At the end of the year there is a frightful reckoning. Part of my collecting is keeping track of each item collected on a spread sheet. Each year I print out the pages—this year there were six—and place them with my receipts in an envelope marked with the year.
After that things get blurrier.
For example I haven’t always kept these exhaustive details in the same format and even with the same program. Then there is the problem I keep a journal of each instance of collecting separately, and it runs year-over-year.
But just staying with the spreadsheet there are problems. To illustrate, there are 174 individual lines listing the date, the item(s), the place it was purchased, the city it was purchased in and finally the price. Spreadsheets are great for doing the heavy lifting like total spent ($798.84) and mean amount spent ($4.67). What you can’t absolutely get is the nine items not purely photographic (e.g. a small snap blade knife included with possible tripod screws). Then there was the number of times one listing covered up to 18-items, so that there were 55 more items included than the 174 listed. There were 39 of those line items that were free. Some items were broken, so their purchase value is questionable.
Are you confused?
It gets worse.
The most expensive item—actually camera, two lenses and a gadget bag—cost $85, but $50 was a gift card from Christmas. And to be truthful the item cost $100, but the day it was purchased that store had a 15% discount for seniors.
More facts:
The first purchase(s) of 2023 was January 11th but there were actually five items purchased at three thrift stores. That day’s purchases totaled $33.14. One item cost $15 (a camera), three were Nikon accessories at $5 each and the last item was a LED ring light for $3.14 including tax. That was the only item tax was paid on. All purchases were made in a reasonably local town.
Speaking of purchase locations, in the last year purchases were made as far away in Alberta as Wainwright and as far away in Canada as Moncton, NB. By far the majority of the purchases were made within 45-miles. Within that area there are at least 19 separate thrift stores that were visited in a single day almost monthly. Many more times anywhere from one to four stores were visited.
The last purchases of 2023 was made December 20th. Five items were bought that included three lenses, a tele-extender and a flash. The same day I was given three darkroom items and a half box of slide binders.
How do you accurately account for all the different conditions of purchase and free items?
Why would you have to?
I suspect I have to because my grandfather was an accountant—and so is one brother—so it might be in the genes. But possibly, if anyone is unfortunate to inherit this photographic collection, maybe they could appreciate some of the collecting details.
I'm lost for words ....