Moving/ downsizing, donating collection, books, getting old

[alandmor]

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

Sounds like a great collection and donation but the NHM, London, has its work cut out for it to put actual data labels on all 20,000 specimens!

"Each of McArthur’s butterflies is accompanied by a tiny printed QR code, and scanning it provides a link to a database that he and a data specialist named Dominique Hawinkels developed, which contains the butterfly’s name as well as the date and location of capture."

[adamcotton]

This is a good example why any form of code should not be attached to specimens as an alternative to data. Many old specimens used to (and may still do) have a code on a label which can be accessed by referring to a note book with the full details written there. If the note book is lost, for whatever reason, the specimens lose all their data, and if the owner, for whatever reason, does or can not pass on the note book with the specimens all the data is also lost.

A QR code with a link to a database is jut the modern equivalent of codes on specimen pins which need the note book to decipher.

Adam.

[Annarobertson1947]

Am so pleased this topic turned up.
At 77 yrs old this Nov I'm in same situation, no family members see butterflies as little more than baubles that need to fit this years wall paint color scheme.
So am downsizing dramatically.
I have Ornithoptera of course unsaleable in Australia, best offer I've had is $67 Usd each drawer regardless of what specimens are in it.
My dilemma is really a simple one i cant seem to make a decision on.
With my Morpho's, I'm keeping females only, but with my Agrias i really am at a crossroads.
I need to really compact things a lot ,so do i keep pairs OR do i keep females only ?????
Whats the view of our Agrias members here, any thoughts appreciated immensely

[Trehopr1]

Well despite the doom and gloom of this thread I have to say enjoy your treasures for as long as you can. You may live to be a 100 with good sensibility.

We never know what challenges befall us but, as long as you can say you will have had a full life and have enjoyed all that brings you pleasure than truly you have lived a good life !

[Trehopr1]

I would add that I am now 63 years of age and as far as I'm concerned I've got some 30 years to figure out what I want to do with my goods. I will enjoy them for as long as I can manage them and hopefully my passion for the science will be endearing and will be passed along to either an institution or an individual of like-mindedness..

[Chuck]

You may live to be a 100 with good sensibility.

Field work and good sensibility aren't fully compatible. Fortunately I still have no problem hiking, climbing, or being in the hot sun. Presumably, there will come a day when I cannot or don't want to.

As humans eclipse 80 YO the number that can maintain their collection is markedly decreased. That's when collections languish and are destroyed. I have no intention of allowing my collection to get to that point.

For me though the driver is that we're downsizing. We're also moving to an area with hurricanes, which are a risk to collections. That means a smaller desk, 75% fewer cabinets, and 80% reduction in the library.

[Jshuey]

You may live to be a 100 with good sensibility.

As humans eclipse 80 YO the number that can maintain their collection is markedly decreased. That's when collections languish and are destroyed. I have no intention of allowing my collection to get to that point.

For me though the driver is that we're downsizing. We're also moving to an area with hurricanes, which are a risk to collections. That means a smaller desk, 75% fewer cabinets, and 80% reduction in the library.

Indeed - I recently helped a friend move a magnificent collection of catocala and US butterflies to a university. It was time, and he was afraid of everything Chuck mentions. The upside here in the US, is that he and his lovely wife were really surprised about the tax benefits they will get for the next few years. I think REALLY surprised!

John

[alandmor]

"Indeed - I recently helped a friend move a magnificent collection of catocala and US butterflies to a university. It was time, and he was afraid of everything Chuck mentions. The upside here in the US, is that he and his lovely wife were really surprised about the tax benefits they will get for the next few years. I think REALLY surprised!"
John

John,

I'm just curious how they were able to get an official appraisal for the IRS for income tax purposes?

[Chuck]

I'm just curious how they were able to get an official appraisal for the IRS for income tax purposes?

I've done two collections. I'd expect that the retailers would as well, for a charge of course. At one time Connie Hurd was offering that as a service.

In general, it's minimum $5 per pinned and labeled specimen. It's really not that hard- look at a drawer and what do you think it's worth? You'll come pretty close without putting 15,000 specimens in Excel.

Americans should keep in mind that ANY donation below ~$30,000 may have no tax impact. Trump increased the standard deduction quite high to simplify taxes, and that has been retained. So one $10,000 deduction will probably net you nothing. Another thing to keep in mind, it's best to donate when your income is the highest; if you donate $100,000 of bugs when you live off $40,000 of retirement income all you can do is deduct taxes down to zero; any excess is thrown away.

[Jshuey]

I'm just curious how they were able to get an official appraisal for the IRS for income tax purposes?

Just to be clear - I am not looking for business appraising collections. But I have done a few for dear friends over the years for no charge. I am not interested in doing the leg work required to prepare a defensible appraisal for strangers - nor are they likely to be willing to pay what I think my time is worth. Here are the basic components of a defensible appraisal.

But first, there are methods out there like the protocol found at https://bugguide.net/node/view/907141. Two things - First the values assigned by such approaches are arbitrary and can not be defended if the IRS chooses to challenge the appraisal. And two, in every approach like this I've ever seen, the arbitrary values are low - like by 2-300% or more.

Rule 1 - the appraisal needs to be performed by a third party with no financial interest involved in the value. That's really easy for me - since I only do it for free! But I can't appraise my own collection.

Shuey Rule 2 - The market value of a specimen needs to determined using current market values for specimens in similar condition. I do not cherry pick values - I determine an average value per specimen at the family or sub-family level - and apply it to the collection. I do this by:

• grabbing all the values for the appropriate geography from sites like Thone, InsectCollector and BioQuip Bugs and simply create an average

• I make sure the collection in question is mostly A1 material (if you haven't seen it, how can you appraise it?)

• Do the math and add it up by families

Shuey Rule 3 - Any adjustments and assumptions I make negatively impact the appraised value. For example, I don't cherry pick any rare bugs in the collection - the average value applies to everything. I have never added value for specimen preparation but note that if I were to do so, it would likely double the value of the collection. And I provide a screen shot of a site that charges $15-20 per bug to spread butterflies. Likewise, no value added for "expert" determinations - because who knows how to assign a current market value to that?

Shuey Rule 4 - i depreciate the value of all equipment and supplies being donated. So first, I document the cost of new cabinets, drawers, unit trays and so on. And then, based on my assessment of condition, depreciate accordingly. If the stuff looks new, I knock off at least 30%. If there is any wear and tear - 50-60% depreciation.

Shuey Rule 5 - everything is documented and appended to the appraisal. With time stamps on anything used to estimate current market value.

• Every listing of every bug used to calculate that average value is organized by family and appended - this typically runs over 50 pages

• I include photographs of example drawers to document condition. Usually 2-3 pages with 4 drawer photos each for this. Lots of text to explain what I want people to see in these photographs

• Example photos of cabinets and drawers - to document equipment condition. lots of text

• Screen shots of vendors used to establish equipment values are also included

• last but not least, over view photos of the entire collection room - just to document that this is serious stuff

Finally, it is worth noting that there are actually two entities that have to be convinced that the appraisal is accurate. Everyone knows the IRS - but the reality is that they probably are not going to really look at it. But also the museum or university that accepts the donation has to agree that it is "acceptable". They can get in trouble if they help people over-value their charitable deductions, so they will generally take a harder look at appraisals than you may suspect.

Here is the abstract from the collection I appraised last year. The entire appraisal ran 59 pages with all those attachments.

John

A conservative estimate of the value of your butterfly collection is $346,900. As documented below, this estimate is based on; market value of the types and quantities of species represented in the pinned collection and a depreciated value of the equipment that houses the collection. Although acknowledged, no additional value was assessed for the “value added” for specimen preparation although, based on services found on the internet, this could increase the estimated value by upwards of 80%.

The collection consists of 18,845 spread and identified specimens. Market value of prepared specimens was determined using current market prices for categories of unprepared butterflies and moths. I used the average price as determined in June 2023 from all the known retailers (three) of diverse, high quality specimens with accurate collection data from the US and Canada. I calculated average prices for each by Family and applied that value to the number of estimated specimens for each category. I made no upward adjustment in value for the preparation of the specimens. The prepared collection is valued at $329,295, representing the majority of the value in the collection.

I determined current retail prices for the equipment used to house the collection. I depreciated these values by 30% to account for wear from use and age. The depreciated value of this equipment is $17,605.

[bobw]

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

Sounds like a great collection and donation but the NHM, London, has its work cut out for it to put actual data labels on all 20,000 specimens!

"Each of McArthur’s butterflies is accompanied by a tiny printed QR code, and scanning it provides a link to a database that he and a data specialist named Dominique Hawinkels developed, which contains the butterfly’s name as well as the date and location of capture."

I don't know about the rest of the collection, but McArthur's Morphos, which I curated a few years back, all had normal data labels. After species, I arranged them geographically, so they must have done. I would assume the rest of the collection is the same, with the QR codes added as additional labels.

At the Natural History museum, they have embarked on an ambitious project to digitise, database and place online the whole collection of several million Lepidoptera. For this, they are also adding a QR code label to each specimen. I'm not sure how much has been done so far, but I believe that at least the British butterflies and birdwings have been done, and they are currently working on the Castniidae, which I recently finished recurating.

[Chuck]

When I was at Cornell in July, they have a display area dedicated to Nabokov. And in big letters, they quote him something to the likes of "I wish I'd never given away my collection [to Cornell], if I could steal them all back I would."

That gave me a shock. Wow. Notably, Nabokov never really collected after that, though that might be attributed to his fame as an author and focus on writing. Still, once he gave away his collection, did he lose interest? Did he no longer have a need to collect or study Leps?

So I wonder, what of my collection should I NOT dispose of yet? What might I need? Tiger Swallowtails? Solomon Islands specimens? I have had passions in the past, but once I broke from them, they were gone, and I never returned to them- will entomology be the same path?

[Jshuey]

When I was at Cornell in July, they have a display area dedicated to Nabokov. And in big letters, they quote him something to the likes of "I wish I'd never given away my collection [to Cornell], if I could steal them all back I would."

That gave me a shock. Wow. Notably, Nabokov never really collected after that, though that might be attributed to his fame as an author and focus on writing. Still, once he gave away his collection, did he lose interest? Did he no longer have a need to collect or study Leps?

So I wonder, what of my collection should I NOT dispose of yet? What might I need? Tiger Swallowtails? Solomon Islands specimens? I have had passions in the past, but once I broke from them, they were gone, and I never returned to them- will entomology be the same path?

Hugh Avery Freeman gave his collection of mostly Mexican Hesperiidae to the American Museum when he became unable to collect - and lamented the decision. He may have been done in the field, but not with working with a collection. He ended up "borrowing" thousands of Carnegie MNH skippers and identifying them in his later years to compensate.

It is a serious question - when is the right time to make the move?

john

[Chuck]

Hugh Avery Freeman gave his collection of mostly Mexican Hesperiidae to the American Museum when he became unable to collect - and lamented the decision. He may have been done in the field, but not with working with a collection. He ended up "borrowing" thousands of Carnegie MNH skippers and identifying them in his later years to compensate.

It is a serious question - when is the right time to make the move?

john

The best answer overall is "before you lose the ability to recognize you're unable to care for the collection." The problem is that with aging, the slow slide in mental capacity often robs people of the cognizance required to know they've waited too long.

In a way, I'm somewhat protected from that, as the decision is largely being forced "early" by our pending move to FL. I don't want to put the significant collections I maintain at risk to hurricanes.

Historically, risks to my insect collection was limited because I'd set a 100 drawer limit. When stuff came in, stuff went out. I've disseminated far more specimens (numerically) than I retain. But I let it creep well above 100 drawers in the past few years.

Probably the greatest part of my conundrum is the Solomon Islands material- if there is any part of the collection I'm not done with, that's it. However, that is also the most scientifically valuable part of the entire collection.

[Trehopr1]

If downsizing is a must then I would certainly prioritize your Solomon Islands material as something that should be retained for yourself.

You spent a lot of time in that region and I am sure you have a "ton of memories" associated with all the personal adventure. I would think those specimens (more than most others) would evoke memories of even the little things that happened.....

Specimens (at least those personally caught) serve as a personal diary of times well spent. They stir the cords of memory as few other things do. Maybe of a particular place, a terrific overall day, people you may have met or spent time with, or a particular manner in which you captured that particular specimen.

In time, you may even wish to have your Solomon's material arrive at the McGuire Center right there in Florida. I'm certain they would welcome any lepidoptera from the Solomons archipelago as I'm sure few museums in the US house very much from that locale.

Food for thought...

[Chuck]

If downsizing is a must then I would certainly prioritize your Solomon Islands material as something that should be retained for yourself.

....

In time, you may even wish to have your Solomon's material arrive at the McGuire Center right there in Florida. I'm certain they would welcome any lepidoptera from the Solomons archipelago as I'm sure few museums in the US house very much from that locale.

I appreciate the insights.

Were my Solomon Islands material simply for my own enjoyment I'd keep it; however if any portion of my collection were lost (e.g., hurricane) this subset would be the greatest loss to science. My strategy has been to fully photograph and document the collection prior to the move so it could be donated, but I'm running out of time and have made zero progress thanks to work.

I'd considered McGuire, since then it would be only a five hour drive away. But there's been a loss of funding and some upset there, so I face an unknown. In having discussed offline where to deposit the collection, I hear all sorts of insider concerns about a number of institutions that I'd considered; not one stands out as a great place to put it.

[jhyatt]

I hear all sorts of insider concerns about a number of institutions that I'd considered; not one stands out as a great place to put it.

That's the problem exactly, Chuck. The two big institutions I've left material to in my will both apparently have issues and/or policies that cause me to have serious 2nd thoughts. But where is there to turn to???

jh

[Chuck]

@adam the above (jhyatt post) isn't quoted properly; trehopr1 didn't state that, I did.

John, I don't know what to tell you. Professionals within the industry seem to know a bit more about what the situation is at various institutions, but aren't always up to date. Some come out and state the issues, some the story has to be pulled out of them; in all cases they're hesitant to post their knowledge publicly. So it's tough to collaborate here and make the best decision.

The future of some (all?) institutional collections are questionable. Overall, the interest, effort, and prestige of having massive collections of natural history specimens has significantly waned over the past 150 years. And with that, funding. Some places are operating on a shoestring, other collections get nothing from the institution and must self-fund with research grants. These grants though are typically from research into disease vectors and agriculture so have no use for butterflies.

Also, a number of "smaller" institutional collections (small meaning maybe < 50,000 specimens) have lost interest with the institutions' controllers and have been absorbed into larger collections. The overall decrease in interest in insect collections appears to be widespread and increasing.

That said, I suppose we can't look too far in the future. If we do, the best survivability for our collections would probably be distribution to other private researchers who you know will care for them, at least for the next 30 years.

[adamcotton]

@adam the above (jhyatt post) isn't quoted properly; trehopr1 didn't state that, I did.

I edited the quote formatting again. The first time jhyatt's reply was inside the quotes.

Adam.

[Chuck]

Update on the topic of disseminating a collection and materials.

To recap, we're moving and downsizing to southern FL. My primary driver is to ensure the significant subsets of the collection are secured against loss- a private residence in coastal FL carries a high risk of total loss. So I'm going to retain only about 25% of my collection.

Some of the local stuff- particularly the paratypes- are going to stay local I think. It's reasonable enough, though the institution for whatever reason is dead set against having affiliated citizen scientists; having an affiliation provides access to subscription documents and opens doors to permits, so without it research is just as challenging as it is now.

I did meet with two well known institutions in FL. One said they'd like the material (some of which is unobtainium) but I'd have to pay to get it there. My first thought is...umm, no, I'm not going to pay thousands of dollars to move a free donation. The other institution expressed great interest in some of the collection, though there was no commitment to fund the move either (though it wasn't ruled out.)

I approached two retailers about buying the specimens that are not captured by me; this includes commercially procured (e.g., Goliathus and Ornithoptera) and that provided to me by other advanced collectors. When I get time I'm going to sort out this type of material and photograph so the retailers can make offers.

I'm still struggling with which focus sets to keep; arguably one of the most significant is the Solomon Islands material, which I am far from finished with, yet at the same time is likely the most important to ensure survival. I could try to get my work done but the clock is ticking and it's doubtful I could finish in time.

Books I still don't know what to do with. The beginner's guides have been donated. But not sure what to do about the great volumes- you know, Howard, Holland, Covell, Opler, Scott, D' Abrera, LeMaire, those ID books we all eagerly awaited that are now long out of date. Even the 100 YO volumes, which I haunted antique stores to find, seem to be of limited interest these days.

Overall, I will say moving is a pain. It's easier. My wife and I have been selling stuff and pumping it out the door, probably $1000 / week- and we've been doing it for weeks and weeks and weeks; seems that's all we do. That doesn't even count the weekly run to the local donation place. It was fun accumulating these fabulous museum collections, and some are now worth astronomical money (not insects though!), but it eats time. No wonder people never move, or just go buy a winter home too.