[cctalk] Re: Revocable Living Trust for Computer Collectors

On 6/26/2024 8:07 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: As someone who just had to recently dispose of a collection (not PC, but still), the above might be extreme, but there's truth in there. 10 garages full of collections (multiple: vintage collectible cars, old tools, washing machine engines, collectible farm equipment, old growth oak pulled from houses, timbers from 1900 era cribs and sheds, record players (Victrola, etc.), vintage kitchen appliance, etc.), interspersed with nominal materials and some junk. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.5088326641182317&type=3 Tens of thousands of square feet of stuff. Too packed to easily auction In a word, overwhelming.  Being tech savvy, one could look some things up, but even that task is overwhelming.  You can implicitly know the Maytag engines were worth money, but assigning value to most items is hard.  Some of the very big items were easy to parcel out (the automobiles, etc.), but the tools, lumber, appliances, etc were nearly impossible to fathom. The wife could not even bear to go to the largest building (~6000 sqft), but all of it still being there stressed her out, on top of grieving the loss of her partner of 50+ years. She doesn't need the money, and looking at the items just brought back memories of trips they'd taken to pick things up.  Some of the purchases were good memories, and some were not (they sometimes disagreed on whether to buy an item).  Who wants to deal with all that? On the other hand, the presence of the items was comforting to the youngest daughter, who spent hours each year tagging along to buy items and build the collections. Cleaning out the locations meant removing the one final memory of her father. And, some of the properties were garages adjoining rental homes that needed to be sold, so delaying the cleanup was delaying the sale of the properties. I would not wish this on anyone, even my worst enemy. As much as it hurt, someone had to go in, take stock of what was important, and call cleaners to take the rest to the trash/recycling center. Knowing full well some irreplaceable and incredibly important or valuable items ended up in a landfill. There was simply no other way to deal with this.  And, it had to be done quickly, both to free up the properties for sale and to "rip off the bandaid" on feelings from the youngest daughter. I don't know if the Revocable Living Trust is the right mechanism, but I can say that just leaving this to your loved ones or your children is almost an unforgivable offense. If you care for your friends and family at all, I beg each member of this list to find a way to document your items and what you'd like done with them after your passing. If they choose not to follow your wishes, that's on them, but leaving this activity solely to them is unconscionable. If I had a book or some papers (or even a video) noting what we of interest/importance, and what didn't really matter, I'd have felt so much better about the process.  Doing the work was lots of work, but it was not nearly as hard to making decisions about what to care about, and knowing that mistakes were made and there was no way to fix them. If any of you want money from your collection, pull up your pants and sell it off while you're still around. Buyers will enjoy your stories about the items and you can gain some satisfaction seeing the seeds you plant dispersing your collection. But, don't harbor any delusions that keeping it is going to be a windfall for your family when you depart. It's not. Dad, I loved how much collecting meant to you, but you left a huge mess to clean up and it's a shame it's the last thing I'll remember about you. Jim