What will become of your collection?

[COI]

Ok, I basically have 3 questions that are somewhat related:

 

If you were to die tomorrow, what do you think would happen to your books? What I mean is, how much have you really told your family about your collection, and its value? Particularly those of you with very large, or very valuable collections. Those of you who are posting 5 figure, "pretty books of the day", do your wives/siblings/kids/whatever know about your 10K early FF's, and 15K Western Penn DC's? Have you set any sort of contingency plan, where your families know what to do in the case of an untimely death? If so, what have you done to prepare them? Is someone going to stumble across one of your 9.6 early Marvel priced at guide at a flee market? On a high end collection, Dealers who knew you may very well approach the family to purchase your collection. Would they be prepared for that? Would they know if they were being taken or not? This is a definite concern for CGC high grades, since gone are the days where you could match grade with price in an Overstreet. Imagine your family selling off your slabbed 9.4's at guide, to an opportunistic dealer!(Possibly a protege of Chuckles ) And for those of you who will be leaving 30,000 $1 books, what will your family do?

 

The second question is what do you plan on doing with your collections, if you finished with the hobby in your lifetime? Pass them on to family? Eventually sell? I read numerous times about a guy like "the dentist" who has a kid that will more than likely inherit the best Action/Detective run in existence, so it makes you wonder what may eventually hit the market, and what will stay in private collections. As far as you know, do you think your collections will be hitting the market while you're still around? And for people my age who may feel like all this is a lifetime away, have you thought about what your going to do with your books and when?

 

And finally, if the time comes when you've met your collecting goals, or you decide to permanently leave the hobby(not take a break, not upgrade, but when you're completely finished with buying another comic), and you are not going to pass the collection to anyone, would you still keep your collection for posterity? Personally, the only thing that motivates me to keep my collection is the fact that I will be adding onto it. I can't see myself keeping the books after leaving the hobby, regardless of my finances.

[murph0]

My family could care less about the books. My fiance knows they're worth something to me and would probably keep them for our kids.

Once my collection is done, and it will be done at some point, I'll just have fun looking at it and such. Will eventually give it to my kids, who can do whatever they want with them.

 

Brian

[COI]

Ok, so if you croked tomorrow, what do you think they would do with them? Or would your fiancee save them for her next husbands kids?

[murph0]

They'd probably sit and eventually get sold some day. I can't think of a reason as to why she'd sell them any time soon.

 

Brian

[COI]

Post deleted by CaptainsOfIndustry

[BachelorOfComix]

If I ever totally stopped, I think I'd lose interest in owning them as well.

If I quit I'd have to stop visiting the Forum. This damn place fuels the collecting bug.

[COI]

No kidding. Because of this forum, I also have trouble staying on track with my goals. I set myself up to only collect certain books in certain grades, then someone posts something that I may not have previously looked at, and my goals change.

[comicmankev]

I have prepared a complete rundown of where my comics are, and exactly how to sell them through Ebay! This is stored on my PC under a 'in case of death' folder!

 

May sound a bit harsh but I have dependents that know that they are valuable, but not much more than that. And I would like to see them sold, as I know my wife wouldnt enjoy them!

 

There is also detailed write-ups on using the scanner and getting the books graded!

 

I think everyone on the boards with a collection of larger value (ie over $1-2k) should do this. It only takes a while to type it up, and the potential gain to loved ones could do them much more good than it ever did you!

 

Took a while to do but I thought about it strongly a few years back when I lost my job at the time. The majority of my spare cash is hooked up in comics, and from what I have bought, they are better 'investments' than stocks and shares. I know theres been a lot of talk on the boards about investments, but I have 3 main collecting focuses.

 

The first are ones that I enjoy! Mainly reader copies with my favorite covers/stories in HG CGC. Modern and old. I have complete Wolverine collections, Star Wars, Avengers etc.

 

The second are ones that I like the art to the covers, but also have holding value in HG CGC. So I get them in for the 'artistic value' and have them hanging and framed! These also contain ones that are regularly traded/sold to fund further purchases.

 

The Third, is the investment copies. All Silver and Gold. Ones that in my own honest opinion will always steadily rise in value (No hulk 181s in there!). Of course it is my own opinion, and I still try to stick to ones that I prefer, but am a bit more catious about spending too much.

[Kermit]

Interesting topic but slightly depressing...

 

Well, if anything happens to me, my wife might keep my coll. (she's a comics fan, but not much on the super hero type) and keep on taking care of them/storage...i've passed my "maniac" daily care to her too, .

 

My coll. isn't near the majority of the ones around here, but a rough value of it is already around the 12.000 Euros (in dollars is slightly more, ). It isn'tn a big coll. 8less than 4.0000 comics)but indeed is becoming a beautiful one.

 

I have a complete list of what i have/grades/value so...if they were to be sold the % of someone ripping us off is a lower one.

 

I don't think on disposing my comics, even if i stop buying comics (something i've been wondering about) i will keep them, because there's so much great stuff to re-read...can you imagine that at best you've read 2 or 3 times max. one or another comic from your coll.?! There's so much to re-read, enjoy and dream...like having a permanent silver/bronze age store on our house...

 

Regards, Pedro.

[icecube-migration]

I can answer this one. My wife and kids know my comics are worth money but they think they are worth more than they are. Everyone thinks all comics are in mint condition and you shuld get top money for them. I had over 13,000 comics and stoped buying them in 96. Till 2 months ago they sat on my shelfs, then I said they are not doing anything for me on the shelfs because I'm into different things now, so I called up Flying Donut and he took a road trip and hauled them all away. I enjoyed them when I had them but like they say times have changed and so have I.....ED

[Freiherr]

 

 

I have no clue what will happen to mine when I bite it. I have a very modest collection and 3 of the 4 boxes of stuff I own is “well read” items that are not even bagged/boarded. I bought my comics to enjoy reading them and only saved them so I could read them again later.

 

The other box is filled with $10-$500 items. I would hope that my mother or brother would just hang on to them in hopes they might be easier to cash in at a later date.

 

I would actually like to get rid of most of my collection now (don’t PM me, it is nothing any of you guys want). I am thinking about finding a place to donate them to because they are not really of any value or in “collectors” condition. Unfortunately, they will have to keep taking up space for a while until I have the money to ship 3 overstuffed long boxes.

 

I will never get rid of my whole collection. I have pretty much made up my mind on the stuff I “have to have” and the list is small. Items not on this list will probably eventually be sold or traded.

 

[Rickdogg]

Untimely death = relatives will sell books on ebay.

 

As I get older or done with collecting = will go to my kids if interested, if not I will sell them to fund my retirement and hopefully fulfill another Marvel Team Up fanatic's want list

[clobberintime]

Very good question which I have thought about a lot considering the money I have spent on cgc in the last 3 years. I have a note book with my complete collection and rough values. It also has contact info for all the big players so my wife could contact CL or Metro or Heritage if she needed to sell the books. I also have a pretty good system for keeping track of what I paid for the books which she could find. Also a portion of my books are registered with cgc and they assign values and she has the info to see that stuff so she could get an idea of possible prices. I am probably over insured but would want her to get the most for the books if need be. sO THE PLAN would be to have them sold by one of the major dealers if she needs to - she knows the commission rates etc. The collection would pass to my son otherwise - he is only 5 but he is already a big fan as we have been reading a couple comics a day for a few years now - reader copies of pre-80s marvels of course. He knows all the heroes names - all the FF, Hulk and Spidey cast of charACTERS and is really into it. Doubt I would ever completely stop as it has been a desire since I was about 7 to put together a Marvel run and I have just made the money in the last 4 years to do it. My marvel run is pretty much done - so I am moving on to horror and Timely. But if I ever got to the point where I stopped, it would mean my passion for the books was gone and that would mean I might as well sell them. I guess I could keep them for awhile for pure investment potential but if I didn't really care about them I would move on to something else. I think this is a good topic that anyone with a lot of expensive collectibles ought to consider because you would certainly want your family to get the most they could and not be taken advantage of ala Chuck.

[tilleycs]

Freiherr, comics4kids is a place that you can donate them. After I've traded/sold all the leftovers I can get rid of, I'll be donating everything that's left to them (after I also save the money to ship them ).

[JohnBull]

Excellent question and one I have considered a fair bit recently. I enjoyed reading the responses from forum members who left detailed info for their wives/dependents.

 

This seems a very good idea, although you'd better pray that she can't get hold of the details before you die as:

1) If you did end up in the divorce courts it could cost you plenty

2) If you weren't previously likely to end up in the divorce courts, the chances will rise when she finds out exactly how much you've spent.

 

I've always bought and sold through my life and I'm sure that will continue. My interest in keeping issues after I've read them diminishes rapidly and I have no keepers in my collection.

 

Hopefully when I die there'll be something left to leave to someone, but with the current state of my retiremement plans, it's likely I'll have sold everything long before then to help pay the gas bill.

 

[delekkerste]

Great thread, Andrew!

 

1. I suppose I should put together a "contingency plan" in case of my untimely demise. Right now, I don't think my relatives have any clue what anything is worth...my guess is that my opportunistic sister would put everything up on eBay and see what happens. I was thinking that I should leave instructions to consign everything to 1-3 collector friends who I trust and to cut them in on 20% of the net proceeds.

 

2. I have always thought that I would pass my collection down to my heirs, but lately I've been thinking otherwise. If you think about it, it's rather unlikely that they would have the same interests, tastes and appreciation for my collection that I do. And if I end up with daughters and not sons, I think the chance they will appreciate my collection will be even smaller! I know that a lot of today's collectors are trying to recruit their young children into the hobby, but realistically, just because they are interested at age 5-15 says absolutely nothing about how they will feel when they are 18-35 and have discovered girls, booze, student loans, mortgage payments, corporate life, etc. Suddenly, Dad's Silver Age collection might be seen as a great way to raise some quick cash for a sports car, house downpayment or a bag of blow.

 

3. I suspect that I will end up selling off most of my holdings at some point, which is why I have been much more careful about acquiring hard-to-sell items. Much easier to sell a $2K book or a $5K painting for a decent price than a longbox full of Moderns. Hopefully my heirs will see fit to keep some of the better items in my collection, but I have become convinced that all the boxes of relatively common books and non-key CGCs will be on their way out at some point (though not necessarily right after I buy my last book).

 

Gene

[Lantern]

This is a great question.

 

I am fortunate that my wife and my brother are both into comics, therefore, they both have an idea of what they are worth and how to get rid of them. I suppose that whatever my wife did not want to keep she would let my brother pick through the rest. Whatever the two of them did not want would be sold on eBay or heritage or donated to a charitable organization. If something was to happen to both my wife and I our wills state that they are to go to my brother and nephew to do with as they wish.

 

Then again, I live very close to Chrisco who may show up the day after I died and try to con the widow Lantern out of her valuable books so he could make a huge profit off of my sweet, sweet DC's.

 

 

[Aces]

 

Love that logo!

 

 

Back on topic:

 

Screw my comics!

I'm more worried about what happens to me after I die...

or

[comicmankev]

Part of my advice sheet on selling the items on Ebay says 'start them all off at £0.99, let the market determine the value'

 

Just in case any problems did occur and the info did fall into the wrong hands, nobody but me will know the true value of the items ;(

[chrisco37]

Then again, I live very close to Chrisco who may show up the day after I died and try to con the widow Lantern out of her valuable books so he could make a huge profit off of my sweet, sweet DC's.

 

(rubs hands together in sinister fashion) "The Wheels are in already in Motion."