Little did I know that I would stimulate so lively a discussion when I posted
my question!
    I received a variety of responses directly, and have enjoyed reading the
postings in museum-l.
    One thing I should make clear is that my question specifically addressed
assignment of an appropriate accession number to objects whos legal status was
clear -however recently- to the museum.  After reading the various responses,
I decided to assign real 1995 accession numbers to the objects.   Terry Vidal
of the University of Northern Iowa stated the solution most clearly:

  Stephen:
  Your problem is simple.  You should accession it/them with this year's
  date and order.  I assume that it was only recently that the estates
  confirmed your ownership/title.  It was not until that point that you
  had the right to accession the material.  The accession forms should be
  accompanied by the explanation you offered as well as documentation from
  the respective estates that conferred title upon you.
  Even if it has been a few years since you have had clear title, you are
  only now recognizing that title, thus, you are accessioning the
  object(s) now.
  So forget all of this stuff about accessioning with past dates.  Now it
  is _offically_ entering your collection.
          Terry Vidal
          Collections Manager
          University Museum
          University of Northern Iowa
          [log in to unmask]

  Many people responded by addressing a related by quite different problem:
that of assigning an appropriate number to the ubiquitous and dreaded
"FOUND OBJECT"   Again, there were a number of schemes proposed, including:
  - Preceed the number with an X  (eg:  X1995.1.1)
  - Use lot number 1 of each year for all the found stuff (eg: 1995.1 is
reserved for all stuff found without documentation in 1995, ditto for 1994.1)
  - Use a special flag year century digit in the accession number.  This was
advised against, for fairly obvious reasons.
...and other proposals.  For me, most of these ideas posed a problem, in that
they attempted to construct a number which LOOKED like an accession number.

I have learned to assign Accesion Numbers only to objects to which the Museum
can promptly provide documentation of clear title.  Everything else gets
numbers which are entirely different in look and construction, so that there
is no confusion about what we think we own.  What many respondents got tangled
up in here was the issue of assigning unique Inventory Control Numbers.
Many of us use databases, and have to keep track of an inordinate number of
things, and the use of unique numbers to facilitate the marriage of these two
is obvious.
   We assign Temporary Deposit numbers to found objects with no documentation,
just as if they had just entered the museum from outside.  These numbers start
with TD.  have lot & item numbers as required, and END with the year digits.
eg:  TD.5.12.95  (Temporary deposit, 1995 5th lot 12th item, say we found a
box of 12 or more things).  That way these numbers look nothing like accession
numbers.  We record and document these in our Record of Entry log.  Later, if
it turns out that they are indeed owned, we can replace the TD. number with
the proper Accession Number.  If not, they remain in legal limbo with the TD.
numbers, but we can still enter them into the database for tracking, etc.

I hope that this is all clear.

   ============================================================
   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
   ============================================================