One more case (I haven't followed this entire thread so if I repeat,
please forgive?):  My husband and I accepted, packed, and transported a
collection donated to COA some years ago. It was in the home of a
relative of the deceased collector who had lovingly and rather
knowledgeably assembled it. It was housed in the relative's family room
in a trio of cabinets. The collector had died some ten years previously,
after a couple of years of a degenerative mental condition.

This collector had, during his collecting years, numbered none of the
shells in his three 5' high, 36" wide, many-drawered cabinets. The
collector had used a housing system of flat, open boxes with the labels
pasted to the box. No wind or cats would remove them (though the
silverfish were at work!). BUT, nary a number! And, during this ten year
stay in the home of the caring but unknowing relative, many an
interested but ignorant visitor to the relative's home had browsed and
ooohed and ahhhed and, in their enthusiasm and admiration, moved shells
about from drawer to little box to drawer. Almost nothing was in its own
box but the tiny, less colorful, less attractive shells. Also, there
were many lots of lots of species. They had obviously been jumbled in
together, regardless of label.

We hurriedly zip-lock bagged each box with its shells before packing to
bring them back, but really to no avail. What a mess of a nice
collection of lovely shells! And no catalogue was to be found.

Do number! You don't know what the future holds.

Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY