Hoarding/Collecting

[Pastnowfuture]

I'm feeling desperately sad and hoping someone can help me. My dad is 70 and throughout his life has 'collected' many, many things. Examples include coins, stamps, baseball caps, pin badges, football programmes, toy cars, whiskies pint glasses, CDs, DVDs, watches.

My mother doesn't collect but won't let anything go. She buys an excessive amount of things but won't bin anything even shoes with no soles or empty purfume bottles.

They live in a 2 bed bungalow but it's so cramped and due to damp it's starting to smell but can't be cleaned or aired. It breaks my heart that they are living this way. They are lovely people.

They have agreed to let some stuff go. In fact my dad has asked me to sell his stuff knowing he 'can't take it with him'. His issue with selling however is he is worried he won't get what it's worth. He has a real anxiety around being ripped off, to the extent it has stopped him selling his stuff for the past 20 years.

I know that all of the objects are only worth what someone is willing to pay and some such as his vast DVD collection will be worth next to nothing. However the things like coins, stamps, football programmes and toy cars do have value. What kind of person do I contact to value/buy/sell on this stuff. Would one person do it all or would I need to go to a specialist car collector person and a specialist coin collector separately. How do I find these people.

If anyone could advise I would be so grateful. I feel totally lost.

I don't know, but I might start with an auctioneer. One who features this type of stuff in their auctions. They'll give an idea of price without your having to commit to sell.

Does your mother value her stuff or is she keeping it "in case it comes in useful"? If the latter, I might start a steady campaign "Mum, I need something for ... Do you have anything you no longer use that you could give me?" and start chipping away at it like that.

Or would they allow a lot of stuff to go into storage while the damp situation is sorted? It needn't all come back.

I'm a fine one to talk, we have so much stuff. But we're not in a 2-bed bungalow.

Everything you mention is sold in my local weekly flea market/vinatge market.They also buy off you. I love vintage stuff so take an interest in some things. What I’ve found is that stuff collected by older people over the years seems to all come out for sale at the same time, probably because of situations like yours, downsizing or house clearance. Also, treasured collections which family have kept for years believing to be of value tend not to be. Obviously this depends on what you have.
There are some really good stamp websites about, including Stanley Gibbons which can give indications of value of stamps. Stamps tend not to be valuable as most people growing up collected them and there are loads in circulation. Just because they are old, does not mean they are valuable. Value comes from mistakes such as colour printing errors or a very short production. Collectors tend not to want domestic stamp collections as they are two a penny.
Obviously it depends on what you have and it would be worth checking out every single stamp on an individual basis.
Coins, again it depends what you have. Pre 1920 coins were more or less solid silver. Pre 1947 coins were 50% silver, there is also silver in some old copper coins. People were aware of this at the time and started hoarding these coins and there are loads in existence so I think you would be looking at silver scrap value.
Do not send them away to the companies that promise distance selling. I don’t think they give you a fair deal and sometimes they can go missing. Where you are in the country can have a bearing on how much you get for them. For example if you are in Birmingham, there are so many companies willing to buy silver, that you will get a good offer as they know you could get other offers nearby. If you live in the back and beyond you may only have one company close by who would accept them and not get such a good offer, but you should factor in travelling expenses in their offer and way it all up.
Do not sell job lot bags of coins without checking each and everyone out individually. There are good coin websites who explain which coins are of value. For example if you had a bag of old pennies, most would be of low value but you could have one with a year date that had it’s production halted making it rare.
It’s difficult to advise without knowing what you have. It’s worth contacting auctions to find out if they have any specialist auctions coming up in regards to your caps, programs etc as they would fetch more if you had an interested audience. Dad had a full set of cricket autographs from a 1940’s team which was put into a specialist auction, I think they were taken up to London by the auctioneers. He had a good price for them at that time.
Check out eBay too as dealers sell there.

If you've time to nip out and buy today's Times, Deborah Ross does a poignant piece today about clearing out her late Dad's house.

Not the same, I know but same ballpark. Better to do this stuff while they're still alive, but you might also stumble across uncashed cheques, how they're getting ripped off by Home Insurance firms, or BT when they could switch to a cheaper option, so clearance has some practical use.

Also, finding old photos and so on and getting the lowdown on them.

I suppose you could use eBay and turn it into a bit of a game or point of interest for them.

Having cleared my DH’s house before he went into a care home. Take charge, don’t let them hoard and hoard. It will become unmanageable and as they get older they will become more difficult to deal with.

There is also the issue about Health and Safety when the house becomes dangerous for them to live in. My DF house cost £9k to clear. I tried but didn’t make a dent.