Estate planning for a collection: what museums need

Most collections are dispersed within a year of the collector's death, usually at a fraction of their value and with their data lost. The reasons are predictable: nobody can read the numbering, the labels are separated from the specimens, the family does not know what is valuable or legal, and no museum was ever asked. Each is fixable in advance.

Write a one-page collection statement: what the collection is, how it is numbered (the “Rosetta stone”), where the records are and how to open them, which pieces carry legal restrictions (BLM-collected material cannot be sold; Alberta material needs a disposition certificate; ivory), and what you want done — donation, sale, division. Keep it with the will and give a copy to the executor.

If donation is the plan, ask the museum now. Curators accept material that has locality and horizon data, that fills a gap, that is legally clean and that comes with its documentation; they decline material that is undocumented, common, restored beyond scientific use or encumbered. A written expression of interest or a deed-of-gift template from the museum, kept with the statement, turns a wish into a plan. Museums rarely accept a whole collection on condition it stays together; expect them to select.

If sale is the plan, name the dealers or auction houses to approach, note that the paper labels and old collection labels must travel with the pieces, and record that the executor should get two quotes. Trade practice is to offer a percentage of retail for a whole collection; an executor with a valued schedule does better than one with a box.

Stratum's Estate Package export writes the statement, the full catalogue with photographs and the legal flags into one folder the executor can hand to a museum or a dealer without reading a manual.