SUBJECT: CONVERSION = ACCESSION? (RE-POSTED) Yes, I'm the one who started the discussion on "Deed of Gift = Accession?" (Expert consensus on that one was "No", you may accept as a gift objects which you do not accession; but if the donor claims a tax deduction, you must hold them for some specified time.) and Yes, I was at the AAM Session on "Old Loans" where I heard about the process of conversion, but No, I didn't think at the time, when all the experts were there in the same room with me, to put the two together and ask: Does Conversion entail Accession? OK. Say we have these wretched old loans we would dearly love to be free of. Actual Notice to the lender is not possible: we cannot find a valid current address. So we initiate Constructive Notice. We advertise in appropriate newspapers the museum's intent to convert the objects in question if the lenders do not present themselves and claim the stuff by a date 60 (or 90) days hence. We wait. No one comes. On the 61st (or 91st) day we: promptly Register the stuff as Accessions. Yet we have no intention of keeping it in the collection. Now the Statute of Limitations starts running. At the end of that time we may proceed to de-accession the stuff and document what we did. I have these questions: Is there a name for the "61st day" by which the objects must be claimed? If an object is claimed by the museum by conversion, is it necessary to de-accession it by the same procedure as an object accessioned with a Deed of Gift? Is there some action other than Accession which the museum may take on that 61st day to assert title to the objects? Some other action which would also start the Statute of Limitations, but which would not entail the De-accession process when it ran out? Wouldn't that be easier, and certianly cleaner for the collection records? I anticipate your wise counsel. PS: Thanks Minneapolis, I had a *Great Time* at AAM!! -S. ============================================================ Stephen B. Ringle, Registrar [log in to unmask] University of Maine Museum of Art 5712 Carnegie Hall, Room 109 vox: 207-581-3257 Orono, Maine 04469-5712 fax: 207-581-3083 ============================================================