Monthly Statement:
January 2006

OBJECT # 20
DATE SENT: January 31, 2006
SENT TO: Gino Altamura
SENT VIA: US Postal Service

DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: Blue, imitation leather grained folder, 7 1/2” x 5 3/4”. The folder has the following printed information on the cover: LINCOLN HEAD CENT, COLLECTION STARTING 1941, NUMBER TWO and in the lower left hand corner is printed No. 9030 and Whitman. There is a chain-link like line and a straight line running parallel and vertically 3/4” in from the left side of the folder from top to bottom. The same design pattern crosses the diagonal top and bottom corner of the right side of the folder. The folder is worn and stained on all sides and corners are worn through, revealing cardboard beneath cover stock. Its binding tape has come loose. Folder opens to 17 1/2” to reveal three pages of a Lincoln Head Cent collection book, beginning 1941. Circular cutout slots provide space for insertion of pennies. From 1941-1955 there are three slots for each year (no letter=Philadelphia, D= Denver, S= San Francisco) and from 1956 - 1964 there are two slots (D and no letter). From 1965 – 1971 the slots are hand labeled. There are 11 empty, unlabeled slots after 1971 and the last slot is filled with a penny labeled CANADA 1964. Each of the pennies from 1943 is STEEL.
The following slots are empty:
1941 D, S
1943 D, S
1944 S
1945 D, S
1946 S
1947 S
1948 D, S
1949 D, S
1949 D, S
1950 S
1952 S
1953 S
1954 S, no letter
1955 S
1965 D
1966 D
1967 D
1971 D
The last page is a description of collection information and on the reverse side is a list of other folders published by the Whitman Company.

ORIGIN AND APPROXIMATE DATE OF POSSESSION OF OBJECT: Purchased approximately 1967 by me. No record or recollection of where or exact date. Possibly used in partial satisfaction of the COIN COLLECTING Merit Badge, which I earned while in the Boy Scouts.

MOST RECENT LOCATION OF OBJECT: In a cardboard box with other mementoes from my past. Box is on the floor in front of the first, easternmost window, facing south in my studio.

RELATION OF OBJECT TO RECIPIENT: I bought this book most likely while in the Boy Scouts trying to earn the COIN COLLECTING merit badge, and I was probably in the sixth or seventh grade at the time. It is evident that I added coins to the book until 1971, at which time I was in my third year of high school. While I most likely worked on it more diligently during the early part of my possession of it, clearly I tended to it until the last date recorded. I remember thinking at the time that at some point the coins might be valuable, particularly if I filled in all the slots. Like many of the projects in my life, I did not finish it, and I have no idea if there is any monetary value at all to the coins in the book. Almost forty years later I remember clearly the excitement I had when finding a particular coin to fit in a slot, especially those coins which were old and harder to come by. My nephew Gino’s life seems much more sophisticated and complex, and his entertainment is definitely on a different level than coin collecting. He has interests in science fiction, is a great athlete, student, and writer. He is also a bit older than I was when I bought this book, and it may seem like a quaint but nerdy object from his quirky old uncle. However, he is the only boy in our immediate family and coin collecting seems like something that is mainly done by boys. I fantasize he may find the missing older coins and complete the book, or find that he likes the whole idea of collecting. I fantasize that there will be a very valuable coin among those included which he can sell and finance his college education. It is also, of course, my attempt to pass along something of what I valued, and what I was like as I entered into my own adolescence . He will be, for better or worse, the recipient of many of the objects that I hope he will carry into the future for me, as he makes his way into the wide mysterious world.

RESPONSE OF RECIPIENT:
DATE OF RESPONSE:

Process: My plan is to de-accumulate objects I now own during the course of the exhibition year. I will photograph the selected object then send the object with a letter to a person who has some relationship to the object or whom I think might be interested in the object. The letter will discuss the project and tell the receiver they can keep the object, destroy it, give it away, recycle it or anything else they choose. I will ask them to document it in the place they now have it and send their image and/or written description back to me of what they did with it and where it is. I plan on de-accumulating an average of one object per week. The new images/descriptions will be placed in a plastic folder and exhibited along with a photograph of the object as it was in my possession.