My collection in my will

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by whitehse

I had this same issue a few years ago. Like you, I am not in danger of a all too soon demise but my kids and wife have had zero interest in the collection I built up. I have no friends who are collectors and the thought of leaving my wife with a pile of stuff (as she calls it) and no direction as to what anything was worth really struck me. I took a long look at my collection and what it meant to me and I found out it was the thrill of the chase I enjoyed in completing sets and that many of the cards I had in my collection didn't mean as much to me as I thought they had. I slowly sold off much of the collection and have saved only the most meaningful pieces which, if something happened would be easily liquidated.

It has been probably ten years since I sold off this sizable collection but I still have zero regrets and have found myself content with collecting a few sets that really do have meaning to me such as the sets I once collected as a kid. Picking up a 1973 Topps Larry Biittner for my set has more meaning to me than picking up another Kiki Kuyler. I know that sounds incredibly stupid but Biittner means so much more to me as I saw him play and I met him. Kuyler would only be a temporary happiness as I lock him away in a box somewhere and hope his prices go up enough to make a small profit when I inevitably resell.

my vote is for consolidation and selling off now and only keeping those pieces that have meaning to you.

Just a bit of a side-note Andrew. Cuyler's 1925 Exhibits rookie in VG is worth 8-10 times what it was 23 years ago, and as the hobby continues to grow, so too, I believe, will the number of rookie HOF collectors. With it should go the value of Cuyler's rookie, as although the card is not incredibly rare, there are just not THAT many around. It will likely increase in value at a reasonable albeit not spectacular rate.

As to the main point, while I am a lawyer, I do not do probate work. However, if you decide to have it put up for auction after death, I would consider establishing objective standards for an auction house, such as sales volume over a specified period preceding death, perhaps, or some other criteria that can be readily ascertained by an executor with a bit of research but without undue trouble. As to the tax issue, a good probate attorney should be more than capable of advising you of the consequences with regard to whatever route you choose.

Best wishes on your choice of disposition,

Larry

[Orioles1954]

My personal vote is to sell the entire collection now, take your family on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation or do something that would be meaningful to you. In the end we're talking about cardboard.

[glchen]

I'm going to give the opposite advice from most others here. You are only 57. You could easily live another 30 years. That's a long, long time that you can still be enjoying your collection. Do your typical pruning of your collection for items that no longer interest you, but if I were you, I'd keep your collection pretty much intact. I'd wait until you're 70 or if some serious health issue crops up before I'd consider selling most everything.

I'd still keep an emergency plan with your wife, so if you got hit by a bus tomorrow (which could happen at any age), she would know what to do with your collection. For example, I have an agreement with Heritage where if I consign close to 10K in value or more, my seller's commission will always be 0%. So, I've told my love ones where my collection is, my Heritage contact, and to just send everything they don't want there. My ideal plan would be to send the more expensive stuff to Heritage, and the cheaper stuff to PWCC, but that's probably too difficult for my wife and kids to figure out. The keys for me here are to get a 0% seller's commission locked in, a contact a the auction house you can trust and is easily reachable, and a big enough auction house where you are confident they will be around for awhile. If you are alive, you have more discretion to vary the pick of your auction house on a bunch of different criteria (when the next auction is, how fast is the payout, etc), but with something like this, you want to be able to just have your family dump a whole bunch of stuff at the auction house, and have them sort through it, and auction it for you. You do not want someone who will look at your wife, and say that they will buy your collection for $XXX, and where she won't know better, and think that's a great deal, IMHO.

[calvindog]

Gary, I've never consigned to Heritage but I never knew there was a seller's fee at all. I just assumed the consigner received the final sale price before the BP was added. I also had hoped that if one consigned a large collection there would be a break on the BP, i.e. if a lot sold for $100 and $20 added on top for the 20% BP, the consigner would net for example $105.

Originally Posted by glchen

I'm going to give the opposite advice from most others here. You are only 57. You could easily live another 30 years. That's a long, long time that you can still be enjoying your collection. Do your typical pruning of your collection for items that no longer interest you, but if I were you, I'd keep your collection pretty much intact. I'd wait until you're 70 or if some serious health issue crops up before I'd consider selling most everything.

I'd still keep an emergency plan with your wife, so if you got hit by a bus tomorrow (which could happen at any age), she would know what to do with your collection. For example, I have an agreement with Heritage where if I consign close to 10K in value or more, my seller's commission will always be 0%. So, I've told my love ones where my collection is, my Heritage contact, and to just send everything they don't want there. My ideal plan would be to send the more expensive stuff to Heritage, and the cheaper stuff to PWCC, but that's probably too difficult for my wife and kids to figure out. The keys for me here are to get a 0% seller's commission locked in, a contact a the auction house you can trust and is easily reachable, and a big enough auction house where you are confident they will be around for awhile. If you are alive, you have more discretion to vary the pick of your auction house on a bunch of different criteria (when the next auction is, how fast is the payout, etc), but with something like this, you want to be able to just have your family dump a whole bunch of stuff at the auction house, and have them sort through it, and auction it for you. You do not want someone who will look at your wife, and say that they will buy your collection for $XXX, and where she won't know better, and think that's a great deal, IMHO.