Advice needed for my collection

[A. G. Maisey]

That is exactly what my friend tried to do.

He suffered a stroke, he went into a nursing home and never came out.

As soon as it was clear to him that he was on the Promotion List, he instructed his step daughter to give the item concerned to his friend.

Prior to his death the step daughter was unwilling to look for the item identified as a gift amongst the other items of his collection.

After his death she and her husband denied any knowledge of the request.

The value of the item to be gifted was about $2000. The total value that the stepdaughter took from the estate after the nursing home expenses was in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand dollars.

Quite simply, she wanted it all.

When you're gone and your family & friends have nobody to account to, do not believe that they will comply with your wishes.

An enforceable will is the only protection.

I've given the bare bones of the story here, there is more to it that does not need to be included here.

The reason I know so much detail is that I knew my departed friend for more than 50 years, and I have known the victim of the theft for even longer. I knew my friend's second wife extremely well, and I know her family.

[Ian]

Dave,

I'm in a similar situation. Basically I don't want to leave my wife with the substantial chore of disposing of my collection. None of my step-children want to take it on, and my wife has zero interest in edged weapons. As a result, I'm selling my collection off. It's been a slow process.

There are always market conditions to consider and simply sending stuff off to an auction house does not guarantee it will be sold. Often times the items are bundled into lots (unless all your items are worth more than $500), and sometimes these are knocked down for ridiculously low amounts. You can't always put a reserve price on items, especially if they have an estimated value of less than $800–1000. Of course, this all depends on the auction house, but remember they are in the business of selling items and collecting their 20% commission.

Online sites, such as eBay, offer a little more control of the sale price, but business online has been slow in my experience. Saturating the market with a large "dump" probably means you won't get as high a price as you expect.

Private sales, such as on this forum, again move items slowly.

If you have a large collection, I highly recommend that you start selling them now and get as much done as possible without leaving it all to your heirs or a close friend.

Taking good quality pictures for online or private sales is a worthwhile effort now, even if it means that your heirs need to dispose of items after you're gone. Photographing swords is a somewhat tedious process, at least for me, and experience with a program to crop the pictures and adjust contrast, etc. is useful. I would suggest using a digital camera rather than your phone. There are useful photography hints on this Forum's home page.

In bequeathing items to family and friends, I have specific instructions in my will as to what goes to whom, with careful labeling of those items with tags indicating my wishes. My executor could always ignore my wishes, but I doubt she will.

Alan's words of caution are well taken and I have tried to avoid any confusion about what goes to specific people. Good communication with my family and friends, and a follow up email documenting my conversations with them is the best I can do. At least that keeps everyone informed and there is a "paper trail" in the event of conflict.

Hope these suggestions are helpful.

Regards,

Ian

[adrian]

In my opinion - for the average to very nice collection - the best thing is to have a good catalogue that identifies each item & includes a current estimate of it value, this to guide an auctioneer as much as anything. Decide if any are heirlooms - if they came to you down through the family for example - & bequeath those few items to relatives & to eventually be handed on down the line etc. Acknowledge close collecting friends with a gift or heavily discounted item also give to them all those boxes & shelves of bits & pieces & spares & books & unfinished projects that we all have & that are not worth auctioning - that way they will end up in good hands & not landfill.
As for the bulk of the collection if one is really fortunate there might be a relative who is really interested in it. Mostly however that will not be the case & best thing is to nominate an auction house to liquidate it & distribute the proceeds as per the rest of the estate.
I would forget museums. Large ones that have the facilities, salaried staff & procedures to care for the objects under their custodianship are very large & have very rigid & restrictive criteria to limit what can be given to them - as otherwise they get inundated. Small museums are usually overwhelmed with material & suffer hugely from lack of storage space & preservation is often non existent. Typically they are understaffed, rely heavily upon volunteers & are very subject to the whims of the latest volunteer committee & their particular area of interest. I have seldom witnessed more large scale damage to small arms anywhere such as I have with small museums. Stories abound, & I have seen examples myself, whereby a museum's arms are either very poorly preserved or simply slowly rusting away - as well as pilfering that varies from having parts taken and arms getting swapped out or outright stolen.