Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1466

Passing It On,Throwing It Out, or Living with the Illusion that Someday I Will Get to It

On October 25, 2014, I visited with Kevin Smith of K. D. Auctions, located in Merchant Square Mall, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. K. D. Auctions is liquidating the antiques, collectibles, and other items I left behind in Vera Cruz, Pennsylvania after moving to Michigan. My task was to empty two legal, five-drawer filing cabinets that contain material I wished to review before giving Kevin clearance to auction it.

The two file cabinets were symbolic. First, they were the last group of material I had not reviewed. Once done, Kevin no longer had any “I need to look first before you sell it” restraints. Second, they represented my final break with the material from The School, the former Vera Cruz Elementary School. This would be the last material making the move from Pennsylvania to Michigan.

Before heading to Merchant Square Mall, I stopped at Staples and bought a four pack of letter-size archival file boxes, assuming that I would use two, no more than three.

Since Kevin was in the middle of closing his monthly Bid Board auction, I was left to my own devices. I headed back to the storage area where the files were located and started working. I expected to complete my task in an hour, at most an hour and one-half.

While I oppose the concept that one cannot be an art critic unless one is an artist or a restaurant critique unless one is a gourmand or chef, there are times when I understand something better when I “walk in the other person’s shoes.” Cleaning out the two file cabinets was one of those experiences. The file cabinets contained files from my early career, foreign travels, and personal triumphs and travails. Life started passing before my eyes in slow motion. Every file or object had a story. Memories I had not visited in over 35 years flooded back. Deciding to trash a file, clear the material in it for auction, pass the contents along to a person, historical society, or museum, or box it for transport to Michigan was difficult, emotional, and painful.

At one point, I was ready to box all the material from the two file cabinets, move it to Michigan, and sort it later. It took me a few minutes to realize this approach was foolhardy. Remaining storage space in Michigan was limited. It made no sense to postpone what were tough decisions. It took over three hours, not the hour to hour and one-half that I initially thought, to review the material. Even at this pace, I left feeling that I overlooked a number of things I should have saved.

I never accepted the concept that “you cannot save it all.” I tried on multiple occasions. I saved all my homework from junior high school through my undergraduate and graduate college career. I even saved my university textbooks. I faced reality and disposed of these files two years ago. I saved the purchase records of the thousands of items I bought on eBay. I still have these, although many of the items have since been sold by K. D. Auctions. As I write this column, I am shaking my head and staring at over 30 boxes of material stacked in a corner in my office area, forget the over 75 boxes I have in storage, containing material waiting for me to unpack and review once I retire, if I should live so long.

I flew East when I did my final sort of the two file cabinets in October 2014. Not having a means to transport the four archival file boxes and two additional cardboard boxes of material I could not live without, at least not for the moment, I asked Kevin to store them. I picked them up for transport to Michigan on January 23, 2015 when I drove east for personal appearances.

Once I was home, the items remained in the trunk of my car until March 4, my procrastination a result of: (a) feeling guilty about how much material I saved; (b) once I unloaded it, I did not have time to go through it at the moment; and (c) the only place left to store it was in the middle of the floor in my office area, a situation that would not please Linda. “If I do not face an issue, I do not have an issue” is part of a collector’s mindset.

After carrying the boxes to my office, I could not resist a quick review of what I did save. Much to my surprise, the material fell into clearly definable categories. The first involved material from my early involvement with antiques and collectibles as a collector and writer. I normally think of my career as BROC and AROC (before “Rinker on Collectibles” and after “Rinker on Collectibles”).

[Author’s Aside: One’s first and earliest achievements are among a person’s fondest memories. When facing the task of saving or discarding material, I unconsciously save far more from my earlier efforts than during the middle and later part of my career. My experience is an example of the “first born” phenomenon. For me, there is no “last born” since I am far from done.]

When I discovered the files from the earliest articles that I wrote about antiques and collectibles (ROC), I struck gold. In the early 1980s, I wrote a number of auction reports and researched articles for the “Maine Antique Digest.” As I re-read my September 1981 article entitled “Pennypacker Auction Centre: Early American Folk Art Auction, I rediscovered one of my favorite passages. In the course of analyzing the decline of this famous auction house and its patriarch Charles Pennypacker, I was commenting on the sound system, ending the paragraph: “The problem also was compounded by a very inadequate sound system, the cord of which seemed to be strangling Charles Pennypacker as he moved about. Something almost mystical here if one thinks hard enough about it!”

A second group focused on the first antiques and collectibles I purchased rather than acquired from family. An enlarged photograph of my first Fraktur purchase, which I still own, evoked a strong sense of pride. The restoration file from Joyce Hill Stoner of Winterthur of my “Two Face” lady in black dress painting contained the slide and photographic documentation of the restoration process. Actually, the painting had three faces – the woman updating her face as she aged.

It took one and one-half file boxes to house the research files I assembled for articles I planned to write at some future date—a detailed study of the Bethlehem and Nazareth Moravian silversmiths, additional insights into the folk artist Lewis Miller, a reinterpretation of Pennsylvania German Fraktur, and a translation of two German manuscripts (one relating to the American canal era and other Volume 13 of P.N. Sprengl’s “Handwerke und Künste Taellan”). These will be added to more than half a dozen other archival file boxes of “research material for articles” that I previously brought to Michigan.

The fourth category of material involved my trips abroad. Although I did not make my first trip abroad (1968) until I was 27, I have been abroad more than 50 times. I kept elaborate files on each trip, including itineraries, brochures, postcards, booklets, expenditure receipts, and other odds and ends. I stripped most of the printed material and postcards from the files for Kevin to sell. I kept only a few items, primarily from my earliest trips in 1968 and 1970, when I spent time behind the Iron Curtain in the German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany). The fun find was my 1968 and 1970 expense diaries, when the West and East German mark exchange rate was four marks to the dollar and in East Germany on the black market 16 marks to the dollar.

The fifth group of material was personal. I am not exactly certain why I saved the one foot of linear files relating to my first divorce, but I strongly suspect it is because I triumphed in a bitter contest. I found the immunization records for Harry Jr. and Paulanne which I must pass on to them. I have a bad habit of removing and not returning files to their initial storage area. I was thrilled to discover a block of missing family genealogical files.

The final group consisted of things I should donate or pass on. During my 1968 German trip, I was in Niesky, West Germany, when the Moravian College Choir was there for their Spring Tour. When the Choir arrived in Niesky, many of its members were sick. I spent the day and evening helping local hosts care for Choir members. I need to write a story about the experience and send it, along with the program I saved, to the Moravian College Alumni Bulletin.

I am certain that when it comes time for Linda or my children to go through my things, almost everything in these boxes, with the exception of a few personal files, will be discarded. All the memories are mine and mine alone. Since memory is fleeting, I want to hold on to mine as long as possible.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Selected letters will be answered in this column. Harry cannot provide personal answers. Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned. Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI 49512. You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

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.

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