hi gents, and happy newyears!!
although some of you have seen a few more years than i have, this subject has been kicked around this household in the last year or so. with a wife who has no idea what my various collections are worth, and the arrival of my son dec 19/07 i thought it only prudent to leave her a record of the items and their current value in today's market, to be reviewed yearly and updated. what i did was a little time consuming yes, but well worth it. the first thing i did was to seperate those items which belonged to family members, took pictures of each item listing historic details, and simply stated that they were to be kept in the family at all costs. then i burned this to cdr. i did a similar thing with all my non heirloom items listing values for each item. i also named a few trustworthy people, some who frequent this very forum, whom she could contact for help in case of my demise. i also seperated these items into categories such as vehicles, medals and decorations, paper items, ect. my helmet collection i did as a seperate category due to it's size. i figured that the pictures would be of great help since she isn't that up on items such as putees and brodie helmet's. a will is a must, period. the only way i can say this is that i have seen what happens when people pass on and all the rats come out of the wood work...and it's rather disgusting. my father has been passing things on to me and my brother for years, his theory is why wait until your dead? i have seen some of jon's collection which is quite outstanding, and half of my library came from the heron road estate which brother al can confirm. this is a very important topic regardless of age because death knows no age, it could happen to anyone at any time......cover your collective asses and those of your loved ones!!!
mike
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