FYI: I would be leery about auctioning a de-accessioned object or other
item on e-bay using an anonymous/individual account for a number of
reasons, that boil down to the appearance of being deceitful/evasive
(especially for tax/accounting documentation).
e-bay rules prohibit fundraising (for a non-profit) unless you sell as an
individual or organizational e-bay member via e-bay's 'missionfish' (by which a
non-profit is already a member of). Otherwise, the only way for a non-profit to
sell/auction with an ebay account used by an organization or an individual,
requires that the organization's name be indicated. It
is also required that the directors' signed permission and the non-profit's
501 (c) (3) ID# be scanned and presented on the actual auction listing.
An example of a way to avoid all this would be to give the de-accessioned
item to someone who is not affiliated with the museum (and provide documentation
that no monies, etc., were exchanged) and trust that they will sell it (on ebay
or other means) without affiliating it with the name of the museum. And then
trust that they donate the proceeds to the museum and that
they collected and will pay sales tax from the sale of the item (if applicable).
Now this would be your public relation's or even tax nightmare -if it
became known that a de-accessed object was sold in such a round-about manner.
Museums bid and win auctions on ebay quite often. Personally I've never
come across an item being auctioned by or on behalf of a museum, but I have seen
museums bid on and win auctions.
The reason for de-accessioning an item should be a valid reason to begin
with and therefore one that you can refer to in an auction listing. And it
is important to indicate that the proceeds from the auction are earmarked
for a specific (or general) purpose...organizational costs, or for a
particular program/project.
'Monetary valuing' is inconsequential when auctioning an item for
fundraising. What I was referring to was the re-sale of an artifact - that is
different. I believe that it would be appropriate to have a stipulation for
the auction winner that, if the item were to be re-sold, the museum name
should in no manner be referred to in a subsequent transaction (mainly, to not
give the impression that there would be any proceeds from such a sale
that would again, benefit the museum if there is indeed, none).
I don't believe that there is 'trade-off' along the lines for which
you are thinking, and quite the adverse when you consider your accounts
receivable, sales taxes, and the monetary proceeds as a donation, etc. Doing
things on the sly are just that and will always have the potential of coming
back to haunt you.
Being honest and clear about the reasons for de-accessing an object and the
proceeds in affiliation with your museum will do more good than harm.
Personally, if I donated something to a museum (what if I myself had gotten
for free or at little cost?) and they didn't need it - I would be more than
thrilled if it got big bucks in an auction and even more thrilled that the
proceeds were more of a contribution than a useless, or even worthless
item.
Pam
In a message dated 9/20/2005 3:21:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Pam,
My comment was really focused on eBay
auctions. My thought with eBay is that it reaches so many people (not a
discrete set of buyers) that it would be prudent to not have that association
known. It might impact the value the piece sells for without the
association, but in my mind, for my institution, I think that trade-off is
acceptable. I don't think the Museum itself would be listed as the
seller. Probably we would use an anonymous individual seller's account
so the connection to my institution was not apparent. (Assuming we even
disposed of an item via eBay.)
From a broader perspective, I feel, given
my history museum perspective (probably different from the art world), that we
should not encourage the monetary valuing of artifacts or encourage the
thinking that something is more valuable because it once belonged to a
museum.
Stacey