Sunday, February 25, 2007

6) Maintain the paper trail.


SECRET NUMBER SIX. There is no substitute to keeping accurate records of the items in your collection. Whether it's tobacco cards of Martin Luther or stamps of Paul Gerhardt or 10DM coins of Philip Melanchthon, you need to maintain the paper trail of what you currently have, what condition it's in, where it came from and how much you have invested in it. This aids you in providing documentation for proper insurance, locating items within the collection and will be invaluable when putting together a description if you ever decide to sell an item. Take a look a what data is included when similar items go up for auction. You can even work up a form you then can fill in for each piece of your collection. Just like any library, if you can't find out for sure if you have something, and if you don't know where you can put your hands on it, it's no different than not having it. Keep track of your collection's data or it may very well be your undoing.

No comments: