The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2015 67 • A sturdy paper file box for those documents that need to be retained in original paper form (deeds, for example). Go Green To downsize in an environmentally responsible manner, you need to keep as many of your extraneous household effects as possible out of the landfills. This means taking time to find places to sell, give away, donate or recycle what you no longer need. Look beyond Goodwill or the Salvation Army; you will find that there are many nongov- ernmental organizations interested in your ephemera. I donated a carload of artifacts frommy career to the U.S. Diplomacy Center Foundation (diplomacy.state.gov). Anoth er carload went to the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, for their annual Bookfair at the State Department. If your 220-volt appliances are in good working order, find a new FSO out at the Foreign Service Institute who can use them on their first tour overseas. Remember how pressed financially you were when you first started in the Service? We also used Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) to give away items we did not plan to take with us to our retirement home. Remember all those old record albums stored in boxes in the basement? The good news is that generation Y has rediscovered the beauty of high fidelity, and records are coming back into demand. As with all things, the rarity and the condition of the album will determine its value. The local record resale shop was quite excited to see my Paul McCartney album, issued only in the USSR in the late 1980s. Items of Value If you have valuable collector’s items you wish to sell, think through whether you want to take the time and effort to market them online (e.g., via Ebay or Amazon) or whether you want to use an auction or consignment house. We used auction houses to sell my father’s collections of bronzes, paintings, firearms and other antiques. One auction house, Cowan’s, was particularly helpful. If the items have value, a good auction house will readily accept them for inclusion in their next catalog or for online sales in small batches. Ask around to find out which firms and consignment shops have been used by people you trust. Make sure you clarify what the auction house or con- signment charges for their services before you turn over items to them for sale. Especially valuable items will bring in more money if handled by a dealer or a specialized auction house, because they are more apt to know collectors who have an interest in such items. You would be wise to get estimates from several different deal- ers on your high-value items. How do you find out whether your treasures are really as valuable as you think they are? The easy way is to look up the item on Ebay or Amazon. This will tell you the value of similar items being offered. But beware—this does not mean that anyone is actually paying that price. Still, it should give you an idea of what is collectible and what is just not worth your time and effort to sell. Sadly, for those of us who love fine china and crystal, there is not much interest in sets of traditional china among the younger generations. Families today have no space to store grand- mother’s china service for 12, nor do they care to use china that cannot be washed in a dishwasher. Select a few pieces you think you will actually use in your retirement home, and then consign or donate the remaining china service. Deciding What to Keep So how do you decide what to keep and what to shed? Obvi- ously a very personal decision, it is also constrained by the location and size of your retirement home. Let’s assume you know where you will be moving and have a firm idea of the kind of housing you will occupy (e.g., single-family home or condo). That will give you an idea of what you can accommodate. In addition, I found that a good rule of thumb is to assume that it will cost you a dollar to move each pound of your household effects. We decided to leave behind much of our furniture; it was worn after so many moves in and out of storage, and the style did not seem to fit with the Pacific Northwest. There is virtually no market these days for old, dark wood furniture (called “brown furniture” in the trade), so consider donating it to a charitable organization. The bright side of the cheap prices in vintage We used the stairwell in our new home to showcase our Central Asian plates. COURTESYOFEILEENMALLOY