When members or local railfans pass away, their train stuff is often given to the local railroad museum. That certainly happens at my museum. Usually, there are a few good items in the collection and a lot of stuff that's not so great. There are often a couple items that fit the Museum's focus perfectly, and a few that are rather nice but totally inappropriate (i.e. the HO scale NYC A-B-A set of Athearn PAs that belonged to a now deceased member). In order to be politic, it's pretty much a requirement that the museum accept the whole donation to get the good pieces. Some stuff like the model trains and magazines can be sold off in the gift shop. Other things are outside our focus, but too good for the trash.

Over the next year or so I'm going to go through SCRM's small artifacts. I'll probably just pitch a bunch of stuff that's clearly junk. Some stuff, though, might be of interest to other museums. It would be great if we have something that somebody else wants, and someone else has something we'd want. I haven't even begun this project yet, so it's going to be a while before I have any sort of list of what we have available for trade.

I suspect an awful lot of other organizations are in a similar position. So, I decided to give everyone here a heads-up. I'm going to shoot for having my list assembled by the Christmas holidays, about six months from now. Pass the word for everyone in the industry to get their trade bait together!

If you come across any ATSF stuff, let us know please?

This the type of thing I'd like to see teh classifieds for. hint hint nudge nudge

GREAT idea.

I am in full support.

We had something similar to this happen to us just 2 months ago. Our focus is the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario, and a historical museum out in California emailed to say that they had an old Great Gorge Route (see our website for info on that amazing trip) brochure which of course had absolutly NO attachment to their museum. They asked if we would be interested in it, and while I already had a copy of that brochure in the collection, we said yes (when the documents are 80+yrs old, and in great shape, it never hurts to have a backup). They sent out the brochure, and we added it to our collection. Its funny how a simple email can pay off, even in a small way.

Before you "I'll probably just pitch a bunch of stuff that's clearly junk. "

Take a look at EBAY, living proof that one man's trash...

Here at Old Pueblo Trolley, we will be going through our stored items to determine which items should be sold off. Due to ongoing projects, our trades will be somewhat limited-most items will only be offered for sale. This will include the hulk of a PCC that is being parted out.

When arranging donations, it is much better to work out the details with potential donors before they pass on. Accepting donations from next of kin often requires the organization to take on items that are inappropriate for the collection or items that they are ill prepared to accept. Arrangements made while the donor is alive allows for the museum to limit what they will agree to accept-allowing the donor to find more appropriate homes for the other items.

In regards to items that the museum intends to dispose of, some discretion may be in order. It may be inappropriate for the museum to promptly turn around and dispose of undesired items that were just donated. That may create problems with the next of kin of the donor or persons considering donating to the organization. In that case, it may be appropriate to consider retaining all donated items for a predetermined amount of time.

Basically, the bottom line is develop a donation policy and stick to it. Work with potential donors before the need arises for the items to have a new home. Make it clear in the agreement that the museum does not automatically agree to accept all items from a collection. Most of us have very limited resources and must choose carefully what we accept.

You hit the nail on the head! for a museum to take part in any of the disposal programs that have been
mentioded you have to have a mission statement or a collections document that spells out what you want to collect and why.

I raised $300 on Saturday selling out of field post cards for a museum. Ships are very nice but they do not usually become part of a railroad museum.

Your donor documents should have wording that the museum might sell out of field material for the benifit of the collection.

You do that a few times and you are talking real money and you make the collectors at the rail- roadanna shows real happy!

Of course, Ted when we sell donated items, the funds are then placed for use in bolstering the collecting rather than paying the light bill.

If you're using proceeds from sales of extraneous donations to cover basic operating expenses, your organization has problems. I would think it suffices to say that few (if any) of the organizations represented here are in that situation.

From the perspective of my own organization, Old Pueblo Trolley will be rationalizing our collection very soon. Two factors drive the need for this. One is that we are needing to raise a significant amount of capital to acquire a badly needed streetcar (in operating condition, no less). We've already begun negotiations to acquire the car and will be making the rounds to solicit donations from previous, reliable contributors. Due to various factors, we will be working to get the donations coming in as quickly as possible. We will also need to take actions to show our donors that we are dead serious about getting the car as soon as possible-namely ridding ourselves of items that don't serve any purpose (vehicles acquired that are not candidates for restoration-mission statement; vehicles that are not currently operable, not parts sources or meet projected operational needs; small items that do not fall under our mission statement). We will soon begin to develop an inventory of items to be disposed of and those will be offered to other museums, our members or the general public for sale. The funds received from those sales will go directly towards the streetcar acquisition.

The other reason that we must dispose of items is that we are going to have to remove from our current storage facility to another location. This is due to the fact that the city owned land that we lease will be condemned for a major highway project. The city has already arranged for us to have storage at another city owned facility. Outside storage space is limited, so only a select few streetcar bodies can be moved, along with the reefer bodies that we use for secure storage.

Our Bus Division and Museum Division-Southern Arizona Transportation Museum follow a strict guideline that items acquired have to be related to transportation history dealing with Arizona and preferably Southern Arizona. The rule the Bus Division follows is this-it is preferred to acquire only historic motor buses that actually served an Arizona transit company or agency. If no original buses of a specific carrier/type survive, it is acceptable to acquire a non-local bus of similar type for restoration or parts.

As for the Street Railway Division, our motivations were somewhat different. Our primary goal was to get street railway transportation back up and running. Since no original cars were available, we have developed the policy of acquiring whatever we can to meet the operational needs of the street railway, putting historical restoration as a secondary priority. The cars that have been acquired have been restored to their proper operating conditions. The Belgian tram we operate has been restored to its 1970s appearance-including all interior signage. Only three of the signs on board are in English/Spanish-all of the others are original French or Flemish. The Japanese car has a mixture of Japanese and English signage. The Portuguese car undergoing restoration will be entirely Americanized as it will represent a 1924 Brill car that ran in Prescott, Arizona.

I agree with everything you wrote in principle. However, I'm not so sure that it's all possible in the real world.

First off, most of the estate donations we've been offered have been people who contacted us out of the blue. Developing a relationship with the donor prior to death isn't possible if you have no idea that the donor even exists until his estate is offered to you!

The points about disposing of stuff causing hard feelings is well taken, but I don't think it's anywhere near as big a deal as it is often made out to be. In the case of estate donations, the family usually has no clue what Daddy's trains are worth or if they're appropriate for the museum they're offered to -- it's just train stuff so any railroad museum will do and we're closest. They make the donation because they figure Daddy would have wanted it that way, and it gets the stuff out of their way. In almost 15 years at SCRM, I think I've had someone who donated something come back to see what we were doing with it maybe twice. In both cases, the donor knew exactly what they had and were giving us. That's NOTHING like a clueless son or daughter giving us "Daddy's trains" after he's passed on.

I generally accept any donation that isn't paper. When someone offers SCRM any sort of paper, I politely tell them that I hate accepting paper because my museum building isn't climate controlled, so paper will deteriorate rapidly. I usually refer them to either the local County Museum or the appropriate railroad historical society in such cases, depending on what the stuff they're offering is.

Most other donations, I accept, though. I've found that many personal collections often have one or two real gems that fills a gap in our collection. Yeah, I have to accept four boxes of Tyco freight cars and two dozen HO structures with big globs of glue on them to get that nice oil can or lantern. But if I didn't smile and thank them profusely and tell them how wonderful the stuff is, they'd be disappointed and I'd miss out on the telegraph key from a local depot, a rare train book for our library, etc. It's worth having to go through and toss or trade some stuff once in a while.

As for the stuff that's junk... it really IS junk. Broken, poorly-assembled models, ultra-common magazines with bad water damage, old Schrader's catalogs... that stuff just isn't worth saving. I can't think of a single donation where I have tossed everything that was donated. Again, folks who give us "Daddy's trains" usually don't bother going through it before giving it to us, and they probably wouldn't know the good stuff from the junk if they did. Weeding a largeish donation is just part of running a museum.

Alan,

Please let us know when you get another street car. It is always good to hear that another historic car goes into a nmuseum.

Re my comment earlier about using money raised from collection sales. I am lucky enough to work for well magaged/ well endowed museums.

It has been many years since the day of having to worry about paying the light bill. Although in the early days the Association was bailed out of serious money problems on a regular basis.

However, I do refer any and all back to the Association of Railway Museum" Practices documents for guidence.

Ted Miles

Recommended Practices for Railway Museums is available on-line though a link from this informational page:
Reommended Practices

Much work went into the creation of this document and it stands the test of time. It can also be used by any other kind of museum preserving larger artifacts.