best way to liquidate collection?

[pajaro]

Some good tips there. I am going to heed them.

[clevelandsae]

same here...its been eye opening for me. thanks again for all your help!

[carlos.q]

When you have your Will prepared, ask your lawyer what to do with personal property that you deem valuable but others may/do not, and when to do it. The mistake is waiting while under the impression that there's always more time.

Made rather more difficult when there is no next of kin.

You can leave your personal property to an institution, a museum or even your favorite pen repair person. The important thing is that your pen collection doesn't end up in a landfill.

[azkid]

When it comes to selling collections there's a tradeoff between maximizing sale prices and minimizing time required to sell everything.

Regarding the pen collection, if time weren't critical and money was more so, I would try to get in touch with some of the used pen dealers on here and see if any of them sell on consignment and/or if any would be willing to provide appraisal / info / whatever for some reasonable fee.

Having cleaned out my parents' (and my childhood) house after dad passed and when mom was ready to move up near me in her final years, I can tell you facing all that stuff was extremely daunting—on top of the difficult emotional aspects of loss. There were few items of value besides house and car, though.

I think it's worth making a list of the most valuable stuff in your estate, ahead of time, following the 80-20 rule. Document what it is, details, provenance, estimated value, and maybe where to get more info, how or where to sell. (I better go take my own advice now... Except I have few valuable things besides house, car, and savings... So I really just need to get rid of a pile of crap sooner rather than later... ).

These things that mean a lot to us, that we hope someone will carefully appraise and judiciously sell, likely will look very different to the bereaved.

Not to be overly blunt, but, unless the items make up a substantial portion of our estate's worth, or our surviving loved ones value them like we do, they're just another burden to pile onto the grief, stress, and difficulty of losing someone.

Frankly, I think I'd rather see all my goodies snapped up for a song by "sumgai"s at my estate sale, after my wife and kid pick out whatever they want.

[VertOlive]

Funeral home owner perspective here: sell them as a group and move on.

[Fermata]

I have been talking to a neighbor, a little older than I am about this subject, it worries him. He has two Velocette motorcyles and enough parts on his garage shelves to build another in addition to a lifetime of power tools and loads of other stuff. He is 70+, his wife has died and his two daughters live light years away and have no interest in what has interested him. We are not talking about money here, we are talking about handing things on to a good home, it concerns him a lot more than handing over money to his daughters out of his estate.

[Deb]

I can understand that. I gave up motorbikes some years ago and sold my Velocette Venom along with the rest. It was the right thing to do but I still miss it.

[Ahriman4891]

clevelandsae - in case you want to sell them yourself one by one, I can offer a bit of advice about the Montblancs. Montblanc pens went through multiple generational changes, and some pens are valued more than other, very similar looking pens, but the signs are not obvious to the "uninitiated". To ensure potential buyers know what they are looking at, take detailed pictures of the nib, feed (the black part under the nib), ink window, and piston threads, in addition to the general pictures of the pen. Something as minute as "14C" vs "14K" gold content mark on the nib makes a difference.

This ebay listing pretty much shows how to do it.

You can of course apply this to all the other pens. The more info you provide, the better.

Best of luck, and sorry for your loss.

[clevelandsae]

thanks, thats very helpful. i believe ill be listing them all this weekend. ill put a link up here in case anyone is interested in any.

[clevelandsae]

I did get them all posted. thanks again everyone!
https://www.ebay.com/sch/websterente...1&_ipg=&_from=