Who you buy from

In a craft with no manufacturing, sourcing is the business.

Four sources of material

Self-collected, which is cheapest and slowest and carries the best data if you write it down.

Dealers, which is most of it.

Collections and estates, which is where the good documented material moves.

Other collectors, by trade, which is how specialized collections actually get built.

Dealers

Judge them on description accuracy above everything. A dealer whose damage notes are complete is worth paying more to.

Ask what they know about a specimen's history, and notice whether they distinguish what they know from what they were told.

Find the ones who specialize in what you collect. A specialist knows the localities, spots the relabeled material and tells you what is coming.

And buy from them repeatedly. This trade rewards being a known buyer with first refusal.

Collections and estates

Where documented material comes from, and it comes with the old labels, which are part of the value.

It is also where the risk is: a large lot bought quickly, sorted slowly, with the documentation in danger the whole time.

Buy the paper as carefully as the stone.

Packaging and curation supplies

A different supply chain entirely, and the one where the conservation questions live.

The question to ask a packaging supplier is the resin: polypropylene and polyethylene are inert, PVC is not, and a supplier can answer that for any item they sell.

Also acid-free label and card stock, inert cushioning, and cabinets that are metal or properly sealed.

It is the least glamorous purchasing in the hobby and it decides whether the collection survives.

References