RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1340

Copyright © Rinker Enterprises, Inc. 2012

Collecting Checklists

The desire to collect is inherent in everyone.  Once the desire is triggered, the collector assembles a collection.  The initial acquisition period is accelerated.  Once in love with a collecting category, the collector acquires everything he/she sees and can afford.  As the period of initial enthusiasm wanes, the pace of acquisition slows.  The collector becomes more selective and sophisticated.

The collector begins to structure his/her collection into subcategories.  Secondary material such as advertising items and manufacturers’ catalogs are added to the collection.  The collection expands beyond a display case or room.  The collector develops an interest in the origin and the history of the objects and builds a reference library, at first focused on books devoted to the specific collecting category but quickly expanding into books about the general category into which the collecting category falls, for example, ceramics, collectibles, glass, furniture, or toys.

The collector also becomes fascinated with questions such as how many items were made, what variations exist, how many manufacturers were involved, and how long did a particular object remain in production.  These simple questions are complex.

Most manufacturers do not maintain company archives.  Manufacturers focus on the future, not the past.  For those companies that had the foresight to create and maintain archives, the information usually is lost when the company is sold or ceases operation.   When a company faces economic issues, archive funding is one of the first budget cuts.

When I was the director of archival research at Historic Bethlehem (PA) from 1966 through 1968, I had the privilege of visiting the Bethlehem Steel Company archives on several occasions.  A small dedicated group of employees built an extensive collection of documents, fine art, literature, and photographs relating to the Bethlehem plant, the company’s affiliates, companies acquired by Bethlehem Steel, and the industry as a whole.  Bethlehem Steel no longer exists.  The fate of its archives and collection is unknown.  It was not donated as a unit to any archive or museum.

In August 2012, I received an e-mail question from a listener to WHATCHA GOT?, my antiques and collectibles call-in radio show, asking about a Corning Opelle Christmas ornament she owned.  Unable to locate a list on the internet, I contacted Yvette Sterbenk at the Corning Museum of Glass asking if she could provide me with a list of the Opelle ornaments Corning produced.  A month later, I received an e-mail from Christine Gable, Research Consultant at the Corning Incorporated Archives which read: “We’ve been dealing with this same issue for a few years now—trying to get a listing & the dates of all Opelle ornaments.  We haven’t done too well, but you can have what we we’ve come up with.”

[Author’s Aside #1:  I will share that list with readers in a future question and answer column.]

The Corning Opelle Christmas ornaments were made between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s---less than 25 years ago.  If assembling a list of recently made objects presents this level of difficulty, imagine the task faced by a collector who wants to document what was made by a company 50, 75, 100, or 150 years ago.  It is “mission impossible.”

[Author’s Aside #2:  If I used this phrase in one of my classrooms, I would be staring into a sea of blank faces.  The “Mission: Impossible” television series aired on CBS from September 1956 to March 1973, long before any of my students, even the adults, were born.  Although the most recent movie in the Mission: Impossible series was released in 2011, my students do not match its targeted demographic audience.]

Collecting is checklist driven.  A checklist not only shows what is available, it also represents a challenge.  Collecting ends if a checklist is completed.  The good news is that checklists grow.  Variants, prototypes, and unproduced examples continue to be discovered.

New checklists trigger revivals of collecting categories.  The search for something new is a key stimulant for the collector.  Every collector knows that “I have never seen one before” means there is another.  No manufacturer mass produces one.

Historically, the two primary sources for collecting checklists were reference books and collectors’ clubs.  The exponential growth of the interest in collecting antiques and collectibles in the late 1970s through the 1990s owes much to the publication of thousands of specialized reference books focusing on a single collecting category.   Companies such as Books Americana, Collector Books, Hobby House, House of Collectibles, Krause, L-W Books, Schiffer Books, and Wallace-Homestead produced pictorial price guides, guides that categorized and pictured objects.

The fact that the checklists were incomplete was inconsequential.  Revised and subsequent editions enhanced the initial checklist.  When I recruited books for Wallace-Homestead, I told authors: “The book you wanted to write in the first place will be the third edition.  Meanwhile, get the first edition published.”  The first reference book about a new collecting category inevitably led to the author being besieged with letters, later e-mails, informing him/her of missing objects and other information.  The same held true for the second edition, but to a lesser degree.

The 1990s consolidation of antiques and collectibles book publishers, the 2008 Great Recession, and the increasing role of the internet has resulted in fewer and fewer hard and soft cover antiques and collectibles reference books being produced.  The loss of these publications is having a negative impact on collecting.  Future collectors not only are having difficulty finding out-of-print reference guides but all too often are completely unaware of their existence.

Several antiques and collectibles publishers offer online versions of their current publications.  The difficulty is that none are publishing their archives on the internet.  WorthPoint.com is to be applauded for its efforts to provide internet access to out-of-print reference titles.  This is a work in progress.  Its success depends upon the ability of future collectors to find and utilize these important resources.

The golden age of antiques and collectibles collectors’ clubs has passed.  Rather than combine collectors into large groups, the internet has defused them into smaller and smaller groups.  A decline in the number of collecting checklists originating from collectors’ clubs is the result.  Fortunately, several of these clubs have made their checklists available on the internet.  Once again, finding them takes time and patience.

There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of collecting category checklists on the internet.  I encounter them when researching questions for a “Rinker on Collectibles” question and answer column.  In almost all cases, they represent the dedicated work of a single individual.

The difficulties are (1) the sources of the information often are not cited and (2) no one checks the list for accuracy.  Editors, not always with the greatest care, checked the material that appeared in the printed guides and a committee of members reviewed the checklists posted by collector clubs.

As the amount of information on the internet grows, finding internet collecting checklists is becoming increasingly difficult.  I often encounter them on the third, fourth, or fifth page of a search.  How many take the time to drill down this deep?  If the information is not on the first page of listings, most try another search approach.

Time and money are a factor.  Who is willing to take the time to search the internet and create a website that contains a list of antiques and collectibles checklist websites organized by collecting category?  There is no financial gain.  No one will pay to access the website.  Consumers expect this information to be free.

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.