Boxes. Boxes. Boxes. What do you do with all the boxes?

 A friend who buys many cameras and lenses keeps every single box. If he buys a battery charger and it comes in a box he keeps the box. Lenses? He keeps the boxes. Cameras? He definitely keeps the boxes. I used to keep camera boxes because I thought it would enhance the value of a camera when it came time to sell it or trade it in. But eventually the store I did a lot of trades with stopped keeping the boxes of cameras that were traded in. And that meant that when buying used cameras from them there was never a box. No instruction manuals (those are mostly online now) and no paper errata/trash. 

A couple of years ago I looked in a closet in my studio and there on the shelves was a chaotic collection of boxes. I started throwing them all out. Recycling the cardboard and recyclable materials. I figured there were some cameras I was going to keep for a long time and hoarding boxes just didn't make sense. 

Then I started buying Leica stuff and I noticed that the several Leica stores I buy stuff from seemed to charge more money for cameras that were: "In box." or "Boxed." Sometimes a couple hundred dollars more than for cameras that were sold "naked." 

Recently I bought a camera and lens from the same friend mentioned above. At the time of our transaction he arrived with a shopping bag that had the box for the camera, the separate box for the lens, and even a box for an after market battery charger. All the boxes were in pristine condition. All the paper trash included.

So, my question to the VSL braintrust is: Keep or throw? How do you handle the pile of boxes that tend to be accumulated over the course of time? Do you have a methodology? Is it something like: Camera boxes=save, lens boxes=toss, accessories=toss. ?

Are you pickier? For instance, do you save lens boxes if the lens is over a certain price? Do you toss lens boxes for "ordinary" lenses? What's the dollar amount cut-off? Do lenses over $1,000 get to keep their boxes? More? Less? 

All these empty containers take up space. Do they really have value or are some Leica buyers deluded into thinking that every scrap of Leica gear they buy will one day become a high value collectible which will increase in worth if accompanied by the box? 

Why would Sony buyers even consider keeping a box? What about the cheap, Chinese lenses? Do we save those boxes? Something as rare as a Pentax box I could see.....maybe.....

Help me make sense of all this!

On a more important topic.... I read last week an interesting article about strength training that ran in the Washington Post. Apparently the way many people lift weights/do resistance work is more a tradition than a science. In a study researchers found that instead of doing short reps (five or less) with heavy weights --- right up at the level at which you can't lift the weight one more time --- is no more effective at building strength (as opposed to muscle mass) than doing more reps (more comfortably) with lower weights. Lower being a weight that you could lift say 25 times in a row without hitting your point of failure.

The later method is more comfortable for most people who just want to put off sarcopenia and gain the health advantages of increasing strength (weight loss, balance, mobility, etc.). The traditional method of trying to lift the heaviest weights you can for a handful of repetitions has only one "advantage" in that it builds muscle bulk to a higher degree.

I guess that's cool if you want to look ripped, pumped up and more like Arnold S. But you trade off flexibility when you add too much muscle. 

I knew this info would be important to you. If you are so inclined be sure to look for the original source article in last week's Washington Post. 

Swimmers don't need bulk. They need strength and flexibility. Less weight x more reps seems to be the way.

Same for photographers.