Dear Lee,

It’s May—time is running out if you have put off spring cleaning. Collectors have a hard time when facing major cleaning projects, maybe because we’re all savers and it’s hard to discard things. Here are some rules to help you make “throw it out” choices:

  • Never throw out someone else’s things unless you’re asked to. All you can do is suggest. This applies to your parents, spouse and any children over 4 years old. It especially applies to collectors. How many times have you heard about the mother who threw out baseball cards, comic books or Barbie dolls that could be worth a lot today?
  • Use paper hang tags for fabrics and sticky labels for ceramics, silver, etc. to mark pieces that are part of your family’s legacy. Pieces you don’t want that were your mother’s should be given to a relative or family friend. Your heirs won’t know the history of the piece if you don’t tell them.
  • There are probably things in your collections that should be removed to make room for better examples. That’s called “pruning” your collections.
  • Now is the time to get rid of gifts you hated, decorations and toys you outgrew and useless kitchen stuff. Save what you still use and love, at least until next year.
  • Look carefully at your jewelry and silver. This year both gold and silver are selling for very high meltdown prices. Unimportant or broken pieces can bring cash.
  • Sort your discards into boxes or bags labeled “throw away,” “sell” and “give away to a charity or friend.” “Throw away” is trash, old packing material and broken useless things. “Sell” is anything that might earn a few dollars at a garage or church sale. “Give away” is stuff others might want but you have grown tired of.
  • Don’t forget your “junk drawer,” that drawer where you throw odds and ends—old but not yet collectible postcards, keys, swizzle sticks, tiny toys, key chains, greeting cards, match boxes, matchbooks, even racehorse betting tickets, theater programs, Christmas seals, buttons and Barbie doll shoes. Give everything you don’t want to a child who likes to collect or invent things. If not used, the junk will be saved for another generation and in 25 years some of it could be valuable. Don’t laugh. Some “junk” items from the 1980s, including comic books, lunch boxes and costume jewelry, are pricey today.