A Pet Peeve (That Is Probably Unwarranted)

I think I can unfortunately see both sides to this. My heart says, 'C'mon! He collected for YEARS and you're just gonna pitch em?' But then I have to consider my current situation.

My Grandma just died over Christmas and my Aunt is currently going through the house and getting everything ready for estate sales and antique appraisal. They have a pretty good sized collection of Morgans, Peace, Barbers, Walkers, etc. and I have asked about them. I feel like my aunt really wants to let them go to me because she knows I'll take good care of them but at the same time, they need to come up with $25,000 to pay for the funeral and other debts she had outstanding and she is considering letting them go to help pay. Unfortunately, there is no way I could come up with what it would take to buy them at silver prices and no one else in the family has any money either so... it's sad.

Now, back to the other hand, I get pretty burned when I hear about teenage kids who inherit collections and just go off and sell them for whatever and then end up spending the money on booze or video games or whatever. That, is just disrespectful.

That's where my collection started. Passed down from generation to generation.

I inherited a small collection from my Grandfather. To be honest, I wasnt that interested at first, except I knew they meant a lot to him. I didnt even look through the stuff until a few years later. After doing a little research to check on values, I actually had no interest in selling at all. Then all of a sudden I got excited about coin collecting and decided it would be OK to sell off a few doubles and try to finish a whole set. Well so far I've made some purchases but still have not got around to selling any doubles.....

But I can understand in most situations where a collection is passed on family will either be falling all over themselves to sell it off because they think its worth a lot of money.. or simply not care and be happy if some other family member takes the heavy boxes away.

So in conclusion, send all coin collections to me, I promise I wont sell any.

I work with a group that handles estate sales. There are many ways you can look at the possessions of the deceased & I believe I've seen most of them. I think the two extremes can be illustrated by an estate we handled a couple years ago.

This was a very wealthy family with 11 heirs, each of whom was going to inherit over 7 figures. The belongings of the deceased had been in storage for about 18 months. The family decided they wanted our group to pull everything out of storage & price it so they could split everything up. They also asked us to help on the day they made their choices. Once we had everything set up the family drew numbers for the order they would select items. The idea was for each member to select items in turn until either everything was chosen or until each member had everything they wanted. At that point their picks would be added up to be counted against their inheritance. Any items remaining would be donated to charity with the estate getting the tax deduction.

Most of the family members selected several items. There were a couple exceptions. One person only picked one item. Another member & their spouse kept picking long after the rest of the family had stopped. We were all getting along pretty well & I'm always interested in why people act the way they do so I asked those people why they made the choices they did. The person that selected one item told me that the end table he picked always sat next to his Mother's chair & had sat next to his Grandmother's chair when she was alive. He was going to put it next to his chair & hoped his Daughter would put it next to her chair when he passed. The couple that kept selecting items long after the rest of the family stopped told me the items were too nice to go with strangers. They also told me they didn't really have room for everything they picked. If I had to guess I'd say that the end table of the first guy is sitting next to his chair & the majorty of the items the couple picked are sitting in the same boxes we packed them in sitting in storage.

Here's what people lose sight of. Unless an item has a specific memory associated with it it's just stuff.

That's how I approach it as well. I've thought a lot about this topic as my kids get a little older. My oldest son (12) does not seem interested in coins at all. My daughter does a little only because she knows I like it. I often wonder why am I purchasing a certain coin or what will I do with my collection as I get older. I have no intentions of selling it. I doubt my kids would either after I pass unless they really had too. But if no one sells it then what value is it to anyone other than memories?

If it really matters to someone, then it is up to them to leave instructions on what happens to their estate.

I have three sons, one who collects with me, and considers every coin we buy together a " prized " possession. It is an effort to get him to upgrade any coin. I have another son, that would keep the collection out of deference to the joy and relaxation he saw as I collected. My oldest, would liquidate in a second. The only time he examines my coins is to ask " how much is this worth ? " or " How can you sit on a coin that is worth $2000 "

Point being, it is up to me to make sure that these coins get into the right hands when I pass. Yes it is heart breaking to see people's life's work get sold off for pennies, but if they really cared .........

I hope I can get one or my two little girls into it, or hope they someday give me a grandchild who likes collecting.

In a bit of irony, a planned liquidation of a collection passed down to me by a great aunt actually instead inspired me to dive full force back into numismatics.

She passed this modest along to me in the 1980's when I was about 12. It intrigued me at first, and I spent many hours initially searching through the family change jar to fill holes or upgrade coins.

About two years ago, I was going through clutter in a storage closet figuring out what to get rid of, and thought, let me see what Aunt Mary's coin collection is worth and I'll sell to the highest bidder. As I researched values, the only thing of any signicant value were two Indian Head cents (1867 and 1871) in G-4. Everything else was too low-grade or common. While doing the research to value the coins, I again became intrigued, and instead of reducing clutter, I've increased it the volume of coin-related "clutter" about 20 fold as I branched out into all other types of coins.

At the end of the day, I might part with the lower-end stuff from her collection or pass it along to my kiddos to get them started, but those two Indian cents I'll hold onto for quite awhile as sentimental pieces, even if I upgrade.

I wouldn't say it's a pet peeve as much as it just makes me sad. I wish everyone appreciated coins like we do, but they don't. And you're right, if no one ever sold them then we couldn't buy any.