Deciding How To Declutter A Collection

I've been trying to figure out how to make decluttering decisions when it comes to my collections.

It's not easy to make the keep or not decisions just by looking at a collection. After all, each item was selected with the collection in mind and so it fits in it's own way.

I'm starting with my goblet collection. 

Or more accurately I'm starting with my very tarnished, very neglected, goblet collection.

What? You don't have a goblet collection? I thought everyone did, it's never to late to start collecting you know. I could even spare a few from my collection to get you started!

I used to keep the goblets polished to a presentable level when they were all on display at our previous house. In that house there was a shelf at picture-rail height and my goal was to fill that shelf up with shiny things. Since we moved the goblets have stayed in storage the whole time and are definitely not looking their best.

It's good practice to wait as long as possible between polishes as over cleaning can harm the finish especially if it's silver plate. Now, I don't think I have anything particularly special or valuable in my collection so worrying about damaging them isn't really a problem but it's a good excuse to allow a 'patina' to form.

However at some point it stops being a patina and just becomes desperately in need of a clean and polish. I think these hit the desperate stage quite some time ago.

I think I'm ready to 'curate' the goblets into a more refined collection. But the first thing I need to do is to clean the whole collection.

I've been putting off figuring out what to do with this collection for a long time, just because of the amount of polishing and cleaning that needs to be done.

I finally had one of those moments where I realised that if I can be bothered cleaning it I get to keep it.

Now I have a starting place for how to make decisions about my goblets.

If I Clean It I Can Keep It
If I Stays Dirty I Have To Ditch It

This is a method I will be able to apply again and again to all of my collections. It's quite the relief to find out that the first step in decluttering a collection is easy after all.

It just takes one simple decision 'Can I be bothered to clean it?'