[jchallis]

I feel this article acutely. My mother has a house full of antiques, fine china, and silverware that she values enormously but has essentially zero market value. Most pieces wouldn’t cover my monthly electric bill.

Here’s my plan - you’re welcome to copy it:

1. Make a video documenting each piece and its story while she’s still alive. Get her to tell the family history, where items came from, what they meant to her. This preserves what actually matters.

2. Set aside exactly three pieces that genuinely speak to me. Not “might be useful someday” - just three things I actually want.

3. At the funeral, announce anyone can take anything they want to remember her by. Let family self-select what has meaning to them.

4. Donate the rest wholesale to charity. Tax deduction should be around $25k - likely more financial benefit than selling piece by piece, with infinitely less hassle.

This honors the emotional value without inheriting the burden. The video preserves family history better than storing unused objects. And it avoids the soul-crushing experience of discovering your inheritance is worth less than a tank of gas.

[voisin]

> 1. Make a video documenting each piece and its story while she’s still alive. Get her to tell the family history, where items came from, what they meant to her. This preserves what actually matters.

The wild thing is that “what actually matters” likely becomes “what doesn’t matter” after one more generation when people who never met the person in the video inherit the video.

We are all just here for a brief time and yet we (myself certainly included!) cling so hard to attempting to leave a mark.

Most people we know only think about us for a month or so after we’re gone. Only our closest family and friends think about us longer and even then maybe not so many years later.

[macNchz]

I spent a good amount of time digging into genealogy tools last year, tracing some family as far back to the 1500s. I felt it was a pretty mind-expanding exercise, learning about the places people lived and the journeys they must have taken. It inspired me to read from other sources about what life was like at each juncture.

Among the various records there were some that involved wills and estates—lists of who got what 200 years ago. Land, horses, money. It was fascinating in its own right, but I'll say that a video of any of those people talking about their life experience would have been absolutely incredible, if for nothing else but to conceptualize how extraordinarily the world has changed, while also feeling connection with the little human details of daily life that have likely remained much the same.

[bombcar]

Anyone who does the digs into history almost always loves the personal letters and such over the dry records of deeds and sales, etc.

[bombcar]

Depending on what the collection is, posting it online (after the appropriate time) may be worthwhile for some.

Or if it’s particularly local, check if the local library would like a copy.

[ghaff]

And "Sell on Ebay" is easy advice but, if you're not an antiques dealer, pretty uninteresting and impractical. The fact that there mostly aren't 50 cents on the dollar third-party Ebay sellers any longer should probably be a hint that it isn't a good business--and probably less so than it once was.

[joshlemer]

Why's that? What has changed that makes selling nicknacks on Ebay less worth it?

[ghaff]

I never found selling cheapish knicknacks on Ebay very attractive financially but it seems like it's less of Ebay's business these days and just not something I'm willing to devote a lot of time and energy to.

More generally, I do think it used to be more of a flea market even if I never found it a great selling platform for cheap items.

[bombcar]

Unless it’s your business, or it’s high value items, the dollar per hour is pitiful.

$10 item sells for $9, charge and ship it, eBay takes its cut, barf. Garage sale or just donate would be simpler.

[Symbiote]

How does a collection of stuff with "essentially zero market value" become a $25k tax deduction?

[nkurz]

Are you perhaps not American? Here in America, tax deductions for property donated to charity are an almost universally condoned form of white collar fraud. Instead of using the actual price you could sell for, you come up with some flimsy justification for why it's actually worth 5 to 10 times as much, and then sign something claiming this which "allows" you to subtract that amount from your income.

Everyone knows it's almost always fraud, but practically no one is ever caught, so you feel like a chump unless you participate. It's taking advantage of a system with very poor enforcement. Professional accountants may even suggest it, and at times "appraisers" will play their part for a fee. Some people even try to convince themselves that it's technically legal, but I think even they know it's a lie.

[adastra22]

When getting something appraised they actually ask you “is this for sale or insurance reasons?” This never made sense to me because the insured price should be the replacement price, and that should be the same as what you would sell it for, no?

It was much later that I realized “insurance price” was “the highest value we can justify” and really meant for tax purposes.

[Suppafly]

>When getting something appraised they actually ask you “is this for sale or insurance reasons?” This never made sense to me because the insured price should be the replacement price, and that should be the same as what you would sell it for, no?

Obviously no. Insurance has to buy you the item new, used items sell for a fraction of the new price. Being confused by this makes me think you're new to living on earth.

[adastra22]

Insurance doesn’t buy you anything. You make a claim and they send you a check, minus the deductible. That is it.

[Suppafly]

Regardless, you typically want the list price for your items not the used price. Do you not understand the difference?

[ghaff]

With the current tax code in the US, a bunch of random Salvation Army donations or expenses for volunteer activities are mostly not very interesting unless you have much larger deductions as well. For specific relatively large value donations like cars, you'll typically have an independent assessment.

[adastra22]

And that independent assessor will ask you “sale or insurance?” They are in on the scam.

[ghaff]

In my case it was just a letter from the 501(c)(3) organization acknowledging the donation. I can't speak to how the valuation was done.

[bombcar]

The big one was cars which they eventually cracked down on, you can now only deduct what the charity sold it for (usually Pennies at auction).

[ghaff]

I was actually surprised what a charity sold a car I donated to them gave me as a deduction. But it was when COVID was ramping up and used car values were stupid.

[yowzadave]

> 4. Donate the rest wholesale to charity. Tax deduction should be around $25k - likely more financial benefit than selling piece by piece, with infinitely less hassle.

What charity wants these antiques? Less hassle for you, I'm sure, but now a charity is going to have to deal with the stuff. Will they just throw it in the trash?

[ghaff]

That's the reality with a lot of stuff. I do donate books to my library's book fair every year. But having gone to the book fair, I have little doubt that most of the donations will end up being pulped in the end.

Most things that people don't want don't really have value to most anyone else either. They may be recycled at some level. But mostly it's just friction to get rid of it.