Disposal of your collection after your death
shirohniichan
Posts: 4,992 ✭✭✭
What will happen to your collection once you're gone? Will your heirs get full value for your collection?
I've heard these questions (and also comments that US coins will bring them a higher return on your investment), but reading the following article reminds me that coins are one of the better hobbies to spend on if ROI is important:
http://www.nextavenue.org/nobody-wants-parents-stuff/
Expensive furniture, figurines, shoes, etc. are significantly harder to dispose of in most cases, and your heirs are more likely to get a fraction of what you paid for them.
If you leave instructions for your heirs they are less likely to get ripped off by the guy who offers 1/10th or 1/100th of wholesale value. Your prized Cnut penny will likely bring your family much more money and be easier to dispose of than Auntie Bessy's collection of 400 pairs of once-worn Ferragamo shoes in size 4 1/2.
Obscurum per obscurius
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I hope i'll get to retire and sell the collection on my own terms, however will include a few trusted contacts in case of something unforeseen happens to me.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Instagram: 8 Reales Numis
My wife and I discussed this last night, and I told her that I'd leave contact information with my coins inside the SDB so she'd know whom to contact. I have a preference on who will rip us off when I am gone.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
And that's all anyone can ask for
8 Reales Madness Collection
Instagram: 8 Reales Numis
This is too funny because I recently helped a friend dispose of exactly that from her deceased mother (along with the rest of a 7500 sq. ft. house of a doctor's widow who had plenty of money). I know firsthand how few women wear 4 1/2 shoes, especially high-end Italian ones!
As part of my making it easier for my executor, I am beginning to slab and inventory (see other thread) all my coins. Most of my collection is still raw, but I am trying to do the expensive and esoteric coins first so I can ensure the slab is correct (the details, not necessarily the grade).
I told a friend just to dump my collection in the local body of water, since whoever tries to dispose of it will be cheated anyway. Actually, it goes to someone I know who likes coins and stuff. He probably will go to the nearest pawn shop, but at least he will get some benefit.
DPOTD
I tell my wife to just call Heritage auction house and insists on listing in a major auction for The Crown Collection but for my many pieces of silver go eBay route.
I do have a comprehensive list of my cost and estimated value of most all of my "valuable" coins in my SDB with the coins.
Fortunately, I decided to part with my (personal collection) stuff through Heritage on my own time. My wife and I (and my bank account) are all exceedingly glad I did. I won some and lost others but overall I was quite happy. I still have a few retail items but nothing like what I did have.
Upon my first (and to date, only) win at a Heritage auction, they shipped me a gift book on how to best handle your estate before you're gone. Basically it goes into great lengths to explain that it's best to sell via a major auction house (hint, hint) and not let your heirs get burned. I found it funny that they had sent me such a gift after having purchased a single $68 coin.
It was actually an interesting read and a nice gift (albeit self-serving), but a tad premature for me, as I'm only 42 years old (well, at least I hope it would turn out to be premature).
I completely agree with the Heritage part. And I'm sure that's a big portion of their business.
One can get ripped off on eBay just as easily as by a "gold buyer" if the seller isn't knowledgable about what they have and doesn't write the eBay listing correctly.
Besides, do you really expect your (perhaps unknowledgable and probably grieving) wife or heir will really sell the silver on eBay rather than just bring it to the nearest bullion buyer? I think that's expecting too much.
I've decided that I'm going to outlive everyone else. Up to now it's working out in my favor. So it's not an issue. So far.
I told my husband to log on here (with my posthumously provided log in credentials) and look for @Airplanenut to hire as the 'coin dispersal agent' for a proper fee. Jeremy doesn't know this yet BTW. Well, the @ thingy trick will let him know of my plans now. Of course he can decline, in which case my husband can peruse my private messages and pick someone.
Now, though I signed up for this site in my middish thirties, and now it's my (very) early 50s --when did I get so old?-- I would like to think there are several decades left before this is an issue.
At the very least the family unit knows my stuff is worth SOMETHING and it would be very foolish to just dump it on the local market.
Toss it in the box with me no one is getting S$#T.....
Hoard the keys.
If it makes you feel any better (or worse), I signed up in my fourteens
I largely agree with that article. I think the availability of cheap, but useful, furniture means that people are less reliant on resale and hand-me-downs than in the past. I suppose this is good for the consumer, but bad for the environment. The more new stuff people purchase, the more landfill that gets used.
At the end of the day, most of the things people own aren't valuable. This is almost universally true, and true for most coin collections. And things don't just become valuable or desirable because they become old. Also true for coins.
I try to think about these types of things a little bit when I try to decide how I want to work on my collection. I'm still in my 30s and, if I'm lucky, will have to deal with these issues with my parents before I have to worry about my own.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
My wife and I were talking about this the other day. I've always tried while collecting to pencil in notes or write a letter and small penciled markings on the paper in holders. She knows her way around them for the most part. I'm liquidating comics, books and part of my collection (laid up from work 9 months). She knows where the number one stunners are for all my collections, and my next of kin does both. I'm selling a lot of things she wouldn't know what to do with, and leaving little poems or love letters hidden between flip holders. It's so terribly hard to divide estates up. I think it's only responsible to let future executors know what the deal is, especially if you're in ill health or aging. Any bank manager can tell you where a SDB is but it makes it easier on everyone.
Mybe I'll ask Mr. Feld at Heritage to take care of my collection. I need him to keep in good health.
I hope you are doing fine, shiroh-san.
I read some of the replies, and I can't help chuckling, in case anybody's stuff goes to the Liquidator. Has anybody ever watched this show on Discovery? About a very resourceful Canadian liquidator?
Letting know of our heirs of our login info in here and tell them to check the PM history is a good idea. My collection is undergoing through various changes, additions in paper money, some sales and purchases in coins, that paper vs coins is now equal or in favor of the paper. This is a hobby, I'm not an accountant to keep track everyday. They can immediately see whom I've been dealing in a permanent way with and whom not.
myEbay
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