Loans or donations to museums

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by bnorth

^^If donating or loaning this is great advice.^^ This was my biggest problem. The person who runs the museum also runs all the historic places in town. I owned a construction company for 20+ years and had easily done over 6 figures of work for them over the years with 0 problems. I was too trusting and believed everything she said and got nothing in writing.



^^More great advice.^^ I had a great talk with the lady behind the counter at the Bob Feller Museum not long before it closed. Actually it is MLB that screws these great little places over causing them to close. I don't get how this works or why it is done but this is how it was explained to me. I will use the Feller museum as an example. As long as Mr Feller was alive they are allowed to have former players come and do autograph sessions and other events. These events are their main income. As soon as Mr Feller passed they are no longer allowed to bring in any former players to do these events. Without Mr Feller or any former players doing events they quickly run out of $ and have to close.

I would highly recommend donating/loaning items to museums even with my horrible experience. Just don't do it as stupidly as I done, get every aspect of the transaction in writing.

Ben is correct about all of this info, as it was the same thing that I heard.
It should be noted that Van Meter, IA is so far off the grid, that incidental traffic to the museum was always practically non existent. You would have to plan for a trip to Van Meter to catch the museum which was very nice, BTW.