FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tracy]

And now, for something completely **neutral** - I would like to poll FMF readers to find out whether they keep invoices of mineral purchases, even if all the data from the invoices are entered into one's catalogue. If yes, is this true of all invoices, even ones written on generic receipt paper without any special imprint to know very much about the seller? I'm interested to know what the most common practice is. Please provide input even if just to say "I hadn't thought about doing this before, but maybe I will start" (or something like that). No penalties for either "yes" or "no" answers, this is just my own survey.

Thanks!

- Tracy

ps I have a new camera! I am getting the hang of how to use it and hope to post some new and improved photos to my collection thread soon. :)

[GneissWare]

Hi Tracy,

I keep all my invoices.

I've run across many old collections that have original receipts, and find the history to be fascinating. This is probably a debate that will draw along the same lines as an earlier thread about keeping old labels ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=347 ). Invoice add to the provenance, and allow the path of a specimen to be traced through its various owners and dealers, and provides some interesting glimpses into how prices have changed over time.

Bob

PS Hope you have a Happy Thankgiving!

[Peter Megaw]

All epherma related to a specimen can be interesting, and I suppose we will one day have invoice collections to back up a specimen's provencance/pedigree...with collateral discussions of what this documentation adds to the specimen's value. However, I think invoices perhaps give us a broader view of the collector's history than the specimen's. I bought a huge reference collection a few years ago and it had virtually every receipt the guy ever received. It was fun to see what he'd paid for things, but most intersting to see was who he got things from consistently and who were one-off dealers..he was clearly sharp enough to trace sources upstream to the "original" and cheaper sources. Since most of the invoices were for multiple specimen purchases and therefore impossible to keep with all but one individual subject specimen, I decided that they should mostly go to someone who knew the collector and was interested in collecting history and philosophy rather than try to keep them with the individual rocks. They were gratefully received and foled. A small batch of the rest I used to embarrass one of his major sources, who gouged him for years!

[bugrock]

Must admit I am guilty of not keeping a catalog of my collection but I'm told
by one mineralogist I know that this is common of many private collections.
On the other hand I try to add as much information as possible on the back of
specimen labels, the primary (last) label supplied by the dealer or to the
preprinted specimen label I fill in on my own. This includes the source
of the specimen, the collector if known, when the piece was acquired, and
the price paid if purchased.

When specimens are purchased from an internet dealer it is now easy to copy/
paste the specimen description into a word processing document, modify the
text to reflect what you wish to document, set the font type and size and produce
a small cut-out label that can be pasted to the back of the primary label. Someday
it may be useful to know what was paid for each piece.

Loose labels are dangerous of course, they can become separated from the specimen
or labels can be switched. But it seems easier for a file of invoices to be separated
from the specimens and it may not be possible to quite figure out which invoice entry
goes with which rock. If a catalog is kept however one could write the catalog number
after each item on the invoice.

Have a great Thanksgiving

[GneissWare]

Invoices are ephemera, helping chart the history of specimens and the overall collection. Cataloging is wholly separate issue, and an essential part of our obligation as stewards of the minerals in our possession.

[Matt_Zukowski]

I have not been absolute about this in the past but will in the future. I will scan a pdf of the receipt, old labels, etc and then keep the pdf with pictures, relevant other digital info, etc on my computer. The history is interesting as already pointed out, but keeping original documentation of cost basis may some day be important to defend myself against the IRS.

[Carles Millan]

[James Catmur]

Tracy

I do keep them when I get them , but they are the one part of my filing that is weak if not very bad. So they are in a large file and it would take some hard work to get them to align with the collection. But I do keep the costs in my database so it would not be impossible

That said at shows I often do not get an invoice and some dealers are not always keen. Mines never give invoices!

James

[Carles Millan]

[Joan Massagué]

Tracy,

Regarding this and other related issues about collection record keeping discussed elsewhere in the FMF, here is a description of my system. I keep all invoices, no matter how trivial the document may be. Each invoice is kept with the specimen record sheet, which is a hard copy of the specimen file in my computer. In the event that multiple specimens are listed on the same invoice, I keep a photocopy of the invoice with every specimen record sheet. The specimen record sheet contains all the “vital” information about the specimen (see image below). The record sheet, the invoice, and all other relevant documents (specimen old labels, specimen correspondence and email printouts, if any) are kept inside a regular plastic protector sheet, and this inside a ring binder. A thick ring binder (2.5 in/7.5 cm) can hold about 100 of these, and so the records of my entire collection of nearly 500 specimens are archived in 5 binders. Electronic files and electronic pictures of every specimen are safely backed-up. The specimen number is glued on the specimen, of course. I have been using this system for many years and never found a need to modify it. Works for me!

[chris]

Hi Tracy,

I keep every invoice of a purchase (even if it was written on a napkin) as I do for the labels of previous owners.

Christophe

[Jesse Fisher]

The invoice is proof of what you have paid for the items in your collection. In the event that you sell your collection, you are likely to owe income tax on the profits of the sale. Without the invoices, you have no proof of what the items in the collection cost you and could be held liable for Capital Gains tax on the entire sale. Now, if the collection is not of any great value this is not likely to be an issue, but if the collection does eventually end up being worth something, having those receipts could make life easier when dealing with the tax man.

[bugrock]

Jesse brings up a point that seems quite important but does anyone know of examples where the IRS has called a sale into question due to lack of documentation of purchase price?

Is there a sale value that in particular triggers the IRS to call a transaction into question?

Would think that the situation is quite different for a private collector vs someone who is a dealer with a business tax ID (even if that ID is acquired only to gain early access to shows etc).

In the case of very old collections, such as one that has been in the family for years, it might be quite difficult to provide detailed documentation.

Are there any accountants on this forum that can provide advice?

[GneissWare]

Your posts raises a bunch of issues. These answers are generally right, though there are lots of complexities in the tax code, and each case needs to be evaluated individually. Of course, this response only applies to the USA.

[James Catmur]

Should the worry about the tax man make us all less keen to tell others what we paid? As has been said by others "the internet never forgets". So maybe in the future the tax man will track down a copy of a web page somewhere and find out what we paid years ago.

I think that keeping records does make sense and I ought to get mine into a better state than just a note on my database (which does tell me what I paid in which currency and in £ at the exchange rate on the day I bought the specimen). So I do have that data, but no proof.

James

[Tracy]

Thanks all for the feedback, it was interesting and insightful. I have faithfully copied all the details about each acquisition into the catalogue I am buidling, but never thought that the actual pieces of paper were worth hanging on to untill recently. As a resullt, a good number of invoices have since gone on to paper reccling plants or deleted files. I guess it's part of being on the learning curve - at first all I did was jot down the specimen's "code name" in s notebook and the price I paid for it. You would think that, given how hard it's been to decipher the scribblings in my notebook and turn them into a coherent cataogue entry, that I would have started hanging onto the invoices themselves, but I figured once entered they were expendable - oh well, I guess it's part of the learning curve.

Several thoughts spring to mind as I think about the replies. First, I have no illusions that my collection will ever amount to anything so spectacular that its dispersion will involve financial transactions significant enough to alert the taxman. I hope to pass my collection along someday to the yourger generation in my family, though so far nobody has expressed much interest. When the time is right (read: when it's fully organized and catalogued) I will have the entire collection appraised, and leave it at that. (as a note: appraisals are important for tax purposes, but also for insurance purposes)

It also never occured to me that anybody would find my paper traili of specimen transactions to be of any interest to persons other than me, though I can see where I might be mistaken. i might actually become 'famous' someday... ;-)

A separate thought that occurs to me is: is it possible that someday it will become the norm to save too much information about a specimen? We only recently were lamenting the fact that many delaers are not in the habit of sharing older labels, much less the provenance of a specimen which they sell. In the future, will/should we be expecting dealers to provide buyers with older labels, sales receipts, and possibly more? Seems to be rather labor-intensive and in some ways detracts from the fun of collecting minerals, which is...well, just the minerals themselves! Eveb now the process of keeping my catalogue current chew up a lot of my time, and I have better success maintaining on some days than on others. I question whether we are already crossing over to the region of "too much info" in our efforts to preserve the provenance of a specimen - maybe Peter had it right when he said that the invoices tell more about the habits of the collector himself/herself, and as such might be most appreciated by those who best knew him/her. To Gneissware;s remarj about how invoices are an important part of charting history whereas keeping a catalogue is an "obligation as stewards of the minerals in our possession" - is not preserving history a part of the obligation, and how can we keep these two purposes (preserving history versus maintaining a catalogue) distinct? I can only find a blurry "dividing line" on this point.

Thanks for giving me stuff to ponder. Any more comments from other readers? I haven't read many "no" responses and don't want my poll to end up skewed,,, ;-)

Happy weekend!

- Tracy

[mraffordable]

Tracy,
As a business person, I have found that it is always a good idea to keep invoices. For business purposes it is obvious for tax write offs but also for insurance purposes. If there is not a lot of information on the seller, I would try and get as much as I could for that "just in case" occasion. If an insurance carrier should want proof of value of your collection, you would have it. As a collector, the entry in your catalogue would probably be sufficient, for most other things. I'm just a cumpulsive saver and usually go back to invoices to find a supplier when I need some more material of the same kind.

[Les Presmyk]

I find that you can never have too much information about a specimen. When I helped Jean Bandy go through boxes of minerals her husband Mark had packed away in the 1950's we came across his labels that showed not just the mine level but the mine coordinates where the specimen was collected. My first reaction was that this was too much information. Then I realized that as the collectors of specimens, the first time you eliminate information from a piece, it becomes lost from that point forward.

When I worked at the Magma mine in Superior, Arizona we had a few opportunities to collect specimens. I placed the panel number, the stope, the elevation and the level on the labels, per the example I had from Mark Bandy. While I took a bit of ribbing from friends, I pointed out to them they could always throw the information away but I had done my duty to provide that information from the outset. While the chances of me ever being able to go back to any of those collecting areas are slim and none, at least the information is preserved.

Invoices, labels (I have known dealers to buy specimens for their label collections and sell the specimen without the old label), internet comments no matter how they are fabricated, are all part of a specimen's provenance and should be preserved.

[Jim Prentiss]

Hello Tracy,

I have kept nearly all the labels I have recieved with my mineral purchasses but I never bothered with invoices. I am not a dealer and tax write ioff is not an issue, so it never occured to me. I do record the initial purchase price in my catalog.

Jim Prentiss

[Gail]

Jim and I have all the invoices of all the minerals we have. We keep a record of check numbers, dates, etc. also.
We then put each invoice in a file for the year it was paid.
I sometimes scan invoices and keep them on my computer, as a reference. Dan Weinrich would send a receipt by email for auction items I had gotten, so I kept them in "my documents" files and backed them up on an external hard drive.
My hope is to scan ALL documents eventually, as a back up and will do yearly to keep in a safe deposit box.