I had a few good conversations on twitter lately, mainly related to book collections, and how they ought to be disbursed to one’s descendants.
My conclusion is that it isn’t really worth thinking about, because books are mostly worthless, at least in terms of being a monetary asset. Your next of kin can figure out how to divvy them up knowing any book two people want can simply be bought if need be; but it is more likely that your children just won’t care much and will donate the books. This extends to many types of collection.
I’ll share some anecdotes.
About nine years ago, an elderly neighbor of mine died. He left behind a house, an old car, and all his worldly possessions acquired from nearly 90 years of life. Included in that was a massive record collection (numbering in the thousands) and a number of hi-fi systems. Those records were sold in an estate sale, with most going three for a dollar or even less as the sale proceeded. Everything that was left was bought in bulk by an Ebay reseller for pennies on the dollar. All the other stuff in the house that was left over (including unsold speakers) was tossed in a dumpster.
This was great for me because I got to add to my own collection a large number of original pressings of things like Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis, and also got a great pair of vintage speakers for cheap, but why did the family disburse the man’s treasured collection the way they did? Considering how much he spent collecting those records (probably $40,000 or more in inflation adjusted dollars), why did they sell them for pennies?
Well, his family wasn’t interested in owning a large vinyl collection, and probably wasn’t interested in listening to the same music as their father or grandfather. Selling three thousand records on Ebay in an attempt to recover the investment would have been a full-time job or taken years as well as necessitating storing the inventory. Same thing goes with listing the furniture on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist. They were different people and didn’t care about the deceased’s physical treasures in the same way he did. He loved his collection and enjoyed it for decades—that ought to be enough.
When my mother-in-law died, she left behind a massive library of theological books. My father-in-law held onto those shelves full of books, presumably so I could go through them and get what I wanted. The problem is that, while I am a fairly consistent reader in theology and study religion often, I really had no idea if any of the (often very thick) books were worth reading without doing research into the unfamiliar protestant authors. If they were, were they worth shipping back to Texas? If I wanted to read a particular book, couldn’t I just buy another copy from Amazon or a reseller? The only thing that made those books special was that my mother-in-law happened to read those particular physical copies, but a book is its contents, its information, not its pages. I could gain the same insight into her person by reading any copy. And with most informational books, they were left on the shelf for reference; they weren’t necessarily poured over and re-read or treasured.
When my grandfather had to be put in a retirement home (he had gone blind from a stroke), his household was sold off in an estate sale to pay for care. He had a shipping container in his back yard full of junk he had collected over the years. I have childhood memories of him pulling things out of it for me to play with—often small toys from when his children lived there. But most of it was just junk, and it ended up going to the landfill.
This reality about our physical objects extends to many other things. China sets are noteworthy as most married people buy their own china and grandma’s set is, as it turns out, usually worthless. We tend to waste space storing dishes because an ancestor bought them for themselves and it seems disrespectful to simply donate or toss them. Mathoms accumulate in our material society.
When I wrote “Mad Uncle Marty” what was on my mind was the Gen Y/Millennial fascination with collecting physical objects like toys and figurines. What happens to all this stuff in fifty years? If the past is any indication, it will all be thrown away.
Collectors I have known tend to justify their purchases by believing that their collection has value (and Uncle Marty does this) because they spent money on it, or they know some rare item they have on a shelf sold on Ebay at one point for a tidy sum. They have no intention of selling their treasures, but the idea that they have resell value gives them a bit of psychic balm regarding their purchase. But leaving a valuable collection to your descendants is not really leaving them something if they don’t want the objects themselves; it is leaving them a task. They have to find a way to sell those items, and it is often so much work they sell it in bulk or throw it away.
I think about this sometimes with my guitars. It’s one of the reasons people buy Gibsons and I don’t (though I have owned them). They have resell value, which raises their overall value, but I don’t like to sell guitars, I like to play them. It’s better to buy the same quality (or usually better) instrument for less money. At this point, there is no tone or special setup that a Gibson has which I don’t already have in some other instrument. The only reason I might want one now is that I don’t have one yet. It would complete the collection.
Collectors tend to collect, like Uncle Marty, because of the collection itself, not because they love the individual objects therein. They buy the rare Qui-Gon toy not because they will play with it or they love the character, but because it completes the collection. At the end of his life, Marty was surrounded by things he didn’t really love and never enjoyed, and only when he lost everything because of dementia was he able to just enjoy having and holding one of his treasures, finally left with only the faded childhood memory of why he loved the toys to begin with.
The lesson here is not that we should discard all physical objects and live like Saint Anthony in the desert. It is to understand that the things we buy in this life are to be enjoyed in this life, and we shouldn’t worry much about what our children will do with those treasures. Also, I suppose, if you own things for no purpose you should dispense with them, but that is not most people, except when it comes to great-grandma’s china.
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Reminds me of my friend's brother in law who has saved every TV guide since the 80's convinced it will help him retire. Those are probably dumber to collect than funko pops for values sake lol.
Also reminds me of my great aunt who was an English professor with a massive collection of books. She died in a fire which damaged most of her books. I wasn't really interested at the time, but I still regret not picking up her copy of Hamlet.
All of this is very true. Understanding this also helps with clearing stuff out when inheriting it.
When an old relative died I inherited their library. I understood that there was no point in me taking it all - I went through it thoughtfully and picked the books that interested me (many piles of them), and the rest I got rid of (many piles of them also).
Somebody asked me if I don't feel guilty getting rid of stuff that was left to me. I answered that my way of showing respect was the careful thought I gave to the vetting of the books - and the appreciation I have for all the interesting books I placed in my library.