Any ideas on how to store the type of an object stored in an any instance for later use in comparisons (like <, >, ==, etc)? I don't want to store an instance of the class unless necessary. I thought about storing a pointer to the type, but could that be used with any_cast? like: template<class type> class typestuffPOD { typedef type value_type; type *datatype_; } This requires knowing the type when you want to use the any_cast. Sincerely, Joe McCay