date back to the 1920s.  There are over a hundred boxes filled with copies of trade periodicals and magazines, most of which are no longer in existence.  An on-site auction would last a day, if not longer.  I do not want to break it up, but where am I going to find a buyer?  I considered approaching several libraries, but I doubt if they would accept it without a donation of additional funds to maintain it.  I cannot afford to move or store it.

The biggest question of all is: can I continue to serve the antiques and collectibles trade without a reference library?  At the moment, I still have to consult a reference book for one out of every three questions I answer in my Q & A columns.  Further, I do not trust much of the information on the Internet.  Earlier today I watched a video that contained the claim that the information in Wikipedia is as reliable as that found in the Encyclopedia Britannia.  I do not believe this, not even for one second.

Thus far, I have packed three archival file boxes marked “Material to be sorted through.”  I did not sort through it during the four and one-half years it resided or was created in Connecticut.  While I have resolved to do so in Michigan, I wonder when I am going to find time.  I already am making plans to return to teaching and starting a new business.  The only good news is that there are seven medium-sized Home Depot boxes that read “Paper Scrap / Garbage,” the result of a preliminary sort in Connecticut.

Rinker Enterprises and Harry L. Rinker are on the Internet.  Check out www.harryrinker.com.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time.  If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

SELL, KEEP OR TOSS?  HOW TO DOWNSIZE A HOME, SETTLE AN ESTATE, AND APPRAISE PERSONAL PROPERTY (House of Collectibles, an imprint of the Random House Information Group, $16.95), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.