Back in the early 80s, someone gave me a small collection of ashtrays, pre-fire MGM and Flamingo are the only casinos I can remember. The others were from clubs and bars like The Algonquin Club and The Stork Club, they all had matching matchbooks.

I had them all displayed on my stereo unit along with my entire record collection. The record collection spanned from old 78s to Punk Rock 7"s. Remember Records? But one evening while I was at work, a short occured in the electric timer I used to turn on/off lights. The timer was behind the stereo unit. All of it, plus half of my Apartment went up in smoke.

I don't know what the ashtrays were worth, but at the time my record collection was valued at over $8000. How do I know you ask? A few months before, my friends/family urged me to have it insured. I had someone come out and evaluate it. I wasn't ready to plunk down the premium yet, so I filed the evaluation paperwork in...Can you guess where? Yup! the stereo cabinet!

What I'm trying to say here folks is, by any means, document your collection! Whenever I win an auction on eBay, I goto "File-Save as-Web Page-Complete" and save the folder in a specified location on my hard drive. I also print the entire thing. Yeah it wastes HD space and Ink, but now I also have an independant source that says "Yes, he bought that from me!"

I'm sorry for rambling like this, but several of the 78 records that burnt up, were family heirlooms, and it hurt for a long time!

So in closing...

• Document your Collection
• Insure your Collection
• Don't use those stupid electric timers!