RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1538

Copyright © Harry Rinker, LLC 2016

Collectors Are Not Clutterers / Collections Are Not Clutter

Allan “Mr. Ice Cream” Mellis is a good friend with a subtle sense of humor.  Recently, I received an email from Allan with the heading: “Would love to listen to a discussion between you and Marie Kondo.”  Attached was an article that appeared in the July 6, 2016 “New York Times” written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner about Marie Kondo, her methodology, and acolyte recruits. [www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/magazine/marie-kondo-and-the-ruthless-war-on-stuff.html?_r=0]  I had no idea who Marie Kondo was.  Now that I do, I am not certain I am better off knowing.

Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” has been on the “New York Times” best-seller list for more than 85 weeks, selling in excess of six million copies.  Since there are more than 319 million people living in the United States, I find comfort in the possibility that at least 300 million of them may not have read the book.  It is proselytizers such as Kondo who are responsible for the destruction of vast quantities of important historical artifacts.  Kondo is symbolic of the chuck-it-out rather than the check-it-out generation.

Kondo’s goal is to organize the world.  I have news for her.  Her world stops at my front door.  I do not want her or any of her KonMari declutter cult followers knocking at my door.  The only person that is going to organize my material is me.

For those unfamiliar with Kondo’s goal to produce a world filled with joy, weightlessness, and an upward trajectory of a clutter free life, Kondo’s “once-in-a-lifetime tidying marathon” involves creating five piles – books, clothing, miscellaneous items, papers, and sentimental items.  The piles help a person understand that they have too much, an assumption that is completely alien to a collector.  The next step is to go through each pile, picking up the material one piece at a time.  The goal is to identify pieces that spark joy in the person’s body.  Those that do not get the old heave-ho, but with a heartfelt goodbye.  Expect to see Marie Kondo crying towels for sale in the near future for those items whose goodbye is painful.

Taffy Brodesseer-Akner noted that Kondo arrive on the scene after “America had entered a time of peak stuff, when we had accumulated a mountain of disposable goods.”  Obviously, neither Taffy nor Marie met individuals who believed in the “it’s too good to throw out” or “I’ll never know when I need it” philosophies.  They appear not to have encountered collectors who believe in the “I will sell my children and spouse into slavery before I ever part with even one of my treasures” mentality.

Collectors are not clutterers.  Their collections are highly organized, albeit not always evident to an outsider.  When I resided at The School [the former Vera Cruz [PA] Elementary School], I had over 14,000 square feet of space to devote to my collections.  As a result, I spread out.  To those unfamiliar with collecting protocols and looking at my stuff for the first time, the shelves and piles scattered through the classrooms, auditorium, stage, and basement appeared to be total chaos.  One of my deepest regrets is that my friend Professor Briggs, a chaos theorist, never visited The School.  He would have understood.  What appeared to be chaos was a highly ordered universe.

In my defense and to a degree in the defense of every collector, I knew where everything was.  I constantly amazed my staff when I said “I have one of those” and produced it in a matter of minutes.  Chaos arose only when a staff member failed to return something to its proper place.

In fairness to Kevin Smith of K.D. Auctions in Allentown, chaos did arise when others packed my collections after I moved from The School and stored them in The School’s auditorium.  The situation was compounded when it proved necessary to continually move material around in order for me to find things for which I was looking.  Thanks to Kevin’s willingness to move everything from the auditorium to his auction facility, unpack the hundreds of boxes, create a new sense of order, and sell the material via his bid board and call-in
 auctions, this unwanted chaos was eliminated.

Those who witnessed the supposed chaos at The School would be shocked to see what has happened to the 20,000 plus objects that accompanied me to Kentwood, Michigan.  The only piles that exist are five years of printed out emails along one side of my desk and multiple piles of trade papers on the floor (organized by date, of course) that I keep convincing myself I am going to read some day.  The rest of the material is stored in labeled boxes.

I spent the last nine months organizing the material I moved to Michigan.  Again, in the chaos of the move, many objects were packed randomly.  Now, all the objects in a box relate to each other.  If I want to find the first edition of “Playboy” or “Sports Illustrated,” I pull the archival file box marked “First Editions” off the shelf.  Six shelves hold my collection of jacquard coverlets, quilts, and other needlework material ordered by date, location, and maker.

Not only are my collections stored categorically, many are in archival storage material, especially my paper ephemera pieces.  Archival supplies are expensive.  My 2015 outlay for Hollinger boxes and acid free paper and folders exceeded a thousand dollars.  I still have work to do, primarily on the large number of smalls I own.  At this point, I am safe in stating approximately 95% of my objects are properly boxed or displayed.

My Kentwood office also contains six deep, four-drawer, letter size file cabinets.  The drawers are organized.   If I want to consult family genealogy, purchase records for my collections, or outline material for Institute for the Study of Antiques and Collectibles, I know exactly where to look.

I am a few months away from a clutter free life, at least appearance wise.  I can see the top of my desk and work space, an unheard of phenomenon at The School.  I have a strong sense of what I own and where to find it.

The challenge ahead is to catalog the stored material.  I know what I have, but Linda does not.  Although she has general instructions of whom to contact and what to do if something happens to me, I need to create a more detailed disposal plan for her.  The variety of material remaining in my possession does not lend itself to a one-stop disposal solution, not if Linda wants to maximize the financial return.

October 2016 marks the end of my 75th year.  In previous “Rinker on Collectibles” columns, I argued that collectors think about disposing of their collections when they reach their mid-70s.  I never thought it would happen to me.  It has.

This fall, I will start going through my collections box by box.  I will look at each piece and make a decision whether to keep or dispose of it.  Sparks of joy will not influence my decisions.  If I had my druthers, I would keep everything.  I love it all.  My collections are my treasures.  Departing with any single piece will not be a “heartfelt and generous goodbye.”  It will be painful and a concession to the hard realities of life and an assessment of what I believe to be the strongest secondary resale market into which to send the object.

Much to my delight, organizing my collections opened up space in my basement office for three to five display cases.  I am excited.  After five years in storage, many of my collections will see the light of day once again.  At this point, I have not decided which collection to display.  The final decision remains a mystery, one I look forward to resolving.

The culling of my collections is not akin to decluttering.  My collections are not clutter.  They are part of who I am and what differentiates me from other collectors and individuals.  This is a prime reason that collectors have difficulty letting go of things.

At one point, I was concerned that disposing of some of my collections would make me a lesser person.  This has not proven to be the case.  In fact, it has sparked a renewed interest in collecting.  After a hiatus of over a decade, I have started buying again.  It is impossible to resist the buying urge, especially given the affordability found in many collecting categories in today’s marketplace.

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.