Often, especially if you collect antique porcelain, you will flip a piece over and find an old label on the bottom--not the new price tag, but sometimes a collectors label identifying the history or prior ownership of the object. Other times you might find an old label from a gallery, auction house or museums showing an exhibition or sale history. Sadly, these tags are routinely removed by many dealers. They fear that a buyer will see the tags and, in doing their homework, find out what was paid for the piece. Knowing the price the dealer paid could, in their minds, impact their mark-up and final price. While I do respect the need for a dealer to keep the price he or she paid secret, sometimes the tags provide clues to the history of the object. Recently, I purchased a piece of pottery, and stuck to the bottom was a tag from a well-known auction house specializing in pottery. The tags appearance actually helped me to make up my mind about the sale since I knew they routinely handle quality objects. And after I made the decision to buy it, I was able to research it and find out about the history of the prior owner. This was duly noted by me and perhaps someday will be of intellectual and/or intrinsic value to a researcher. I recall my old friend, Clarke Hess, whose heirs arranged for the auction catalog of his collection to contain detailed provenance on all the pieces. That catalog with the provenance still remains online and thus contemporary collectors can trace the history of their objects back to the research that Clarke had originally done and which was published posthumously in the catalog. We collect because we are passionate about the objects we seek and their histories. None of us are nave enough to believe that we are the first ones to see and appreciate these treasures. Rather, we understand that we are temporary custodians of these objects and their history. We will pass them on, one way or another, to another generation, either by selling or giving it away now or when we pass. To my mind, part of our obligation as temporary custodians of these objects is to document the pieces for the future. Tell their stories as to where they came from and ensure that the next owner has some clue. My wife just purchased a quilt at an online auction. It is graphically quite striking, and the auction house provided some background on the makers family. This information is being written down, and a tag is being attached to the quilt so that the next owner will have some knowledge that it is a northern Dauphin County quilt. Similarly, at the museum, we recently acquired some Chinese export porcelain from the 18th century. Several of the forms were very rare, and so we reached back through the auctioneer to the family to see if we could find out if it had descended with them or was a later purchase. As it turned out, the latter was true, and several of the pieces had Eleanor Gordon provenance. This was all dutifully recorded on the catalog sheets so that the history of these pieces would be documented for the future. So next time you buy something with an old tag on it, think twice before peeling it off. Record the information, and let the next owner decide if it is worth keeping. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth of antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.