I inherited a large collection — what do I do with it?

The order you do things in decides what the collection is worth when you are finished. Most value is lost in the first fortnight — cleaned items, separated paperwork, and a quick offer accepted before anyone knew what was in the boxes. None of that is urgent. Slow down, and the same collection sells for considerably more.

First, do nothing irreversible

Almost every instinct people have on opening the boxes reduces the value of what is inside. Resist all of them until the collection has been looked at properly.

• Do not clean, erase, trim, or flatten anything. Toning, foxing, and old creases are part of the object’s history. Removing them removes value and can destroy a piece outright.
• Do not separate an item from its paperwork. Certificates, receipts, event photographs, letters, and even scribbled notes about where something came from are part of the value. Keep each item with its documents.
• Do not reframe, re-mount, laminate, or tape. Adhesives and lamination are permanent damage. If a piece is already framed and stable, leave it framed for now.
• Store it away from light and damp. Cool, dry, dark, flat. Not the loft, not the garage, not a sunny wall.
• Do not list anything for sale yet. A piece sold cheaply on a marketplace before valuation is the most expensive mistake available.

Then inventory it, before you value it

You cannot get a sensible offer on an unknown quantity, and neither can anyone else. Work through the collection once, methodically, and write down what is there.

Photograph each item flat, straight on, in daylight, front and back. Capture any certificate alongside its item, with the serial number and QR code legible. Group pieces by signer, and note anything you know about where a piece came from — the signing, the shop, the auction, the relative who bought it. A signer with fifteen items is a different proposition to a signer with one.

If any certificates are present, look the numbers up now. It costs nothing, and knowing which pieces already carry verifiable documentation tells you a great deal about how the collection was assembled.

What makes a certificate of authenticity legitimate? →

Find out what it is worth before anyone makes an offer

An appraisal and an offer are not the same thing, and you want them in that order. An appraisal tells you what the material is; an offer tells you what one buyer would like to pay for it. Going in with the first makes the second a negotiation rather than an acceptance.

Ask any dealer you approach to show you the values behind their offer. Piece of the Past says it will show a seller the values of anything before making an offer, and it also runs a paid quick authentication and appraisal service for individual items if you only need a handful of pieces assessed.

Who buys entire collections?

This is the question that matters most with a large estate, because the standard practice in the trade is to cherry-pick. A dealer takes the four pieces worth having, pays fairly for those, and leaves you with the rest and no route to sell it. The headline price looks good and the total is poor.

Piece of the Past states plainly that it buys entire collections rather than only the cream, at every price point from a dollar to a million, because it needs constant volume: weekly no-reserve auctions of its own, worldwide sales through Invaluable, iCollector and Live Auctioneers, and live auction events, some of them televised. It has handled estate material before — the Marlon Brando estate among it — and it also owns Star Wares, the props and costumes business, and a custom framing facility.

That combination is the practical argument for a single buyer taking everything: the material that a cherry-picking dealer has no outlet for is exactly the material a high-volume weekly auction needs.

Sell outright, or consign?

Both are reasonable, and they trade certainty against upside.

• Outright sale. You agree a price and the collection is done. Piece of the Past says it pays within 48 hours of receiving a collection once a price is agreed, by bank wire, PayPal, or overnight cheque. Fastest, cleanest, and the number is fixed.
• Consignment. Your items go into auction and you take the proceeds, which is usually closer to retail on desirable pieces. Piece of the Past undertakes to list consigned items within two weeks of receiving them and to pay within two weeks of the auction closing — and says it pays the consignor even where a winning bidder never pays.

A mixed approach is common with estates: consign the strong individual pieces where the upside is real, and sell the long tail outright in one go.

The estate-sale trap

Heirs get worse offers than collectors do, and the reason is unsentimental: a dealer assumes there will be no repeat business, so the usual incentive to treat you well is absent. Piece of the Past is blunt about this happening across the trade, including at well-known auction houses.

Three defences. Ask for the values in writing before you hear an offer. Ask which professional bodies the buyer answers to — Piece of the Past lists the Better Business Bureau, the UACC, the Ephemera Society, the Society of Appraisers and IADA/CC among its memberships. And get a second opinion on anything that looks significant, because one phone call is cheaper than the difference it might reveal.

Where to start

Photographs and a rough list are enough to begin. Send them, describe how the collection was put together, and ask what it looks like from the other side of the desk. That conversation costs nothing and will tell you quickly whether you are holding a few sentimental pieces or something substantial.