Moving/ downsizing, donating collection, books, getting old

[Chuck]

We're moving in less than a year, and before that I have to drastically downsize my reference collection and library. I thought I had a thread on this, but in searching both here and the archives it looks like my concerns and challenges are spread all over.

It is virtually assured that 30 years from now I will own nothing, including my lifelong reference collection. It's rather melancholy looking at specimens I caught as a kid, or specimens that represent a great period in my life, and to think they need to go away. Each one has memories that are recalled, taking me back to a "better time" LOL which they all are, in hindsight, right? It's worse perhaps than giving away decades of photo memories.

Another challenge is WHAT to dispose of. It's my experience that whatever I give away- be it a tool or bug or whatever- I soon need it. If I were to dispose of the entire collection, it's guaranteed that whatever my next project is, I'll need something I gave away, and that something will be 1000 miles away. Too, I wonder if I give it ALL away, will I just quit? Why continue?

Books. I took all my general field guides (Golden Nature, Audobon, etc.) plus a number of "picture book" types to Goodwill, hoping they entice some youth to become interested.

What about the old and expensive ID guides? Scott, Howe, LeMaire, Opler, Covell, etc. Is there a market of buyers for these outdated volumes? Every institution I've been in has stacks of D'Abrera and all the others; they don't want more books. I've seen stacks of books left behind when a collection goes to an institution; ditto LepSoc and TropLep publications.

What about antique books? Howard, Holland, etc. Does anyone collect antique insect books anymore or have they gone the way of depression glass- unwanted.

Turning back to specimens, well they have to go somewhere. But what I hear about so many institutions leaves me wondering which are a viable repository? Variously I've been told about institutional places: the insect collection is self-funding, the organization wants to dump or downsize the collection, the collection isn't maintained, staff has dropped from 11 to 2, their funding dried up, there's in-fighting and things are turbulent, the organization wants to repatriate specimens to locations that can't sustain them, you name it. Scary...it's like keeping an institutional insect collection these days is a battle...which will survive?

One collections manager remarked to me: "more collectors in their will indicate where the collection should NOT go than indicate where it should go." That was interesting. That's not my case- OH! But wait- not to Bishop, those idiots, not my hard earned material.

Chris Grinter, IIRC, made a good point that a collection, or parts of, should go to wherever they're not from; ie an eastern USA collection should go to the west coast because the east coast institutions already have most of those specimens.

I've heard rumor, though not heard or read it myself, that some institutions are qualifying potential donations- in other words, they might decline. Any truth to this? All collections I've seen are sitting on thousands of papered specimens 100+ years old; they can't even keep up with papered material over the course of a century! Too, I've repeatedly been told NO MORE POLYPHEMUS! NO MORE POLYXENES! Most if not all museums/ collections already have enough, so FYI if you have ten drawers of polyphemus. Probably ditto for Ornithoptera, I've seen drawer after drawer of Ornithoptera.

I still am sitting on now-expensive purchased specimens from 1970s and 1980s. I have no time to get rid of these, and if I did I just can't deal with the sniveling types who complain that a leg broke in shipment. We tried that with my hundreds of vinyl LPs; sure we probably averaged about $10 each, but the buyers knew every complaint and scam to get their money back- and never return the LP! I ended up dumping them for .50 each in one lot. I can't deal with the same with butterfly buyers. Has anyone unloaded material to Butterfly Company or the like?

I'd be inclined to keep the collection until past the point I can't care for it; seen that plenty of times. But since we're moving the issue is somewhat being forced. I can't believe I'm this old, I don't feel old most of the time; I still slog through fields in stupifying heat and humidity. But numbers don't lie, and neither does the wife when she points out we're going to lose 1,000sq.ft.

My apologies if you've read most of this before. I'm rather rehashing for myself as I run out of time for contemplation.

[Trehopr1]

Chuck, I imagine wherever you may move to there will be some kind of space which you can use as a hobby room (perhaps a part of a basement space or a smaller third bedroom). It is here that you could save yourself what you regard as "the best for last".

I think you mentioned once that you have around 100 insect drawers. So, maybe say to yourself I'm going to keep 20 or 25 (for example). Those will have the things that YOU personally treasure most. All the rest is then set aside for sale or donation. Then do the same with your remaining insect books in that you keep only those you still enjoy the most. Maybe they only fill one bookshelf or less. Something that again will still fit in a smaller allotted space.

Your collection is as much a part of you as you are a part of it. This has been a lifelong travel. Why not still do a smaller measure of it in your retirement years ? You could still continue enjoying it as one of your hobbies only in a smaller (bite/portion).

Once you have set aside what you really want in both specimens and books then you might try having an "open house" weekend or week where fellow collectors could come out and purchase from you the specimens, books, or drawers that you are willing to part with.

This way no need for any shipping or complaints about mail damage. Prospective buyers see what they have before them and accept it as is and with a price that you can accept. Maybe some package deals or "bundling".

Then with that task out of the way you will see what you have left and you can then decide the further disposition of the specimens and books. Maybe by then you will have already decided where the unwanted things may go.

Additionally, you could try reaching out to collectors and colleagues you know well. See what they may be interested in and just have them pay you an off visit at their convenience. Likely some more sales and the chance to meet-up.

These are just my initial thoughts about downsizing your collection sensibly.

There's certainly nothing wrong with "re-purposing" some of your specimens and books to those fellow collectors/enthusiasts who would truly APPRECIATE having them to add to their collections and to enjoy for many years.

You might be surprised how quickly things will disappear when people have a chance to actually see it and hold it etc.

[kevinkk]

None of us expected to get old, I know I was feeling indestructible until my mid 50's, now, not so much.
I have slightly similar concerns, albeit on a far smaller scale.
The books should hold interest and value, a lot of publications are OOP, and still relevant.
My collection is not museum worthy, unless it's some hole in the wall, assuming there is even space, I've seen random cases
in different places, but not worthy of the time many members put into their efforts.
Our things will always mean more to us than others, and there's no way around that.
If I had a lot of papered material, I might try a seller of deadstock for purchasing, it's a logical choice.
Best wishes with your efforts, and to everyone else that time is sneaking up on.

[58chevy]

I'm in the same boat you're in. I have been corresponding with a small natural history museum in my area. The director is a PhD entomoligist and is eager to expand the museum's insect collection. I'm not ready to let go of my collection yet because I can still maintain it on my own. I'm also still able to do field collecting on a regular basis. But when I can no longer do those things I'll reluctantly donate it to the museum or to my kids, who are not entomologists but are interested in the collection. I also have a fairly good entomological library that includes a few antique books. The library will likely go with the collection. But I still enjoy collecting and will probably regret it if I give away the collection sooner than I have to.

[vabrou]

Now there are collections, and there are invaluable collections. And correct, no museum is interested in more luna moths, unless that is if you should have a highly scientific and well prepared and high quality collection of the dozens of world species, and have these available in long series from many geographical locations. If you should have microleps (especially the tiniest of species, high-quality spread on minutens and with full printed data pin labels), these are sought after in large series by most museums because >90% of these are new undescribed species.

It is not just the specimens themselves, but collection storage equipment and accoutrements, and entomological reference libraries as well. In my case, I stored my lifetime's collected biological materials in an old used all electric separate building which housed (5) wooden (Brou, 1993) and (9) (48 drawer) steel cabinets for holding more than 860 Cornell-size specimen glass top storage drawers, and additional shelving units for an additional 50 Cornell-size specimen glass top storage drawers, more than 220 wood Schmidt boxes and more than 600 similar fiber board specimen storage boxes, all requiring round-the-clock, continuous temperature and humidity controls, as well as yearly chemical pest fumigation (Fig. 3). Various hundreds of tweezers, scissors, dissecting and laboratory supplies, two stereo microscopes, etc., were utilized over the past 55 years. Throughout these many decades, all of our entomological research and accomplishments has been documented in scientific journals, newsletters, and other print venues, which resulted in more than ~470 published articles so far. As a result of these investigations, over 400 new to science undescribed insects (mostly moths) were discovered. Between 1971- 2022, around 700,000 of our duplicate wild collected specimens were annually and permanently deposited at the Louisiana State Arthropod Museum, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Museum, Audubon Institute Butterflies in Flight exhibit (New Orleans), Audubon Insectarium (New Orleans), McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida State Collection of Arthropods, United States National Museum (Smithsonian), American Museum Natural History, Carnegie Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, Natural History Museum London, Prague Museum, and various other university collections, as well as hundreds of major private entomological research collections worldwide. Thousands of invaluable taxonomical and rare entomological reference books from the past two+ centuries were needed for research purposes and publication references.

Then there is the lifetime of accumulated collecting equipment, e.g. one highway ready and fully-equipped field trip cargo trailer filled with collecting equipment storage, over 500 self designed, self fabricated insect traps of all types and purposes. These light traps, bait traps, lure traps, malaise traps, bucket traps, pan traps, etc., (nearly all with attached automatic-capture collection chambers) were operated for around 51,000,000 trap-hour, 24 hours daily/365-366 days every year for 55 continuous years. Just to discontinue, clean and store these hundreds of traps took me around three years, pale in comparison to the half century it took design and fabricate these. These traps were used to capture numerous billions of Louisiana insects and such successfully designed traps exist no where else, past or present. Then there are two 35mm film cameras and 13 digital cameras and the hundreds of thousands of high quality of insect images of the specimens, some of which appear in our lifetime of entomological print publications. Then the 4 personal computers, and associated 50+ terabytes of digital data storage. One cannot just throw all this out with the garbage. Future researchers for the next two centuries may find this equipment and data useful, that is if the ever changing hardware and software will allow this. The five gasoline powered electrical alternating current generators used for field trips over the past half century. Our collection here contains more than 400 species of lepidoptera new to science, and things such as this make a collection most sought after. Or e.g. the majority of our tens of thousands of Louisiana butterflies were captured using light traps and other insect traps, unheard of in most other collections. Some materials concentrated upon unlike that seen in other collections, e.g. we have personally captured >400,000 clearwing moths just in our state of Louisiana, and likewise for other families, genera, etc, e.g. there are the thousands of lepidoptera species we recorded as new state species records, new USA records, and the hundreds of captured (>200,0000) Louisiana sphinx moths including many dozens of new state records. I could go on and on, but no doubt you get what I am trying to explain in a limited format as noted here. 55+ years ago I set out to build the largest collection of Louisiana lepidoptera and other insects, all the while having a family, getting an education, and remaining fully employed through all of this. I had a GOAl, and feel I have reached that goal at least minimally. Here is a photo of our 500,000 mostly Louisiana lepidoptera currently retained master research collection. We have all along been pursued by museums far and near. At this point, we are tired. Also attached are a few of the hundreds of insect traps we used, and here is another new Sphinx moth we discovered here at our home around 40 years ago, Lapara abita Brou and Brou 2024, currently due out this year in print (in a few weeks). a. Lapara coniferarum, b. Lapara abita Brou and Brou, c. Lapara phaeobrachycerous Brou, all three from the exact same geographical location, and d. Lapara halicarnie (Florida, USA). Unlike the tens of thousands of Lapara phaeobrachycerous we personally discovered and captured here at our home location, we first captured Lapara abita about four decades ago, but today, this rare species currently exists by only 5 male and 6 female adults from one location, our home in S.E. Louisiana.

By the way, I have sold most of the hundred thousand Louisiana saturnidae, 200,000 Louisiana sphingidae, 100,000+ Louisiana Catocala, 200,000 Louisiana dung beetles and other most very common species. This is how I did something productive with all those hundreds of thousands of very abundant and common species. We sell only in bulk lots of thousands to tens of thousands. We have also donated 348,829 to museums here in the USA ($ value =$ 599,145.26 USD) for which we have all independently appraised for use as legitimate annual tax deductions. Our bulk sales varied over the decades from $100.00 to $29,000.00 each) No onesies and twozies here. size]

[vabrou]

Other things that make collections valuable and highly sought after are.
bilateral aberrants, bilateral gynandromorphs, partial gynandromorphs, Holotypes, Allotypes, Paratypes, Topotypes and two dozen other type designations.
also species new to science, unique specimens, new continent records, new country records, new state records, All of these things more valuable if each is available in very large series.
even unused pins are selling for $60-70.00 per 1000, e.g. I have a spare inventory of 122,000 unused pins right now. That is about $8,000.00 USD today

[Chuck]

small natural history museum in my area

It's been my observation that small institutions won't maintain a collection for long. There may be one dedicated person to care for it (if they know how) but once that person is gone, the collection decays. I've seen this several times, with complete collections turned to dust. The size of the institution that can care for such a collection is larger than you'd think- Cornell just picked up a collection from a university that has an annual budget of over a half-billion dollars.

It's probably very good to provide a select set of local specimens for display to educate the locals. But rarities and scientifically valuable collections should go somewhere that hopefully can and will maintain them for many decades (which, as I'd cited above, is increasingly rare and questionable everywhere.)

[58chevy]

My collection is not large enough (less than 100 drawers) or specific enough (no specialty species in large numbers) to be of interest to a major institution. My only options seem to be smaller institutions or "keep it in the family". I don't intend to sell it. Any other suggestions?

[alandmor]

We have all along been pursued by museums far and near. At this point, we are tired.

Vernon, if I may ask, what plans do you have for such an extensive and valuable collection and all the equipment and supplies you've accumulated over the years once you're no longer able to or interested in maintaining it all?

[Chuck]

My collection is not large enough (less than 100 drawers) or specific enough (no specialty species in large numbers) to be of interest to a major institution.

Have you asked? As I'd mentioned, museums in, for example, Florida or NY may have interest in your material. Smithsonian I hear wants more specimens.

[alandmor]

I have been pondering some of these same issues as well lately. In addition to finding a suitable location to donate a collection, it’s also imperative that your spouse, family, or other heirs know your wishes in case something should happen to you unexpectedly. Too many collections have become orphaned and neglected when the owner passes away and family members have no idea what to do with it. Towards that end, we recently updated our living trust to include a section that my collection, references, textbooks, microscopes, miscellaneous supplies etc., be donated to the M.C. James Entomological Collection at Washington State University where I received an MS in Entomology. It includes names and contact information of current museum staff. I recently stopped by WSU on a road trip and met with the curator and director of the museum to discuss a future major collection donation and brought some miscellaneous specimens to donate. It’s also not uncommon these days for an institution to ask for a financial donation as well to help cover the cost of curating, housing, and maintaining any donated specimens. My hope is that it will be a while yet before I decide that I no longer can or have the desire to maintain it myself, but if I am run over by the proverbial bus tomorrow, at least there is a place for it to go and people to contact should the unexpected happen.

[vabrou]

alandmore, actually I began talks with (LSAM) Louisiana State Arthropod Museum concerning the the placement of our master collection around a half century ago. And I have had continuing discussions with the past three museum directors and several curators over these decades. But, I have made over 16 annual sizeable donations there (LSAM) going back to 1971, which already currently amounts to about a 1/4 million top quality Louisiana insect specimens. Our greatest numbers of donated insects insects in the USA amounted to more than 124,301 specimens to the (FSCA, from 1971-2015) The Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Gainesville ,Fla. I say more than because we have lost our official donations records for 17 annual donations over the past 55 years due to a fire, a flood, and several hurricanes. We have used our USA donations as part of our state and Federal tax write-offs since 1971, and this is why we had these donations independently appraised. Donations made to museums out of the US are not usable for tax write offs purposes, so appraisals for worldwide donations were unnecessary and served no legitimate purpose. We made 56 individual donations of insects specimens over the past 55 years just here in the US. And you may ask, have we ever been audited by the IRS. The answer is yes, and the results of that one audit resulted in a further refund to us of over $800.00 USD. Seems I was overly cautious and shorted myself in my calculations and documentation. I was worried before the audit, but was surprised post audit at the final results. Worried, because we always filed our own annual taxes for many decades and without any training, and mistakes can happen anywhere in this process. Things to remember if you are ever audited by the IRS, 1. You are not required to personally make an appearance, but you can hire someone to represent you at the audit. And that is exactly what we did, we hired an accountant for $200.00 to represent us, a retired IRS employee. She made two 100 mile round trips to the IRS office for us, and we created an eight-page document explaining our near half century of entomological research, subsequent hundreds of scientific publications based upon these biological materials, and the related annual donations and appraisals. When the audit was over we paid our $200.00 fee to our representative, and pocketed $600.00 we weren't expecting before the audit. And we never personally made an appearance to the IRS. The importance of not showing up is so that when questions are asked during the audit, your representative can respond with the words 'I don't know'. You on the other hand have to answer all questions if you appear in person at the audit. I have never heard of anyone coming out of an audit by receiving more money. Key words, document, document, document, and plan, plan and plan. My wife and I are both 75 and we can no longer collect and operate our traps and equipment as we have done for the past 55 years. As for all the traps, equipment etc, we have been selling some, giving away some to fellow collectors now for the past three years. And so far we are holding on to our master research collection as we still have 600+ manuscripts in various states of completion. We are always submitting dozens of manuscripts for publication yearly. I have some rather large manuscripts I have been working on, some in process for over several decades. Hopefully I can remain with the living to submit some of them.

Chuck, currently (right now) the McGuire Center in Fla. has no room for any more insects. Though, that matter is always negotiable depending upon the details of who, what, where, when and how. The last place you would want to place your biological materials at, is in the states of New York and California, and placing them in a smaller museum, you may want to save yourself a lot of trouble and unrecouped expense by just setting them ablaze now. What ever assurances you get now from a museum are meaningless; just look at what the communist have done to our entire country in just a few years. Here today, gone tomorrow. Look at the burning of Brazilian museums that have been repositories for tens of thousands of irreplaceable TYPES for centuries, all totally gone because of incompetency by the museum's management. And likewise in Europe in World-wars I and II, entire museums and their centuries of irreplaceable contents bombed to ashes in many countries. Museum workers die, retire, loose interest, and funding is never secure for the future care of your priceless materials. For these reasons we have all along published our findings in print with back-up data and with a selection of images so the future researchers can have an understanding of what were actually reporting upon. Websites are temporary and fluid, always changing and non-permanent, --ALL OF THEM. Websites come and websites go, as the first instance of annual hosting fees not being paid, those websites magically disappear overnight. Text without representative images is almost worthless. Remember 'one photo is worth a thousand words'.

[wollastoni]

In France, we have the entomology auctions (about 4 sales per year) where important old collections are sold drawers by drawers in auctions. Everyone is happy : collectors (including Museums) get the species they study without having to buy the whole collection, seller (or his family) get a lot of money, the specimens remain curated by passionated entomologists.
You should try to organize that in the US too.

Big museums accept only very few collections and small museums are not a good place to place your beloved collection.

[Chuck]

I'm still struggling with what to part with, and what to keep. I would like to get rid of the now-collectible baubles, and rather sell than donate. Perhaps I should do the LA Bug Show next spring.

I did reach out to one collector with a massive collection, but he seems to think he has all the rarer Papilio and large beetles (that he has all that I have, I doubt.)

Overall, downsizing has been lucrative. The stuff we've sold, some of which is now antique, has turned good revenue. It's what to do with the darned insects that's the problem. And yet, I still find myself in the field and running MV lights.

[Trehopr1]

Chuck,

Perhaps if you let us know what you have in the way of "baubles"to sell off you will attract more attention.

Interested parties can then PM you for more details or possible photographs.

For example just give us a short list of what's available.

2 drawers large Cerambycidae
1 drawer of Caligo
3 drawers of US Saturniidae

Indicate whether you wish to sell the entire contents of each drawer ONLY or if you are willing to sell selections based on a person's interest.

You could also indicate the specimens may be picked up in person or if any mailing is involved the mailing cost are absorbed by the buyer; and ONLY if the specimens have been paid for 1st. Also, indicate all necessary precautions are taken to prevent damage but that you are not responsible for damages incurred by mail service.

I think these are all fair and reasonable expectations and you are bound to get some interest. It's worth a try rather than take a costly trip to California next spring "loaded for bear" and with the uncertainty of how much you may actually sell there. Other competitive vendors may eat into any of your potential offerings.

Just my thoughts....

[Chuck]

Thanks for the idea hopr.

I used to do the LA show, and it was great. Not only did I get some fabulous specimens but I was able to unload all my unwanteds- morphos, Caligos, 1970s commercial (wild caught) Papilio, etc. It was a financially lucrative event.

Perhaps I can compile some drawers and post photos of those...time, it's just time...

[laurie2]

An inspiring read - https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/fly-fly/.

[vabrou]

Over the past 10 years I have been offered for my collection (1,2,3). This is a collection of strictly Louisiana insects, especially lepidoptera ~500,000 adults.
1. $70,000.00
2. $100,000.00
3. $100.000.00

Then I have also been visited dozens of times by Museum curators/managers over the past 50 years who's purpose for the visit was to convince me, face to face, to donate it to their museums gratis.

This is what I told the person who made the last offer of $100,000.00-- Ok, that sounds great, that will cover the 800+ Cornell-size drawers and the cabinets to hold them and the 200+ schmidt boxes and hundreds of foam bottom pinning boxes and the 500,000 pins holding the specimens. But what about the 500,000 specimens themselves which includes 4920+ Types, Allotypes, Paratypes, Topotypes, numerous new species including many hundreds still undescribed in scientific literature. Then the are a half century of unique specimens as several bilateral gyndromorphs, and numerous aberrants, and a worldwide one-off specimen of Catocala agrippina which is a bilateral gynandromorph and an aberrant as well (I have pasted a jpg of this unique species. I have also pasted a plate of Feltia subterranea from my 2021 published species account illustrating morphotype variations from Louisiana, including a bilateral gynandromorph (Fig. 1a).

In the past (37 years ago) I sold my world Sphingidae collection of ~40,000 specimens, 800+ species from 120 countries (private sale to a museum curator) and currently I also have a collection of around 10,000 adult moths of the genus Eudocima from 42 countries of the world.

[bobw]

An inspiring read - https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/fly-fly/.

A couple of years ago, I was actually responsible for cataloguing McArthur's Morphos, and incorporating them into the main collection at the Natural History Museum in London. I now have many of the empty drawers that they came in.

[Chuck]

An inspiring read - https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/fly-fly/.

That's brilliant and touching. As difficult as it was, he picked the right time to let it go. I suppose it's easier just to contact the institution and say "come get it all."

My plan is to need some of it for future work- but which? I never seem to know where the winds of research will take me. And some of it exists in most every significant institution, so why not let other collectors enjoy them?

Vernon cited the financial valuation (by others) of his collection. Oddly enough, I'm sure I'd never get back a fraction of what it cost to compile mine. At a number of institutions that take in collections the donated drawers, setting boards, etc are offered for free to the volunteers; they have no real value except as 2nd hand drawers at best. So while I'd like to recoup some minor bit of my costs, that's not the motivator.