DO YOU CATALOGUE YOUR COLLECTION?

Looking at one of the threads made me wonder. Do you make a note of all your collection? Take photographs of it? Have a detailed catalogue and where do you note it down? Do you forget who made what pot? Or the more dramatic old story of course, if you kick the bucket how would people know the significance of any of your pottery? To the lay person one pot just like another! Me, I am completely haphazard, but am just wondering if I should be a bit more methodical!

I should but I’m too lazy. I use this forum as my catalogue

I also use the forum as my catalogue but I also take a group photo of the pots I'm putting into a box (always the same potter) then I attach a photo to the box and write the potter's name in a thick marker pen .

I keep a screengrab in Evernote of all interesting things I see and anything I bid on either win or lose. The pro version can search images for text so it's quick/easy to find things. I have 7000 records in Evernote. Do about +600 a year. I can quickly find out how much I paid for an item and when + I track prices of things I want. Evernote is mainly useful as I have all 'stuff' in one place, if it's anywhere it's in Evernote. There is free version for phone/PC and it's highly recommended. You need the Chrome clipper app also.

https://evernote.com/

I used to have images on my phone, donloads, things on my desktop, lists everywhere, screengrabs etc. All sorts of records, nightmare.

I also have some clear scotch tape and a pencil (expensive kit) and neatly write the maker of pots on the bottom of each and any important info like probably date. You never know you might pop your clogs tomorrow and don't want your Cardew sold off for a tenner. Shame on you all for not at least labelling pots, stand back and look at your collections - no one will have a clue even with this site once you are gone. Remember that you might also go a 'bit dotty' and forget. Most of the post you have will long outlast you, someone in 100 years may be grateful for the little label you put on the base.

Storage - I tend to number the boxes with BIG NUMBER on the side and then keep a written list of the contents (You guessed it ...in Evernote)

 

I've told the family to contact Adam Partridge and Woolley & Wallis auctions when I die and get them to sort through everything and sell it.

very thorough

What happens is he dies next week? And you the wee after? There was meant to be a really good briglin book but birgitta died befo

But what is the point in storing things away in boxes? More often than not you just leave them there till the year dot, because it is literally too much bother to unpack them. Let alone the very reason you put them in there was you did not have room to display them!

my boxes are all accessible so, when the market is right, I just list some of the contents and take out the ones that sell.
Last year I had a huge box of Dartington pottery and now I just have a space where the box used to be.
Simples

You don't know the delight of opening an old box and finding an old friend you had forgotten about - like finding a lost cat on a rainy day!

22 Crawford St. wrote:You don't know the delight of opening an old box and finding an old friend you had forgotten about - like finding a lost cat on a rainy day!

Agreed. And I just like knowing I own it; I don’t have to see it everyday

Selling when the market is right is always a tricky one. Cos often, for a good deal of what we have bought the market is never right! Years ago I could buy lots of generic studio pottery cheaply at boot sales and sell it on and a reasonable price. But generally that is not so easy on Ebay now.
There is an awful lot of really nice very well made studio pottery that does not sell for much more than peanuts, and it never will. Storing that sort of stuff away in boxes hoping that it will change in the future, is pie in the sky!

I agree and have donated all of my car boot bargains to charity as I don't like to put anything on ebay unless there's a £20 profit to be made.
I also never buy pottery to sell on unless there is £20 to be made.
Needless to say, I rarely buy pottery to sell

I only buy stuff I like.

About the same level for me Dan. Pottery is such a fiddly time consuming thing to pack to ensure non-breakage (let alone cost of better quality packing materials!) that it is just not worth it. Equally you are right in buying pottery. Mostly Anything studio pottery wise with a mark on in a charity shop or Boot sale nowadays has such a hefty price ticket that it is a non-starter. In the Oxfam end the prices are often in total dreamland. So buying speculatively is very much less.
I can often get the odd first edition book cheaply, but even then the upper price market is a narrow one. One day I might get that 1st edition of J.K Rowling's 1st Harry Potter book, but it is incredibly rare as only 500 1st editions were printed, and most of those went to libraries.

I agree with only buying stuff I like Naomi. But over the years there has been a great deal out there to like!

I still like it. Some might think a lot of it is worthless but monetary value is rarely why I buy things in the first place.

This is something I wished I had had the foresight to do many moons ago. There's absolutely no order to how I packed things away and I regret that now. On the plus side, I've unboxed pieces that I had no idea I owned, some nice bits and bobs. Still, would rather have been more organised, with hindsight.

Pix and mix boxing can be fun as you say finding things you had forgotten you had but also extremely frustrating when you simply can't find something no matter how many boxes you look in

When I see a piece sell well on eBay and I have one in stock, I don't want to be looking through mixed boxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So true Dan.
As Crawford mentioned, I had a similar experience a few weeks back on eBay, an item i had sold took over an hour to find

Sold a glass vase a couple of years ago and couldn’t find it anywhere. I’d moved it to a bedroom windowsill when the mother in law came round for Christmas and completely forgot where it was. Had to cancel the sale. Took me over a year to find it.

I have a huge box of Villeroy Boch in Acapulco design so last year I listed it all on Facebook.
After a couple of months, I got a buyer who wanted it all but when I went to my garage I could find no box marked Boch Acapulco.
I canceled the sale after checking every box and the wife then checked every box too, then we checked together.
A year later, we were swapping all the cardboard boxes for robust, plastic meggaboxes and there it was

There is of course one solution to all this. Move House! It definitely makes you have a sort out!