Mantique(ing) - The Solution to all Men’s Problems

There is now an official name for the solution to the main problem that has haunted men for centuries. What is that problem you ask? If you have to ask which problem; you obviously haven’t been monitoring your Manship very well. There should be only one problem common to all men. Right? That’s maintaining all your collected (over a lifetime) stuff. Now I can offer you the solution to the maintenance problem.

Mantique! Yep, that’s it; all you ever need to know about keeping, acquiring or trading your stuff. Anything you have squirreled away for the upcoming rainy day, stuff you wanta keep just because it’s good stuff and may need some day, or the stuff your wife wants chunked but you just can’t bring yourself to do so—you know what I mean. The solution to your shortcomings is Mantique. Now you have the perfect reason to hold on to stuff or get rid of it the manly way: sell or trade it just as it was intended to be.

Step #1 is to go out to your store room, closet, garage or whatever and where ever you keep (hoard as it might be) and start cataloging your stuff. Write it all down; piece by piece. Don’t leave anything out; be sure to get it all down. I’ll explain more later why this is important. While you are working this step, just get it cataloged and don’t worry about anything else other than serial numbers and year (approximate year is OK) of the treasure until you have it all recorded. Make two passes if you must; but get it all down.

Step #2 is to organize your list into categories. This will help you immensely in the long run when deciding steps needed to be taken once all the data is assembled. Consider separating your categories into separate lists as this will become more important in later steps.

Step #3 is absolutely the most important step in the process. Establish a value for each item on your list. This may take a little time and some doggedly research but you can handle it once you set your mind to the task. If you have any glimmer of doubt as to what value to assign to a particular piece, look to outside help. Be careful in this search as you might just give away the nature of your task—actually asking or looking for outside help in this step could result in getting you chunked outta the fraternity of men—it’s been related to asking for directions and you know what happens to a man that tries that. If you just have to, go to eBay and scour the asking prices for the same or like items; those prices there are pretty inflated but should work nicely. My best recommendation is to just put a price on it yourself and then once all prices are recorded, go back and raise them by 50%. I guess at this point I should tell you that all records should be maintained in pencil due to the frequent manipulation in pricing that may be required and the effect of inflation on highly desired items—you know, that stuff you have accumulated.

 

 Old radio - circa 1932

 

 Lincoln Log set - circa - 1957

Step #4—Now you are ready to analyze your list. Be sure that you paid close attention to steps #2 & #3. Arrange your category lists in descending value by category summation. If at this point you discover that you have valued two (or more) categories at the same summation total you need to return to step #3 and do a better job of assigning values to the individual items within the two obviously wrongly valued categories. Having completed the revaluation you are now ready to move on.

 

 Valuable Camping Equipment - circa 1971

 

Highly valuable Fishing Rods & reels

Extremely Valuable Roughneck Tools & Drill Bits

Step #5, now pay close attention here. Peruse the lowest valued category. You obviously have not paid enough attention to one of your hobbies or generally liked activities. It is time to go out and obtain more stuff to augment the valuation of this category. Realizing this shortcoming will help you decide on the next family activity or vacation destination—where do you need to go to acquire more category stuff?

 Very Useful container of Assorted Black (other colors also) Clips

See, Mantique has benefits that are transferable to several other problem areas and extended desires.

Stand tall and be firm. It is all up to you. Good Mantiqueing!