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Thread: Coming of Age: Downsizing

  1. #31
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Young people do not want to collect anything. I gave my hummels to a Husky rescue to sell. They have a auction site where they sell donated items. They were happy to get them although I doubt much $ came from it. They gave me a receipt for the donation with leaving the value up to me.

  2. #32
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    We have a large collection of original Fiesta from the 30s and 40s. Really big 20+ years ago. I am thankful we sold a chunk at a specialty auction over 10 years ago and recouped some of our cost.

    Thankfully we got out of stamps and coins before the market tanked decades ago. Learned a whole lot in the process regarding even highly rare and collectible items. Rule #1 - when the ordinary person thinks something is rare and "collectible" get out of the market. That includes when the discussion appears in the daily media. This rule should have been applied to housing "investments" that ordinary people thought they were making.

  3. #33
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveinMN View Post
    My ex was big into Hummels. There are books out there (probably Web sites, too, now) that provide trustworthy evaluations of value for sales purposes. I would buy the book or print the Web pages for the Hummels you're donating and use that value (and documentation) for deduction purposes. You also could print out results of successful ebay auctions (or auctions at other sites). Craigslist is useless for documenting values since you don't know if the item sold (or sold at that price).
    Disagree completely. Those books are notorious for listing unrealisiticly high prices. The library where I worked had all of those guides to collectibles. Their heyday was before the internet, now you can see how much the gs Ctually sell for on ebay.

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tybee View Post
    Does she actually look at and see the Hummels? It sounds like you have clearly identified the one that has value and importance to you. Perhaps this is cold of me, but I would stick the one you love in a drawer and give the rest to the Goodwill now, as they have an auction site and their value can be bid on there, and the money go to help others in need, as well as delight some Hummel collector. I would tell her, if she asks, that I lent them to someone for safe keeping, another collector who could display them properly.
    The Hummels are packed away except for mine. But if I got rid of them (no matter how worthy the cause) without her involvement, she would be devastated. To get rid of them while she is alive means a painstaking discussion and debate over every freaking hummel only to have her probably keep them in the end. So the easiest is to wait until she is gone. But I hope I won't be sentimental and want to keep them. I really don't like them so I hope I can easily pass them on. To her they have a story, she bought each one when my dad was stationed in Germany in the 60s. she saved and saved for each one and has a little story about why she picked that particular one.

    She agreed to read The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning but that was two weeks ago and it's going to be due back at the library. The reality it she doesn't care that she is leaving me with A) all her sentimental stuff and B) all her papers and crap.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by freshstart View Post
    The Hummels are packed away except for mine. But if I got rid of them (no matter how worthy the cause) without her involvement, she would be devastated. To get rid of them while she is alive means a painstaking discussion and debate over every freaking hummel only to have her probably keep them in the end. So the easiest is to wait until she is gone. But I hope I won't be sentimental and want to keep them. I really don't like them so I hope I can easily pass them on. To her they have a story, she bought each one when my dad was stationed in Germany in the 60s. she saved and saved for each one and has a little story about why she picked that particular one.

    She agreed to read The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning but that was two weeks ago and it's going to be due back at the library. The reality it she doesn't care that she is leaving me with A) all her sentimental stuff and B) all her papers and crap.
    Sounds like Teacher Terry is right, and it would be much easier to do this after she has passed.

    We have same issue right now with my parents house and all of their things. It feels premature to get rid of anything, yet here we are, and it will all need to be done, and we are a thousand miles away and heading out there this weekend. Not sure what they want, and I don't want to devote next two years of my life to their stuff.

  6. #36
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    the funny thing is my parents tell everyone how they downsized because they got rid of two double wide dumpsters worth of stuff. But they bought a house with the same square feet and then added two unnecessary rooms to the basement and bought furniture for them. They upsized! The house is a blessing because of the handicapped features, it would've been a nightmare trying to care for them in the old house and we would've had to re-model while they were ill. But I have to laugh every time they tell people how they have down sized.

  7. #37
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
    Disagree completely. Those books are notorious for listing unrealisiticly high prices.
    *shrug* Of course, current auctions and sales are much better guides. But this was 25-30 years ago. Not many of those to be found then. (Anybody remember when ebay was called AuctionWeb?).

    It sure beat valuing the piece for what something kinda like it was listed for (and collecting dust) at Annie's Antiques Amporium in the fru-fru town nearby where people go antiquing. If nothing else, it identified which pieces are a dime a dozen and which truly were limited and, therefore, of some marginally greater value.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  8. #38
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    You've all convinced me! I'm going to give away all my stuff, sit in my empty, newly minimalist house, and wait to die. Do I have permission to keep my PC, and maybe a Kindle? I certainly wouldn't want to inconvenience my heirs...

  9. #39
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Too funny Jane)
    I don't think you have kids so that makes a difference. I am finding a leaner look more pleasing and quicker to clean. My house is not minimalist but not cluttered anymore which I am enjoying. Now days you can just call in a company to do all the work if you want.

  10. #40
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    A big part in this societal shift is smaller families. My grandparents had 6-8 kids, and their kids had 3-5 kids. And some grandkids were married and starting families too, by the time my grandparents were in their 80s and having family auctions. There were almost 100 people there - all descendants. It was no problem selling the stuff to the descendants. It was sold in friendly bidding wars, and then in the end little money changed hands because my grandparents did some math to figure out how to distribute cash from sales to those who bought less. So everyone went home with about the same amount, either in cash or in stuff.

    Now there are 1-3 kids per family and there’s not enough houses to absorb all the inheritances.

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