How to "anonymously" share modest collection with non-profits

I have a very modest collection of ancients, focusing on coins of the Bible and those that are related to famous people or places of antiquity. Probably not valued at more than a few hundred dollars, but not doing anyone much good sitting in my safe deposit box.

I have thought about doing something like this and wanted to get feedback from you all before I approached any local groups.

1. Have one particular church/school be the "guardian" of the collection
2. Only 1 person at the "guardian entity" would know that I am connected to the coins
3. My identity would be kept a secret; hopefully for a very, very long time
4. All coins must be kept in a SDB, a safe, etc.
5. Has to have only 1 or 2 people with access to the coins
6. Coin must be signed out and signed back in
7. If lost or damaged, "signee" is responsible to reimburse purchase price + 10%
8. Coin cannot be signed out for more than one week at a time
9. Possible that "guardian entity" would use their insurance to cover the costs?
10. If "borrowed" by another church/school/non-profit, deposit of purchase price + 10%
11. If to be displayed, they must do so securely and submit a plan ahead of time

Any thoughts? Good idea? Horrible idea? Missing some things?

Edit: and before anyone else says it, pretty sure that #3 will not last as long as I think it will.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Talk to an attorney!

 

1. Don't add any conditions. Almost no institutions are willing to accept, and if accepted, abide by, conditions such as the long list you suggest. Conditions are a red herring that will make you favour the wrong recipient just because they agree. Ten minutes after the wrong institution has control, they'll sell them and spend the money on loose women and booze.

2. Consider who you would like to have the coins, perhaps a local school or club and just give them on a (non contractual) understanding they won't sell immediately (you won't be able to prevent that long term, but goodwill counts for a lot)

3. If you don't have an obvious recipient, or are still anxious, sell all the coins and donate proceeds to something you feel you have more control over. Such as a donation of books to a school library. Or an Amazon voucher for a school library.

Don't involve an attorney. You said the coins are worth less than $1000. Two hours attorney work and you've burnt their value.

Keep it simple. Donate the coins without conditions. Or sell and donate their value.

 

I don't think any non-profits would agree to such an agreement. Too much risk to them. I would say better to simply make a contact with them and offer to loan them to them as needed to facilitate their programs, but you keep custody otherwise.

I have done this for a few people in certain non-profits. They know if they need access to authentic ancients for a certain display or exhibition I will loan them to them.

I agree, though, to make it anonymous. No sense the whole world knowing you like to collect pricey little bits of metal.

 

as above have stated ...

for some insider info ... Where I work we deal with donations with specific intentions such as you are stating. Mostly it deal in large cash donations that we can derive an income stream from; or a cash donation that is spent with specific demographic purposes. Sometimes we are donated land and other oddities.

But anytime there are so many strings attached, such as what you are stating we usually regret those donations. For you, you are asking the receiving organization to take on expenses; to take on auditing (more expenses); some process/etc for how you want everything handled; and what upon your demise - what happens then; is there any time requirements until the organization comes into ownership of said property (right now, per your requirements, it seems more of a loan to an organization than a donation)?

In instances of property donation many organizations will want to sell that property to create money .. cash .. something that they can actually "use" for their purposes.

I think you are better off talking to a museum who may have those processes in place already.

But talk to organizations and a lawyer who can help in these situations (who'll burn through cash way above your valuation). As you'll (or someone) will want to audit who ever gets the stuff per your desires ....

in the end I think your requirements are far too strict and costly for such little valuation.

 

One such location ...

https://jubileemuseum.org/

But if you know how museums work .... they rotate displays, and even loan them out to other museums. Even cases of selling the displays if they no longer see a purpose in them to draw attendees.

But since it's small, and truthfully, not really has much valuation, it could just sit in a corner of the museum somewhere or take up a small area, even a secured display pedestal.

But, they'd probably just want it donated with no restrictions.

 

@Dougmeister , you are interested in ancient coins. The members participating in this forum are interested an ancient coins. But, an extremely low fraction of other people are interested in ancient coins. If you donate them to some group, they will not find any good use for them. Even a donation to a museum with no conditions attached will not get you what you want. You can't make people interested by giving them to a group that must store them away. Who would ask to see them?

I have visited major museums with fabulous ancient coins on display and purposely sat for a while and watched to see how the other visitors reacted. Keep in mind these are visitors to a museum with a major section on antiquity and they chose to visit that part of the museum. Nevertheless, most skip the coins (perhaps because they are too small) entirely or spend at most a few seconds on them.

The point is, most people don't care about the types of things we collect. There is no chance a "local" group would get anything out of them (unless you let them sell them so they can get cash).

You could buy low-grade but identifiable coins in bulk and attribute and give them away to kids or adults (at church?). I have a friend who does this for kids at gun shows where he has a table and promises them a second at the next show if they show up with any information about the first. I ask and he has never said anyone reappeared.

I have had occasion to lecture at a university and at a university museum about ancient coins to groups specifically interested in antiquity and given away identified coins and given them ways to contact me if they wanted to follow up. I've had one bite of any magnitude, and I'm sure the gift leading to possession (that they didn't even know was possible) made the difference.

The simple fact is that our interest in coins is hardly transferable to others. (How many of us have spouses who are truly interested? Few.) Fortunately for us CT can bring together collectors from all over the world, the sum of which makes enough people to keep a forum going. It gives us a way to share our love of ancient coins. I hope you find loving them yourself and sharing them with us is enough.

 

It breaks my heart to "like" Valentinian's post, but alas, as in most things, Valentinian is right.

 

I was thinking high school students studying ancient history (Rome), or the New Testament. The teachers would be the ones who would get the coins and show them to the students.

Am I just being naive here? What teacher *wouldn't* want a coin from the time of Cleopatra to let their students actually touch? What kid in a Bible class wouldn't want to actually hold a Widow's mite, a coin that "could" have been handled by Jesus, the apostle Paul, etc.? Or contemporary coins from the cities of the 7 Churches of Revelation?

 

Volunteer *your* time to talk and show the kids the coins, and correlate it to Biblical times for them. You'll know more about the coin side than probably anyone else. Give your talking points to the teacher(s) so they could support your presentation.

Think of it this way .. What if I take $200 of my coins and ask you to be their guardian under the same stipulations as you have outlined for some organization ? And what liability would *you* be under if you lost or damaged one coin ?

 

You could speak with a local or school library. I have some artifacts on loan to mine, but I control the displays. So maybe just ask if anyone wants them on loan to display for a year, and you can rotate them. Too many stipulations will turn libraries off and I doubt any would agree to loaning them out.

 

The easiest way to dispose of 'a few hundred dollars' worth of 'modest' coins would be to give them without restrictions to a teacher of history or Latin, a parent/child team or a church leader according to the type of coins in question. We have each of the three categories I mentioned among regular posters right here on Coin Talk. I wish I had a way of finding other potential recipients that the few I have used here which means separating those who would like the coins from those that heard the word FREE and signed up for a give-away. There is also the problem of gathering addresses of such worthy recipients since some of them are minors or live in countries where I do not know the laws regarding private ownership of old things.

Many museums would give your collection a home IF you would cover all their expenses and trouble. Rather than requiring them to provide a trusted employee, you need to fund two new staff positions (one to watch the other) on a continuing basis. You need to fund construction of a proper exhibit (remodeled room, new wing???) and fund maintenance of that facility. This might make sense for a collection worth several million dollars but the first year costs would exceed the value of a modest group like most of us have.

Opinion question: If the gift shop of a museum that has an exhibit on the ancient world were to offer your coins at 10-25% 'retail' individually, how long would it take them to sell them? Would the space it would take cover the loss they would suffer from losing that retail space previously used for plastic swords and postcards? Most museums would probably refuse the coins even on that condition.

We have dealers here who would probably take your coins on consignment but might not be interested in a cash up front purchase. I know a couple dealers who pay cash without question but the percentage of what you paid at CNG auctions will not be pleasing.

I'll go Valentinian one better on this one. I majored in Greek and Latin in college. I have collected ancient coins for more than 50 years. When I go to a museum that has coins, I spend at most a few seconds on them unless they have something that I have not seen before, something in my specialty interests or something that is really exceptional in some way. The local museum here as a Syracuse dekadrachm (I have seen hundreds) and a dozen coins that I would love to have if they were giving them away but, as it is, I prefer to look at the mosaics or archaic pots. When I go to the coi shows that have a display area, I only look at the exhibits if I have seen all the dealers present and have time to kill before my ride leaves.

'Leading to possession' makes all the difference.

 

Basically any student who takes a legitimate interest in my coin displays gets a LRB to bring home. Sadly, I don’t get the opportunity to give out many.

 

I think most here will remember this …………

https://coinweek.com/opinion/commentary/museums-hate-ancient-coins/

 

I think your mission is very noble and benevolent, @Dougmeister . I'm planning something similar eventually but considering also the possibility of gifting my collections to fellow ancients collectors.

 

I feel the same way, Gavin, even though I define a "like" as a nod of appreciation for the comment rather than agreement with the comment. I'm in agreement with @Valentinian 's comments in this case also.

It's difficult for one of us to comprehend the lack of interest most of our fellow human beings have for history. I was dumbfounded several years ago when I visited the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The room full of artifacts from our War of Independence was devoid of visitors. It was great for me because I had the whole room to myself but sad that nobody was interested in the uniform George Washington wore while leading the troops at the Battle of Princeton. I stood looking at that uniform in total amazement for I don't know how long. Down the hall there were 100+ people standing in a line to see a case full of glitzy Hollywood memorabilia.

 

The thing about coins is that if a nonprofit is willing to provide security, insurance, etc they're really not that hard for them to get hold of, most of them just aren't willing to spend the time and money to do it. There are various museums and colleges near me that have small collections of ancient coins and I've seen them loan items out to other organizations but as others have said, there's not a lot of interest. At the "Dead Sea Scrolls" exhibit that the Denver Museum of Nature and Science recently put on there was a huge display of artifacts before the scrolls themselves. Pottery, coins, figurines, utensils, etc. Most people were taking a quick glance and walking right past all the smaller artifacts and only really interested in the big pottery pieces and the scrolls themselves.

If I were in a position where I wanted to share my collection and also allow those few who were really interested in it to have closer access I would first photograph the whole thing and then set up an exhibit at a library with some of the coins. In a locked case I'd have the coins themselves and then in a binder off to the side, high res printed photos of the coins. For good measure I'd also leave an email address for interested parties to contact you for more info or questions. You could make one up such as "DougmeisterCollection@gmail.com" or similar to maintain anonymity if you want.

 

When I finish a novel, I always aim to leave it on a bus or train seat. I feel its a slightly more efficient way of getting it to another interested reader than bringing to a charity shop. I wonder is there an ancient coin equivalent. After all an LRB has about same cost and commercial value as a hard back book. Is there somewhere one could leave ones ancient coins, one at a time, labelled "Keep Me", and that would hit the right audience?