1

The Act of Collecting

2

The Object’s Voice

3

Whoops, It Broke

4

The Better Mousetrap

5

Plumb Wore Out

6

Taste Changed

7

Owners Lost Faith

8

Owners Lost Interest

9

Owners Grew Up

10

nobody cared

11

Got Lost

12

Part of Something Bigger

13

Used Up

14

Better in the Afterlife

15

A Bad Idea in the First Place

16

Never Made Enough

17

Provisional Utility

18

Made for One Use Only

19

Unintended Survivors

20

Mental Collections

21

So What’s Left?

22

Just in Time

About the Author

From the Author

From the field

From You

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chapter 13

Used Up

Needle Books Erasers Crayon Boxes Labels Crepe Paper Sugar Packets Perfect Packaging

Trylon and Perisphere sugar cube, 1939. Sugar and printed paper, 3/4" high. Domino, American Sugar Refining Company, for Hotel Taft and the New York World’s Fair, USA

Used Up surveys those useful articles that are inexorably and visibly diminished with each proper use (ex: erasers, sugar packets, needlebooks, crayon boxes, labels, crepe paper lamp shades, perfect packaging).