BrookIsland
New Member, Must Send First ,
I was just admiring another of the Green Train of Happiness threads when the thought occurred to me as I'm in the midst of doing some estate planning - given how enormous I expect many of our personal collections are - what are my heirs going to do with all my cards?
Few key concerns off the top of my head:
1. Esoteric Items. For the more hard to value (but still valuable) items that wouldn't be obvious to a non-collector and will take time to liquidate (i.e., "hockey card illiquids") - this feels like a ripe area for someone to really take advantage and/or for someone to rip off my family.
2. Volume / Patience. NPV (or "net present value") is a killer, particularly when liquidity is on the line as well as the time and (enormous!) admin commitment to sell cards to maximize value - so would seem easy for an heir to take a *massive* hair cut on a block sale to get some value now (another area for potential abuse). I'm sure many of us have hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of cards, many of which have real value. Hard for me to see how passing these on to someone isn't a huge burden to them as (a) no way these cards are going to mean as much to them as they mean to me - i.e., sentimentality is only worth so much; (b) the administrative burden of selling them anywhere individually or even in lots is *huge* - just the tax burden (even with stepped-up basis from any estate tax paid) alone is major from the 1099s from eg eBay; and (c) cards take up a lot of space, not as much as other hobbies depending on the size of the collection but they also can't be "used" unlike a game, sporting equipment, toys, etc. etc. - all they do is sit in a box.
3. Fairness of distribution. Valuation rears its head again here. How does a random executor(ix) much less a family member in the midst of (hopefully, I guess?) grieving fairly distribute the cards if there are multiple heirs?
4. Is this my problem? I'll be dead and won't have to deal with sorting this all out obviously but what a huge pain in the *** for my kids. How much is my happiness in holding on to a bunch of paper with ink and some fabric really worth to me in lieu of providing them with more liquid assets to support them that don't bring with them all the pains of cards (e.g., specialized and asymmetric knowledge, valuation, illiquid market, major barriers to trading/sale in bulk), particularly where none of them has any major affinity for cards.
5. Giving someone else a chance/who am I holding on to cards for. Making the sets I've made has brought me immense pleasure and it's been a total joy. Once the sets are made and sitting in boxes has brought quite a bit less. Also: while many of the cards I've collected are likely interesting only to me (here's looking at you Michael Dal Colle Cup collection), there are almost certainly others that other collectors would like to add to their collections. I've had my chance to hold on to them - shouldn't someone else get a chance particularly if giving them that chance saves a lot of future admin/other issues that are addressed above (even at the cost of missing some unknown future value increase, speculative as that may be).
6. Macro Card Market Value Trends. High end collectibles obviously have, in certain markets, provided a lot of value to people as a hedge against their traditional asset portfolios. I think there's a lot less of that in hockey cards generally than e.g., baseball, rare coins, super high end comics, and in particular, there's a lot less in some of the years and cards that I've collected (with notable exceptions like the McDavid year and his RCs likely being pretty sure bets to increase in value). While I may have a few cards that are v likely to increase in the long term (barring some catastrophic environmental event or other similar "tail risk"), a lot of my stuff is going to depreciate I expect. All the more reason to sell sooner.
Net net, hard to see the basis for holding on to cards forever and a lot of reasons to do an orderly unwind at some point.
Few key concerns off the top of my head:
1. Esoteric Items. For the more hard to value (but still valuable) items that wouldn't be obvious to a non-collector and will take time to liquidate (i.e., "hockey card illiquids") - this feels like a ripe area for someone to really take advantage and/or for someone to rip off my family.
2. Volume / Patience. NPV (or "net present value") is a killer, particularly when liquidity is on the line as well as the time and (enormous!) admin commitment to sell cards to maximize value - so would seem easy for an heir to take a *massive* hair cut on a block sale to get some value now (another area for potential abuse). I'm sure many of us have hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of cards, many of which have real value. Hard for me to see how passing these on to someone isn't a huge burden to them as (a) no way these cards are going to mean as much to them as they mean to me - i.e., sentimentality is only worth so much; (b) the administrative burden of selling them anywhere individually or even in lots is *huge* - just the tax burden (even with stepped-up basis from any estate tax paid) alone is major from the 1099s from eg eBay; and (c) cards take up a lot of space, not as much as other hobbies depending on the size of the collection but they also can't be "used" unlike a game, sporting equipment, toys, etc. etc. - all they do is sit in a box.
3. Fairness of distribution. Valuation rears its head again here. How does a random executor(ix) much less a family member in the midst of (hopefully, I guess?) grieving fairly distribute the cards if there are multiple heirs?
4. Is this my problem? I'll be dead and won't have to deal with sorting this all out obviously but what a huge pain in the *** for my kids. How much is my happiness in holding on to a bunch of paper with ink and some fabric really worth to me in lieu of providing them with more liquid assets to support them that don't bring with them all the pains of cards (e.g., specialized and asymmetric knowledge, valuation, illiquid market, major barriers to trading/sale in bulk), particularly where none of them has any major affinity for cards.
5. Giving someone else a chance/who am I holding on to cards for. Making the sets I've made has brought me immense pleasure and it's been a total joy. Once the sets are made and sitting in boxes has brought quite a bit less. Also: while many of the cards I've collected are likely interesting only to me (here's looking at you Michael Dal Colle Cup collection), there are almost certainly others that other collectors would like to add to their collections. I've had my chance to hold on to them - shouldn't someone else get a chance particularly if giving them that chance saves a lot of future admin/other issues that are addressed above (even at the cost of missing some unknown future value increase, speculative as that may be).
6. Macro Card Market Value Trends. High end collectibles obviously have, in certain markets, provided a lot of value to people as a hedge against their traditional asset portfolios. I think there's a lot less of that in hockey cards generally than e.g., baseball, rare coins, super high end comics, and in particular, there's a lot less in some of the years and cards that I've collected (with notable exceptions like the McDavid year and his RCs likely being pretty sure bets to increase in value). While I may have a few cards that are v likely to increase in the long term (barring some catastrophic environmental event or other similar "tail risk"), a lot of my stuff is going to depreciate I expect. All the more reason to sell sooner.
Net net, hard to see the basis for holding on to cards forever and a lot of reasons to do an orderly unwind at some point.
