I thought I was starting to get a grip on how finalization work. I made this example... Object subclass: #MyObject instanceVariableNames: '' classVariableNames: '' package: 'Play' MyObject>>autoRelease ^ self class finalizationRegistry add: self MyObject>>finalize Transcript crShow: 'Finalizing MyObject' o := MyObject new autoRelease. o := nil. Smalltalk garbageCollect. ==> 'Finalizing MyObject' So far so good. Extrapolating... I would *expect* this... oc := OrderedCollection new. 10 timesRepeat: [ oc add: Libclang getClangVersion ]. oc removeAll. oc := nil. Smalltalk garbageCollect. ...to print 'Finalizing MyObject' ten times, but it does nothing!! Such a simple example feeds my naive presumption that the system seems broken. So could someone help me interpret this result ? cheers -ben