Contact:
Jay E. Nachman
(215) 923-5978

How do you keep your grandmother’s silver from tarnishing? How can you protect your signed Mickey Mantle jersey from moths? What is the best way to save your child’s very first macaroni project? How can you keep your family photo albums intact?

Answers to these questions and many more can be obtained at “Saving Stuff: How to Care for and Preserve Your Collectibles, Heirlooms, and Other Prized Possessions,” a free program at the National Museum of American Jewish History on Sunday, June 26, 1 p.m. Don Williams, a senior conservator at the Smithsonian Institution and writer Louisa Jaggar, authors of the book “Saving Stuff” will begin the program by speaking about their new book.

Following their presentation, experts from Freeman’s Auction House in Philadelphia, the oldest auction house in America, will be available to provide appraisals of fine jewelry, furniture, decorative items, books and manuscripts. Conservators from Philadelphia’s Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, one of the largest non-profit regional conservation labs in the country, will join with Williams and be on hand to discuss how to preserve photographs, books, letters and other family heirlooms.

Readers of the book and program participants will learn easy and foolproof methods to save the “Museum of You” – anything and everything precious and priceless, such as:

• Photographs, books and letters
• Childhood memorabilia from baby hair to artwork
• Furniture
• Family heirlooms from china to silver, rugs to wedding dresses
• Sports and political memorabilia
• Musical instruments
• Judaica

“Saving Stuff” explains to both the serious collector and the sentimentalist the various reasons that stuff falls apart. The book is filled with stories about how the Smithsonian takes care of national treasures and it also gives practical advice from Williams (the saving expert) and Jaggar (the expert saver). Program participants who wish to have items individually appraised by experts from Freeman’s, or want to have Don Williams and conservators from the Conservation Center recommend how to preserve their items, will be given a ticket after arriving at the Museum.

Tickets will be distributed beginning at noon on a first-come, first-served basis and participants will be limited to either an appraisal session or a discussion with a conservator, unless time allows for both. Items that cannot be easily carried may be represented by photographs. Call 215-923-3811 for additional information. There is a limit of one item per person.