Personal items acquired as part of a purchase
 

So I won an autographed ball a while back and the auction house also included a small photo album containing photos of people taken with the athlete and the event, presumably picturing the group attending the signing event. I'm saving a photo of the athlete signing my ball, but I still feel weird about just chucking the rest of the booklet. These were somebody's memories. I know there is no way to get these back to the family (or at least would be difficult) and presumably they didn't want them anyway as they included it with the consignment. I kind of wish they hadn't even included it.
Can anyone else relate to this or am I just odd?

Yup. I won some bulk lots from an auction house years ago from a boxing collector/dealer who had passed away, and in going through some of the boxes I found stuff like real estate contracts, divorce papers, love letters, personal cards/notes to family members/spouses, birth and death certificates and lots of other "not boxing" stuff.

I couldn't bear to just throw it away and I couldn't really show it to anybody else...so now it's all buried in a small box somewhere in some corner of my house for somebody else to find someday after I'm gone.

I did try and give it away to another collector/historian (not dealer) I trusted, who was a good friend of this collector/dealer and was interested in the history of the hobby and people involved in the hobby in general...and he didn't want to have anything to do with it at all. :(

Feeling a twinge of anxiety over throwing out someone's keepsakes is normal... it means you're a fully-formed human being. But you've already run through the options and reasonably noted that (1) the original owners treated the album as a consignment rather than as a collection of memories, and (2) it would be difficult, if not impossible, to track them down. Having already gone through that thought process, you should feel free to dispose of the album without guilt (and kudos for being compassionate enough to pose the question in the first place).

Yes, this is right. There are many things I have that are very special to me - pictures of childhood friends, favorite (non-valuable) toys, and so on. I wouldn't sell all that stuff for a thousand dollars. It's a bummer but the fact is, when I die, all that precious stuff is dumpster bound.

I purchased a lot of several thousand items of paper ephemera and photos at an estate sale. About 10% were clearly family photos of the deceased with no commercial value. i contacted the estate sale manager and arranged to return the photos to the family. They were very appreciative. Now, had they been of commercial value, I'm selling them, but random snapshots and the like, i give those back if I can.

If it is a situation where I cannot give them back, I don't chuck them. There is very little that is truly worthless. I bundle leftovers like that with other ephemera that I accumulate from acquisitions and eventually wholesale or trade the whole bundle to another dealer. Some people will retail thousands of random old photos; I don't have the patience. I will retail interesting subjects like military, automotive, tourist sites, beaches, etc.

I've found 1952 topps with personal back stamps and people names and have contacted their relatives. They didn't even care. In fact some said they know, they're the ones who sold them. Good grief

Is there even a market for it? My wife collects mid-century barware, so we spend a fair amount of time in antique stores. It seems like every one has a basket somewhere near the front with stacks of old snapshots and postcards priced at $0.50 to $1.00 each. Like others, it makes me sad to see what was, at the time, a notable life moment for someone that is now stripped of all context and significance. Does anyone buy them, or are the store owners just loath to throw them out also?

Take it all to a large paper show like the one in Allentown, Pennsylvania (link below) and ask the dealers for ideas about what to do with it all.

https://www.allentownpapershow.com/

There is a market. You just have to be at the right place.

After my mom died, my sisters and I went through the old picture album. We could identify an aunt or uncle here or there, but most people we couldn't. Sadly, these pictures that meant so much to our mom meant little to us, and would mean nothing to my sister's kids. So, we tossed them with some sadness, but no regret.

I bought a stamp collection off of Craigslist (and what a buy!). I paid the $200.00 asking price and ended up with over $4,300.00 in unused US postage. There was a lot of other stamps in the collection. Also in the collection were certificates and awards from the collector. Apparently he had no family as it was a neighbor that was in charge of the estate. I enjoyed going through the collection and enjoyed reading his notes he had with some of the stamps. I could not get myself to throw away any of the awards or certificates and they remain in one of my boxes.

A second purchase was a collection of paper items, mostly pictures, that ended up being from the estate of Helen Chiotes. She worked in television and there were a lot of picture of her at many different events. There was also items like proposed TV lineups, Radio and TV convention programs and other paper items. I cannot throw any of the pictures out and they also are in a box.

Bob

I attended a monthly 300 table antique faire with my daughter. Out of the blue she said it was depressing because all these items belong to someone’s parents. I teased her and she will be doing this with my stuff someday.

I often think about that at estate sales and antique shows, especially when I see WWII materials from someone's service, but I don't get depressed. Even though the relations a generation or two down the line just do not care, there are strangers who care about these artifacts. That snapshot from Great Uncle Leo's time at WWII airborne training means nothing to the family but someone will purchase it and enjoy it and research the subject and honor the person that way, and that's what I find redeeming about the process. It's much the same with cards: little Johnny is long gone but his T206 collection lives on.

If the awards are from shows with stuff like Gold silver Bronze they're a sign that he had some much better items.

Certificates with a picture of the item are sort of like having a card slabbed, and are more reliable. For a lot of items they can make a huge difference in value.

A good friend of this collector/dealer and was interested in the history of the hobby and people involved in the hobby in general...I don't have the patience. I will retail interesting subjects like military...

Wow, whatever AI translation tool used here really needs updated. Probably still using pirated version 1.0

Why does this even happen ?

Not sure, but thank God he got in touch with me regarding my BST post looking for T206 Chance portraits. Luckily, a “Facebook mate” of his just put a few “up for trade in good condition”.

LOL, a "Facebook mate". That's right up there with "My dear old uncle on Insta". :D

My mom saved my first baby shoes, spoon, fork, cup, a box full of kindergarten papers, and my K-5th grade report cards. It's all sitting in a box in my closet and I pull it out every 5-6 years when I'm typically looking for something else, flip through some of it, and think of my sweet mother. It's kind of sad to realize that within a generation after my passing it's highly likely that all that stuff will end up in the trash. But I get it. You can't keep everything and it really has no value to anyone now other than me.

Keeping things as a group
 

I collect military items as well as baseball. I like to do research on the items. If I can afford it, I always purchase everything related to the serviceman, even if it's not military. Especially paper items. I find that keeping everything as a group helps me piece the history together.

Not sure if the same thing is true about baseball collectables.

My next column (publishing this Friday) is a reflection on this aspect of what we do.

I have had a similar scenario. In 2006, I purchased the collection of a very well known European soccer figure who had died years previously. The auction description was relatively vague but, in addition to the soccer items which was obviously my interest here, came hundreds of personal photos of the man, including those with his family and those of family members, friends etc. These dated from the 1920s through to the 1950s. It also included other weird and wondering personal items - for example, certificates in his name that travel companies used to give to passengers who crossed the equator.

Almost two decades later and I still have these personal items. A number of years ago, Imdid reach out to contacts in an effort to get these items to his heirs. However, although I assumed he had had a family, that wasn’t the case and he had no close relations living - in fact, his closest relatives were nephews / nieces who are living in Brazil.

Ironically, I have more physical photographs of this man and his family / friends than I do of my own family. In some strange way, I feel some level of responsibility for preserving them. They’ve been retained through various house moves etc. Maybe when I get more time in some years as I edge closer to retirement, I’ll revisit what I can do with them.

You may want to consider setting up a guest account on Ancestry dot com and create a family tree for that one person. Then you can add all of the items to the gallery they provide. That way anyone searching that person in the future would find the link to the tree and have access to all of the family documents. That way they are not lost to time. There is no charge to set up a registered guest account. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.

Photos are a funky topic. Unless the subject is famous or is an identifiable event (like a ball game), whether they are collectible comes down to aesthetics. If the photo is professionally done and shows period clothing or is attractive, it will sell. Wedding photos, for example, sell well if the bridal party are wearing interesting formal wear. I've also sold antique snapshots of vistas around Los Angeles. People like to see what their town looked like decades ago. You can always sell the American Dream in a photo. Someone's random beach snapshot from 50 years ago has an audience, especially if it looks like a Gidget movie, shows a surfboard, etc. Cars sell great. I picked up a random box of photos recently and found this snap of a 1955 Studebaker President Speedster:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0speedster.jpg

It will sell readily. I even bought a few for the ol' PC. This is 3x Indy 500 Champ Bobby Unser at the Daytona 500 in 1965:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vs8AA...t/s-l1600.webp