Relatives have destroyed/stolen my grandmas stamp collection worth thousands

[fabmaccawhackythumbsaloft]

I'm just posting this as if I don't get this out somewhere and come to ter,s with it I'm going to get ill with the injustice and frustration

Basically my beloved grandma brought me up as one of her own which made an uncle very jealous.

I've also been nc with my mother for over 20 years as she is a spiteful, mean woman with no maternal bone in her body
I have a younger brother who is an addict , now 41, toothless, straggly long hair, wears women's clothing and publicly identified himself on fb as a drug dealer who I'm also nc with

My Nan was a stamp collector from being around 12 years old . Her collection was impressive and carefully cataloged into expensive albums in three categories, new world, Asia and Europe.

By the time she died in 2004 the collection was huge and rare, and worth around 200,000 k

The day after she died my aunt, who is basically like my sister , caught my mother and her brother loading the stamp albums into their cars
She asked what was going on and my mother said we're getting them valued and selling them. My aunt tried to stop them and ,y mother hit her. Finished taking the albums (there were around 150) and drove away

Up until then my aunt had stayed in contact with my mums brother (her step brother) and he backpedaled saying the. COllection was at his for safe keeping . He died a couple of weeks ago so my aunt and her brother (my other uncle who I was brought up with ) asked if ,y cousin (mean uncles dd) could use me as a go between and could she take the collection to me .

Well
She turned up yesterday at my house , we had a lovely catch up and went for lunch. She then said let's empty the albums from the car

What she brought is my nans 'stock books" , basically tatty a4 ring indeed with scraps in. Not a single proper album. I asked her where the actual albums were and she said as far as she knew this was the collection! I said no it isn't , these are her working stock books , and explained there were approx 150 pristine Stanley gibbons albums with entire collections in, and they were categorised into 3 sections, new world, Europe and Asia

She said she didn't know anything about them and that's all she had found at her dad's address

I have cried and cried , not because of the value , but because that was her life's work, her pride and joy , and they've gone and destroyed it, carved it up and sold it.

Oisin turned up in a brand new expensive car, said oh yes dad had 100k just in cash , and he's obviously left her his house too

That cash , that cash I suspect is my nans stamp collection. She had clear instructions for who got what but no will .

It's not the money, it's the way they've piled in like vultures and torn her life's work apart for their own gain and not even considered me, ,y aunt or uncle who were also her children.

My mother hadn't even seen my Nan since the 1980s .

I'm eaten up inside . I'm sat looking at these tatty stock books , and yes her hand writing is in them so I'll keep them although there's 40 stock books and where the hell I'll store them I don't know . Attic probably.

I'm just so sad . Her beautiful stamps are gone .

And no probate , Nan lived in. Rented house and the only asset was the stamps which they just auctioned and split the money between them two, excluding the other 3 siblings entirely

So very sorry - that's an awful thing for them to have done. I can understand why you're so devastated :(

That would most likely be treated as a will for legal purposes. Where are those written instructions now? Are there other assets eg house, savings?

Sorry missed your later update that these were the only assets.

If you have a copy of the instructions and these show that you were meant to get a share, you might want to get legal advice or ask fir this post to be moved to Legal Matters

You say your younger brother is 41?
I assume your gran was in her 80’s…..maybe she did have a Will somewhere?

It was 20 years ago so I doubt anyone has a copy of her instructions now, the fact they WERE sold at the time has only just come to light as the oldest sibling who helped ,y mother take them told everyone they were at his house for "safekeeping "
He died a few weeks ago so it see,ed like the right time to ask for them to be returned to the others but all that actually remains are 40 folders of "scrap" for want of a better term .

Not one album was there .

What an awful thing to do. No wonder you are so sad and angry about it.

That's really awful for you. If there's any consolation the stamps would almost certainly have been sold so that the proceeds could be split between the 5 siblings. The law has been broken as the estate didn't go through probate.
You could pursue the legality of the estate not going through probate but it won't result in the albums being returned and you would not have been a beneficiary under intestacy laws. It really is probably best to focus on the albums that you do have and your memories.

If she did have a will the vultures swooped in first and would have taken it to hide what they were doing

They'd broken into a locked cash box , and were stripping the place as ,y aunt arrived

My mother apparently made a comment to my cousin at the funeral of her. Rather. Few weeks ago that she should get her affairs in order as she is only a year younger

My cousin said she turned up at the funeral with my younger brother looking like a bag of shit and she said she did t look like she had a pot to piss in but if she's saying she needs to get her affairs in order I'd say that suggests she has the money from the stamps

Obviously I'm the black sheep since she favours her heroin addict , cross dressing, toothless waste of space son so ultimately nans stamp money will pay for his heroin. His dd is in foster care and he gets contact once a month for a. Hour at a contact centre.

She won't leave me anything . She gleefully told me she was supposed to abort me but was too late and the. She actually put me up for adoption which is why my Nan took me in and raised me as her youngest .

I'm a bit confused by some of your posts OP, are you saying your nan died 20 years ago, but this has only just recently come to light, because the relative who was supposed to be keeping the albums for "safekeeping" has now died?

You say that your grandma left clear written instructions. Who did she want to have the stamp albums?

Exactly that yes .
His daughter said she had found the albums and was bring them to me but what she brought were worthless working stock books and not one actual album

When asked she said that's all there was at his house so he lied saying he had them for "safekeeping " , it seems when my mother hissed st my aunt she was getting them valued to sell them , she did just that and split the money with him who was her full brother , the other three siblings who I was brought up with were from nans second marriage

Do you feel like you were meant to get the stamps? In that case, you should have challenged them two decades ago, although without a will, they would have been auctioned off and divided amongst grandma’s children.

I honestly don’t know what you expected to happen, that you sincerely believed someone else has been storing 40 books for such a long time, waiting for someone else to die. To be blunt, you don’t seem to care too much about the stamps themselves, just their value, if you haven’t laid eyes on them for all this time.

They ere meant to be split between her youngest 3. Hildtren whom she had from her second marriage because my mother didn't speak to her and her brother barely did
One category was meant to go to her youngest son ( like my brother to me)
One to her dd (like a sister to me )
And one to my aunt who had just died 4 weeks before in the car accident but both my aunt and uncle said I should have had hers due to her death because I was basically brought up as their sibling by my Nan and I was extremely close to her youngest 3 and we were brought up as siblings

I know it's terribly complicated

But my mother didn't want me and my Nan did. So I called her mum . I was the baby of the family and very close to my Nan and her 3 youngest children

Please do t say tho gs like that I valued the, as things of beauty very much and I used to sit and look at them as a child . I would never ever have sold them and neither would her 3 younger children who were meant to have them

The two older siblings my mother and her brother stole the, and sold them for financial gain they didn't care about them as things

My mother had given my Nan care of me in 1972 and buggered off she hadn't spoken to my Nan since the mid 80s

I loved those stamps and because they were so precious to my Nan they were precious to me

They were her entire life's work

Y uncle - so mothers brother hated me as he was jealous that I was seemingly my nans favourite because I was the baby of the family and there is no way he'd have given them to me after he stole them

My aunt and uncle should have confronted him but my aunt had just been punched in the face by my mother and my uncle lived 300 miles away

And fancy it was 150 albums at least not 40

You can say the stamps are very special to you, but the fact is that you haven’t looked at them for almost two decades. It’s a plus that you’ve even been given the remaining books.

In all kindness, this wasn’t your inheritance and you need to let this recent fixation go.

Death brings out greed in people. Always does.

But if they were meant to go to your grandma's younger three children and that's what they believed your grandma wanted why on earth haven't they asked for them before. Why were they allowing the brother who they believed hadn't been left them to have them for 'safe keeping'? Have they never asked to see them in the last 19 years?

I feel for you but this is a really perfect example of why a will is so important. Without it your uncle was entitled to 1/5 of the value. Certainly not all of it. And why would your cousin now hand all of the albums (if her father had still had them) over to you?

no assets but this massive valuable stamp collection? seems very odd.

why did the 3 other siblings not pursue it at the time - it was clear then they were being stolen and probate was being avoided, (even if it should have been under the IHT limit) -

who signed the forms to say the value of the estate was nil? as they committed some sort of fraud. there seems ample evidence the stamps existed - 150 books worth is HUGE, would take a van to carry that many out the house surely?

and nans insurance would have had to be very specialised to cover the value of the collection?

One sibling jhad just died 4 weeks prior in a car crash so she wasn't really in a posit to pursue it

And why is it odd that she had the stamps but rented a house ?

I'd put this in chat not aibu because I've cried all night and had had a talk to my nan last night to say I was sorry I felt I'd failed her

The two remaining siblings DID ask for them but the eldest sibling said he had them for Safe keeping life moved on , my uncles was 300 miles away living in a caravan and my other aunt was in the middle of a divorce so I think they took him at his word

You thought she'd left £200,000 worth of stamps in the car and you both just went off to lunch?

Eh ???