" But what if you have an accident tomorrow? Would your wife or kids know what the hell you have or what to do with them? Would they be able to sell them appropriately if they preferred the money instead of a bunch of plastic? "
valid point & something that I've had discussed with me. Tim & I have agreed to sell each others collection if the need arises to not burden our own families. I'm sure we can all put a similar action plan in place.

aussiejames wrote:

valid point & something that I've had discussed with me. Tim & I have agreed to sell each others collection if the need arises to not burden our own families. I'm sure we can all put a similar action plan in place.

That's certainly another valid point James and why it is a good thing to make trusted friends in the hobby. If I were to die today, my wife could very easily get a hold of ChrisB and JoeO who know exactly what I have and a good idea on value.

aussiejames wrote:

" But what if you have an accident tomorrow? Would your wife or kids know what the hell you have or what to do with them? Would they be able to sell them appropriately if they preferred the money instead of a bunch of plastic? "
valid point & something that I've had discussed with me. Tim & I have agreed to sell each others collection if the need arises to not burden our own families. I'm sure we can all put a similar action plan in place.

That really is a good point.

Well guys, thankyou so much for your replies and the time you have taken to make them, thats why this forums a great one, some of you have really raised some really interesting points and filled in so many questions for me..
It seems that many of you have very different opinions about AFA, i did a little googling about AFA today and i found out that there are many collectors out there that have had their figures either come loose and move around in the case, wrong weapons have been put in, noses have been damaged in the cases, cases have had their supports broken on the inside, a few have had fake AFA stuff, but to AFAs credit i have heard they have great customer service and they always fix any problems....

i am looking forward to more opinions and information in this thread, reading it has been great, thanks again to all of you who have taken the time to reply to this in such a detailed manner its great cheers guys, you are a wealth of knowledge...

im only very new here but im enjoying it alot, thanks to guys like yourselves

Keeping a record over what you have and perhaps place a estimated value on them as well is a good thing. I know that I have my work cut out for myself as to organizing and catalouging my items. It not only makes it easier for someone else to get a good overlook of your collection, but it's also for your own benefit when an item surfaces and you're unsure if you have it. Then you just go to your database and look it up.

Great label, Shawn!

Yzerman wrote:

Keeping a record over what you have and perhaps place a estimated value on them as well is a good thing. I know that I have my work cut out for myself as to organizing and catalouging my items. It not only makes it easier for someone else to get a good overlook of your collection, but it's also for your own benefit when an item surfaces and you're unsure if you have it. Then you just go to your database and look it up.

Great label, Shawn!

I'm pretty good with that, especially regarding the vintage portion of my collection. I created spreadsheets in Google Docs using the Kellerman Matrices, so I can pull it up on my phone wherever I am, and see if I have it, what condition it's in, etc.

But that only helps me. If my wife looked at that and compared it to what I have, it would just look like gibberish. 12-c, 48-a, etc. But I do like the idea of having an agreement with someone to help with all of that in the event of my untimely passing.

If I dropped tomorrow, I've told my wife to grab my phone and pull up a couple of names of people who can help sell it off but my will actually gives it to my son so it'll be up to him.

DarthBerizing wrote:

If I dropped tomorrow, I've told my wife to grab my phone and pull up a couple of names of people who can help sell it off but my will actually gives it to my son so it'll be up to him.

Same here. I have all of my stuff in a Trust so my son won't have to deal with all the probate BS. But it still comes down to ease of selling, if he decided to sell. Which I would hope he would sell if he needed to, rather than starve and have a Star Wars collection.

You could also add pictures as reference to your items in your database to help identify items in case of a need to.

A trusted friend/collector is also a good way to make sure a sale will go as smooth as possible.