What to do with your collection, Part 2

[grwebster]

Part 2
Medical issues: What if this happens to you?
I am reminded as I write this that a long time collecting friend who had one of the largest aircraft toy and model collections, with many investment grade pieces, contacted me a few years ago and asked me to help him sell his collection. He had begun to have serious health issues.

He and his wife, who enjoyed collecting with her husband, were fortunate in that a major toy museum was located in the same town and wanted to purchase a lot of their collection but insisted on an paid independent expert evaluation and full inventory with individual descriptions measurements, prices, and photographs. Their printed and bound inventory took well over a year to do is a major toy reference work in itself.

The Strong Toy Museum of Rochester NY was apparently well funded and in the end bought some major, mostly larger and more displayable items but these were only a fraction of the entire collection.

So I recommended they take the auction route. The major firms would come into to their home, inventory, pack and ship everything. Yes, the seller’s fees and commissions will take a big bite, anywhere from 10-25%. But he and his wife didn’t want to pursue it that way. They preferred to do it by selling directly with other collectors.

I then agreed to contact some of the important and active collectors I knew {about 30 or so and even announced to on this forum}. I suggested that if they were interested, to contact the seller and be sure to ask for the printed inventory catalog.

So, anyway, thanks mostly to my first emailing a few months later, they had sold quite a few individual items, but nothing that rare or expensive, and still quite a lot remained.

My next step was to expand and do a general posting on many collector sites. But when I proposed this, I was begged by the collector and his wife to stop. Both he and his wife, in their eighties, were overwhelmed with the logistics and organization of wrapping, packing, insuring, and mailing the small individual orders by themselves. And then there was the administrative side, cashing checks, then spending half a day at the post office. They have two children, neither of whom had any interest in the collection.

The problem was compounded by advancing mental degradation. {‘GR who?’ was one shocking experience on the telephone as we had been collecting friends for over 30 years.}

So finally I once again suggested to them to contact some toy auction firms. They declined. I still do not know why? Perhaps they were afraid of publicity and tax liability. Fearful to book major value reductions when their toys sold in an open auction market? Who knows?

So now a few years later what is left of this fabulous collection sits in their basement untouched. They do not want to be contacted.

Lessons Learned?
Perhaps, it is time to step back and look at you own collection and situation without emotion and start to make businesslike decisions.

Would it really be irresponsible to just leave your collection in your estate without any planning for its eventual disposition?

Famous Last Words

‘’I am donating it to a museum!’’
I have often heard collectors proudly state that they will donate their collection to a museum. ‘Its going to the Smithsonian’.

I used to say something similar.

Well guess what? Its just not going to happen!

So get real. Museums probably don’t want it. Before even entering discussions, they {and the IRS later for charitable tax deductions} will require a fully detailed list, photographs, and an independent expert’s valuation.

This will cost some money and good luck finding an expert who knows your extremely rare 1941 Tootsietoy DC-4 Long Range Bomber in Camouflage is one of the rarest of all the American die cast toys and worth not $45 like the ‘United Mainliner’ version on eBay, but worth over $300, even today!

Museums are hurting just like the rest of the world’s economy and they don’t have funds or even space readily available to set up a display area. I contacted several aviation-oriented museums, but there was little interest at all. One asked if I was going to donate cash with the collection to help offset display and curatorial costs.

So realistically you should forget getting any museum accepting your collection as a donation.

‘’It will stay in the family’’
I have also heard collectors say, ‘I am going to pass it on to my family’.

What? Time to get real again. They probably don’t want it. It may stay in the family but it will eventually be boxed up and forgotten about in a few years. Worse still, they may try to sell it not knowing what the real values are.

If you are lucky, your wife or one of your children has shared the collecting passion with you and may want the collection to remain intact. If this is true in your case, you are a rare and lucky collector. It was not my case.

In my long collecting experience, I only know of may be 4 or 5 collectors who have wives or children who actively share the collector’s passion and will continue to want to maintain the collection.

‘’I will become a dealer. That will be a good retirement hobby.”
I have heard that too. So your options here are basically eBay, or flea markets and toy shows,

eBay
Your collection certainly will sell there, but be realistic that lots of time and organization will be required. Packing and shipping correctly can easily take 3-4 hours of your day and this for only a few items!

But for most collectors this may well be the best way to sell your collection.

And you will need to address many issues. To set a reserve price or not? What will be the minimum starting bid? Can you provide good, in focus photographs? Will you accept returns or will it be ‘As is’? Will you ship outside the USA?

Be sure to get an eBay sellers guide or talk with a pro level seller. Look at those listings from those specialized sellers you have used and copy their terms as a beginning.

Again a few items would not be too much of a hassle, but selling a large collection on eBay will take a lot of time.

And, be aware that you will find out that there are some nasty and unscrupulous buyers out there. People who have won your auction for an item, received it, then returned it after taking some needed part from it. It happens a lot. Your prized 1950s Tekno DC-7 is returned after the buyer removed a prop or landing gear, for example, and claims you sent it to him that way. Ebay will not back you up. Insurance won’t cover it either in most cases. Paypal will side with the buyer, too. You will lose.

My advice? Sell only ‘As is’, avoid any detailed written descriptions as to condition and provide many photos. DO NOT ACCEPT RETURNS

In some areas of the USA you could also buy a table at a toy show or flea market and try to sell the collection off over time. This can be a fun way to do it, if you have the time and patience. But toys shows have been shrinking a lot in the past years, and many of them have closed.

Sell To A Specialized Dealer.
If you know someone who is an active seller at shows or on the internet, perhaps he could be interested in buying your entire collection. Worth asking around. But he will need to make a profit so cannot offer you anything close to what you may have originally paid at retail.

Sell To Another Collector.
Hopefully, thanks to this web site and our occasional airplane only toy shows, you should have developed a wide circle of contacts that may well have interest in some of your collection. But again, many advanced collectors already have extensive collections and could not buy all of your items in any case.

Consign your collection to an auction house.
This was the route I chose and I will start coverage on this in Part 3

[Epap]

Wow?

After reading this, I think I'll be buried with my collection, rather than leaving it for my kin to sell. All I have to do is excavate a space large enough for me and 3000 diecast models.

[grwebster]

Except you love your work and it is superb. It is unique and well researched.
There must be value there and inspite of my comments about museums, an aircraft museum could be interested in it.
Big advantage is that your items are all large and displayable- 1/72 scale - and most toys are more in the 1/250-1/200 range.

[Tomtom]

Yes WOW.You went into many ways,ebay,auction,tables at shows,no right or wrong way,all have good/bad points.
What not to do is exactly what the collector you mentioned did. When you posted that sale I got a very disjointed list,no metion if item was boxed,or good desciption details-and no prices.
So you ask for a price and along time later(which is why i thought collector was sick) you got an ebay type price. Well for that money I need pictures,more info details,none came.
That is what not to do.
On another board dealing with model kits a very large collection was being liquidated by a long time collector. He realized awhile age his health was failing and started to sell stuff at various model shows,and put the word out. Lots of high price kits sold,the rest he was selling in his yard/house . He did not want to burden the family with thousands of kits they had no interest or expertise in.

[998]

I hear that about the Dinky Toys.

I have only about 50(?) in various states, about half are in very clean, crisp shape and of those, more than half have decent boxes as well. Yes -- the market that has an affinity for these has moved on. As I see it (nearing 60), I only have two options:

1.) Wait for (or instruct my significantly younger wife to) the next wave of collector who is more into collecting for the social era value that they themselves have no first-hand experience in. My wife collects 17th and 18th century cookbooks that neither she was around for (or cooks from!) but still it is a pretty hot market. I trust that will happen to Dinky Toys soon enough, as soon as many current collections get 'lost' boxed up down in the basement.

2.) If all else fails -- Landfill. That's where a majority of my new Corgi AA 1:72 stuff and 1:200 airliners are destined to end up.

Meanwhile, it has been a blast collecting these things!

[dasimperator]

Two words...

King Tut

Wow?

After reading this, I think I'll be buried with my collection, rather than leaving it for my kin to sell. All I have to do is excavate a space large enough for me and 3000 diecast models.