A Cautionary Tale for Collector-Donors

Last in a series by MAD, this one on clocks, and what happens sometimes to collections that are donated to institutions/ museums. It's not a pretty picture, with the donors or donor families increasingly ending up in court over the terms of the donation with millions and sometimes 10s of millions of dollars at stake.
https://www.maineantiquedigest.com/...collector-donors-and-their-beneficiaries/7310


James Arthur and His “Temple of Time”

 

Very interesting article. I have some local experience with the same phenomenon. Historic houses, monumental items, etc. were "donated" to the city that I worked for with the expectation that the taxpayer would take over the cost of maintenance, capital improvement, storage and management in perpetuity of the things the direct descendants or businesses no longer want. In one case, I saw the meeting notes of non profit board consisting of family members, who cynically said they needed to find some city entity to take a house over while still retaining exclusive rights to use it for family events. They "donated" it to the library.

 

Yeah, is interesting and i don't know diddly about clocks! Thing is, donors/donor families normally would suffer in silence when promises were not kept out of reverence for the institution. That practice seems to be going nite-nite as more & more are taking their complaints to the judge!