[BCMA] Collection Appraisals? - One method

Wed Feb 9 13:53:34 PST 2011

Appraising a whole museum collection can be PROHIBITIVELY expensive ....
or not. Is the method below the only way? No, but it worked for me. Read
on. 

I have done a number of appraisals for the Canadian War Museum and there
was a lot of work just appraising a couple of Chinese cannons, or a
collection of armoured vehicles. I also appraised a million dollar
collection of about 35 historic vehicles (including tanks) for the Royal
Canadian Artillery Museum in Shilo, MB and appraised about 100
ex-military vehicles, 3 cannons and over 14,000 uniforms for a movie
rental company. In other words, proper appraisals take time and money. 

No museum, and that includes the Smithsonian, can afford to
professionally appraise their whole collection. In fact the bigger you
are, the larger the collection (think of millions of artifacts) and
museums in general  have trouble even knowing what they have and where
it is, much less what it is worth! For example, the History Channel's
MUSEUM SECRETS episode on the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) revealed that
the ROM did not even know they had a giant dinosaur (a Barosaurus -
think of the "Brontosaurus" toys we played with in our youth)
http://www.museumsecrets.tv/dossier.php?o=55 and then when the Curator
realized this giant dinosaur had been at the ROM since the 1960s, he had
to go and find it! This story makes the rest of our museums look good.
If they did not even know they had it, how could they assign an
insurance value to it? 

Before you can do a decent appraisal, I feel that you should be able to
pass the two-way test devised by Daniel Reibel in the USA years ago.
Paraphrased is says if you have the artifact, can you find the
paperwork/provenance? Conversely, if you have the paperwork/provenance,
can you find the artifact?  Also the basic info should be entered into a
database. 

I have completed an appraisal of the New Westminster Museum and
Archives' 34,500+ artifacts without extra staff in the following manner.
I am also able to update it easily to catch any new entries. 

The starting point was that the collection was all entered into the
database, at least in basic form (accession number, name, description,
location etc.) We also did an inventory of EVERY artifact and that took
5-years as it was squeezed in among many other tasks. 

Then I went through the database in table, not form, view for reasons of
speed and sorted by object name (you could use Chenhall classifications
if you have entered them). This grouped like items together e.g. books.
Table view allows you to quickly see and copy the entry in the field
above (at least in the database I use.) Then I assigned a standard value
to each book e.g. $5 but when I noted a book was special (rare, historic
connection etc.) then I would assign a SWAG value. What is SWAG? 

This SWAG acronym originated with the US Army. "DEFINITION - Scientific
Wild Ass Guess. 2. opinions, or judgements, about something with less
evidence than would make the opinion certain, but more than a simple
opinion with no factual basis. -v. 3. making a guess with some
information, but not enough to make a clear and certain determination."
(ref.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scientific-wild-ass+guess
) In battle you cannot wait until you have all of the facts. You have to
make a decision based upon what you do know plus what your training and
intelligence tell you is likely. 

I started with things I knew we had quantities of certain items e.g.
book, hat, dress, Christening gown, iron, sewing machine, typewriter
etc. This way by working through over a couple of thousand books in this
fashion I had values recorded for those items. Then on to the next batch
using filters e.g. name of artifact and Value Zero (the default.) In
this fashion of doing batches, the odd or unique items get tidied up at
the end but one has a feeling of elation  by then at being over 90%
done. There is an exception and that is for treasured items you know
about. By all means spend the time to research and evaluate your known
precious items e.g. our 1876 Governor General's visit to BC stagecoach
but I suggest that you don't do this for the bulk of the collection now
or you will never finish.  

Why do the valuation if it is not perfect? What if you make a mistake?
So what? Computers are designed to be flexible. You can move the value
up or down as needed later. I feel it is better to have "a value"
assigned for every artifact rather than only for a few artifacts.
Ideally there should be an appraisal date and appraiser's name or
initials recorded but I chose not to do that on our first pass as it
would slow us down too much. Revisions can incorporate this. 

What is the value of the collection? Too often I have seen museums take
wild guesses at the total value of their collections. They don't know
what they have, but need a figure so they pick a figure out of the air
e.g. 5 million dollars. 

The miner's museum in Sydney, NS burned down when a visitor left a
burning cigarette in a theatre seat. If they had no values assigned, the
insurance company would not look kindly upon them saying things like
"Well that coal miner's helmet was worth $1,000 because ..." If however
$1,000 was recorded as a value BEFORE the fire, then it would be easier
for the museum to justify it with an insurance company. It is more
believable to put a value on a horse while it is still in the barn, that
than after he/she has run off.  

For higher value items where you have done research, do try to include
the references into your electronic or paper files as "back-up
justification." If you have time and/or catalogues of sale prices
realized, the selling (not starting/asking/estimated) prices on eBay and
auction houses are good indicators of true market value. For eBay
examples it is best to print them out as photos usually disappear after
while after they close, as do entire listings. 

Let us assume that you have gone through the collection and the Curator
has assigned a SWAG value to each artifact. Some items in your museum
are known to be quite valuable and at least now you have flagged them.
Let us say that out of 20,000 artifacts 50 show up when you run a query
report that lists all artifacts with a value of $1,000 or greater. Now
you can hire an appraiser to come and professionally appraise those 50
most valuable items out your collection out of 20,000 or so and not
spend money you don't have appraising your button collection or dug-up
broken bottles. 

Of course, you would keep a copy of the records off site in case of fire
or flood. Not much point in telling the insurance company that the
inventory and insurance values burned up with the collection. 

In some ways, the ideal might be to assign a value at the time of
cataloguing as the object is there in front of you, but even then
researching its value is time consuming and does not address the
back-log.  

I look forward to hearing of solutions to appraising a collection that
others have come up with. 

Colin MacGregor Stevens,

Manager,

New Westminster Museum and Archives,

302 Royal Avenue,

New Westminster, BC,

V3L 1H7, Canada

Phone Office:    604-527-4639

Work Cellular :  604-830-6965

Fax:                    604-527-4641

E-mail: cstevens at newwestcity.ca 

Web Site: www.newwestminster.ca 

Normal work week: Sun-Thurs 9-5, OFF Fri-Sat.

The New Westminster Museum and Archives (NWMA) consists of:

   * City's Museum (est. 1950)

   * City's Archives

   * Irving House (built 1865)

   * Maintenance of the Samson V Maritime Museum (paddlewheel ship built
1937; museum since 1984) 

From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv. [mailto:bcma at lists.vvv.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 2:17 PM
To: bcma at lists.vvv.com
Subject: [BCMA] Collection Appraisals?

Hi Everyone, 

The Whistler Museum is thinking about getting our entire collection
appraised and as I haven't embarked on a project like this before, I was
wondering if anyone out there had any experience doing this? Is there
anyone you would recommend? Is it a cost prohibitive thing to do?  Are
there some good online resources I could utilize?   Any additional
information I should know about? Please contact me at:
curator at whistlermuseum.org

Cheers, 

Leah Batisse 

-- 
Whistler Museum and Archives Society
4333 Main Street
Whistler, BC   V0N 1B4
behind the Library 
Tel: 604-932-2019  Fax: 604-932-2077
email: info at whistlermuseum.org
web: www.whistlermuseum.org

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