What Will Happen To Your Collection When You Are Gone?

Have told my wife, take it to our local dealer (where I got a lot of it from), ask to make an offer for all, take the check and say "Thank You".
pat

we need a new word in the philatelic community --- the word is ----Pallet Collection .

This is a new word that has been needed in the 2020's Why ?

This is how stamps are now being sold by firms like Kelleher and Rasdale auction firms .

As collections and accumaltions have been picked over dozens of times , they are sold in large cartons that are stacked on wooden pallets and sold as such . So when you get 25 cartons filled and stacked this is now a PALLET COLLECTION ,it is sold by weight ,for example 1800 lbs at $1500.00 opening bid ,shipping cost are in the area of 5 to $600.00 .......PALLET COLLECTIONS are a bargin if you don't care to get anything cataloging over a buck or two .

It's really not my problem. I'll be dead. It's part of the family trust, it's worth a fair bit of money and I know my kids don't care about it, but I no more care what becomes of it than I do what becomes of my car or my house. I'll be dead and I won't care. I won't care about anything. Throw me in a ditch somewhere. It doesn't really matter. It was fun while it lasted. Once I'm gone, fun-time is over.

One of the auction houses that I follow calls this kind of lots for - "realization lots"

Well, you had a lot of useful advices (you make a will and in the interest of your heirs you put down a strategy to sell off your treasures in writing).

Now, I chuckled about the thought being dead and then what now, which is a absurd question in itself. I remembered Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", there you find in the fourth staff that nice little scene in the obscure shop of a peddler where Scrooges charwoman, his laundress and the undertaker assemble and sell off Scrooges most intimate belongings. And I fancied that would happen to my collection. They would talk badly of me (as people usually do when one is not present) - but nevertheless would not complain about taking advantage of my belongings and the revenue of it. I love the thought – sorry, Mr. Dickens I'm not afraid - that's how people are. I wish I could witness the scene.

And here's another aspect. During the Corona frenzy I bought two boxes of mixed leftovers, for a small amount, for the fun. And one box contained a clue in respect of the preowner. I liked the content, evidently material was put together in a heap to sell off. I googled him, as I liked the material and how it was assorted. I found his name in the obituary column (died a year before my acquisition) and he was a physician from northern Germany and interested in Austria, Poland, GDR and UK. I dare say, there is a happy end for his stamps being amalgated in my collection. In my German forum I even gave a laudation to some letters and showed them to the public.

…and here's another one. To some beginners I gave some cheap German inflation stamps (a hundred years old) and gave some advice to why they find a hinge on the back. And here is why: they were not the first owners, neither was I, these stamps had to be somewhere during the last 100 years…

And as to sleeplessness, if it happens again, I counsel you to get up and sort some stamps to your pleasure or else to ponder about your next contribution to the forum in respect of stories, anecdotes and items of your loved collection. We are turned to hear…..

@Bendix, when I read your vivid posts it is with the voice and intonation of actor Christoph Waltz in my inner ear.

No one in my family has any interest in my collection. I'm giving some thought to donating it to the APS. That isn't "in stone", I've still got a few good years left. We'll see where I'm further down the road....

1800 lbs with nothing cataloging more than a buck or two is not a collection, it is a hoard.

Pretty much. I gave up hoarding many years ago. I get only what I need and don't keep around the extras. I'm a collector, not an accumulator. There's nothing wrong with it, of course, it's just not for me. I'll never have a pallet-full of stuff left over when I go.

As we say, you shall deliver the farm in a better condition than you received it. In the meantime, the farm is simply a loan.

And if you don't understand this, then you shall not inherit our house, stocks and other collectable things.

Reason: Because the history behind gives further generation a knowledge about where they come from.

Point: Never underestimate a stamp collection !

That is a frightening thought , my collection will end up on a pallet in some stamp auction firm's backroom with dozens of other deceased stamp collectors stuff.

I have a few collections, in a sense. I have a 13 volume Big Blue Collection - I expect that will go as one lot, no matter who is lotting it. Then I have The Good Stuff in the bank vault. It all fits easily into 2x glassine envelope boxes, so = a small carry-on bag. And then I have some odds and ends of specific country collections, etc, that could each stand on their own.

My plan for the last 25 years has been to have this stuff fund my retirement. When I retire in a couple of years, I will be sending the stuff off to various auction houses, etc, that I feel will do best for that particular area of the collection. In the end, I am a stamp collector, and doubt that I will actually dump ALL of it, so I expect I will have a handful of better items, probably all in one field, which I will instruct my brother/sister to send of to XYZ company to sell. God willing, I am getting rid of 90% of my collection before I go. I wonder if God got them memo.