[drcy]

Unless it's something earth-shattering, I wouldn't donate it to the HOF. Better to have it donated to a smaller museum or historical society where it will be featured and displayed than a big place where it won't. Our own Dave Eskenazi has Seattle PCL items displayed at the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field that thousands a year, including me, see.

No museum will guarantee display time or what they will do with it in the future, unless you're donating the Mona Lisa. Though many museums these days catalog their items for online search, so have quasi-libraries. Meaning, that even when an item is not on display it can be searched and used for research.

It can cause major problems for museums when they have eternal unbreakable rules set by the founders or donators, rules that are short-sighted or binding a century later.