In a perfect world we wouldn't have any objects come into the museum unsolicited. If objects are brought into our museum for examination for possible acquisition, they should come in as an incoming loan and be assigned an incoming loan number that is unique from our accession numbers but still follows the year; eg. 2003.6...This would be recorded in TMS as a loan record and the loan number would become the alternate number once it is accessioned and assigned an accession number. If objects are mailed or brought to us unsolicited we assign a temporary custody number until their status as a loan or acquisition has been determined. That number is also unique by year 2003.8.... The temporary custody number becomes the alternate number if the object is accessioned. Patricia Raynor Loan Coordinator Patricia A. Raynor Museum Specialist National Postal Museum Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC 20560-0570 202-633-9376 202-786-2767 (fax) Temporary mailing address: National Postal Museum Smithsonian Institution 2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Post Office Box 75039 Washington, DC 20002 >>> [log in to unmask] 02/06/03 01:38PM >>> Not strictly a TMS question, but does have some relevance. When an object comes into the Museum as a potential acquisition do you assign a number to it and create an object record? What numbering system do you use? We just started doing this when we got TMS and we use the reverse of the future accession number e.g. 23.2002 would become 2002.23 once the Deed of Gift was signed. This was a bit shortsighted as the acquisitions by year in TMS is sorted by the accession date and not the object number. The accession date for us is the date when the Deed of Gift is signed, so if the Deed for 2002.23 was signed before 2002.2 the list is all out of whack. I would appreciate it if anyone could suggest a better way of doing this. In the days before TMS we didn't assign a number at all and all we had were paper records. Thanks, Anne Marr Registrar New Brunswick Museum