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Alright, so it's a heavy topic, but I'm curious what others think.

Last year, a member of our wargaming club passed away. He had an extensive collection of miniatures and board games. His family has been trying to recoup some of the value of these items by selling them off.

Members of the club and others outside of it have purchased some of the collection, but a good chunk of it doesn't seem to be moving. I'd imagine it's destined for a flea market table at an HMGS convention.

It's a stark reminder that these little toy soldiers are only "worth" anything to a small group of people, and probably even less than them if you're not interested in, for example, 15mm Greeks and Persians painted two decades ago.

For me, it's a reminder to try and keep my collection small and manageable so it's not something people are stuck dealing with at some point in the future.

Have you ever thought about what's going to happen to your collection after you've passed? Has anyone else dealt with a situation like this?

“My biggest fear is dying and my wife selling my Warhammer collection for what I told her it’s worth, not what it’s actually worth.”

There must be a meme out there somewhere which is more or less the above.


Personally I have no partner or kids right now so it doesn’t really bother me what happens to my collection. The people who get my inheritance will get what they get. If they decide to throw all my toys away without realising how much they’re worth then so be it.

My friend Phil passed away last fall.

I’ve spent some time over at his place helping his mom sort stuff. The goal is not to extract value out, but to make sure things go to where they are wanted. And to ID stuff for the remainder to be yard salled or sold to comic/game shops. I ended up with a chunk of 40k and some old D&D stuff, boardgames. Other stuff got parceled out to his girlfriend, cousins, other guys/gals from the gaming group. Still piles of stuff need to be looked at. Very painful process.

Right now I’m divorced with only my son to inherit all my crap. Not just my hobby stuff, but a house full of clutter. He’s said that he would keep my Ultramarines, as they were my main army when he was in 40k, and he associates them with me. Other stuff would probably get doled out to anyone who wanted it. Or end up boxed up in the basement of wherever he was living at the time. Some of my hobby stuff that I inherited might find it’s way back to other connections. My brother should get right of first refusal for all the stuff from when we gamed as kids.

I’d hope it would not end up in the trash. Unlikely, as I come from a family of packrats. I’d hope that his uncles and family friends who are gamers would help him sort the wheat from the chaff. I do have a lot of junk, most of which is only sentimental to me.

Clutter and death are a topic I deal with a lot. Both helping with my friend’s passing, and the realization that my folks are getting up there in years, and have a ton of crap that my brother and I will have to deal with if they don’t sort stuff first. Mostly stuff is just stuff. but there are some family heirlooms, and treasures from the past that should not just be chucked.

"This is worth a lot of money" and "I spent a lot of money on this" are very different things that people have a hard time separating. Would I like my collection to pay for itself? Sure, but I don't really expect it to.

I'm in a similar situation right now. My father in law passed away and left behind a pretty extensive collection of mystery novels that just aren't realistically worth anything. Rationally knowing this and convincing people that they're best donated is a really hard bridge to cross, but it has given me a lot to think about on the matter.

I do think its a needed responsibility to keep collections, if not minimized, at least organized. I've been getting a little more ruthless when it comes to selling things I just won't ever use or get to, in particular slashing the unpainted backlog and selling the stuff that I'm honestly never painting. I've also switched to storing stuff in army centric containers and the like to make parsing it.... possible.

As for what happens to it all? Maybe some goes on eBay but I'm realistic that the best home would be to donate locally. I've sold armies for pennies on the dollar already and been rewarded with highly invested players and seeing stuff get loved is "worth" more than whatever unrealistic monetary value people insist on. I'm sure there's special pieces that my family will want as mementoes; probably more than what they should keep, but I get sentimentality and have plenty of things I just won't let go of.

Honestly, these sort of things are just good for our mental health in general. The primary purpose of our toys is to have fun with them. If you don't have a reason to buy something, don't. If you aren't enjoying something, get rid of it now so you can focus on things you do enjoy. Minis should never be a burden, so find a way to keep them under control for your good and for those you love.

I wrote a will awhile back when I used to commute by bike in the city. I have a few storage containers that list the value and items inside. One army goes to a child hood friend and the rest get sold off. It's under $10k worth of stuff, just a few well painted armies and tables. If I snuff it I guess all my terrain gak would get donated over to local stores. I've given away a few tables in the past locally.

I've bought a chunk of a backlog off a hobbyist who passed away a few years ago. It's 500~ minis or so from 2010 or earlier. Everything else went to a FLGS to sell. I plan on painting a good chunk of the older metal minis over the next few years. I traded some here on Dakka or through Miniswap on reddit

I've also had to go through someone's stuff after they an hero'd and their family didn't know how to set up everything on eBay. I didn't keep anything from this occasion, just assisted in sorting and selling.

We regularly go to the local auction house and we see stuff like this all the time. Collections that are clearly one person's lifetime or major focus for a while that go through all at once.

If the stuff is currently popular it fetches a good price. If its historical or of great importance it might even get its own sale; other times it just runs along with everything else.


I think that there is value in putting some time into working out what might happen with your collection in a view of passing it on to good people who will enjoy it; or at least to help those who might be left with it to sort out where and how to sell it best.

Another thing is spotting stuff like rare or mint condition items and such. Sometimes you can hunt around and even within a niche hobby like ours there can be big stores or museums and groups that want to preserve such things. If its mint and something you don't actually use you might even get a great kick out of that in donating something before you pass on.


Heck it happens in all niches, even big franchises like Alien had a lot of their props and such basically dumped until a few collectors gathered it up and saved a bunch of it.

Kinda already have this covered myself. I included in my will that my best mate since childhood will get all my personal affects to do with as he wishes. Hobby stuff, computer, any odds and ends go to him, he's in the hobby to so will be able to sell them for an okay price and the extra cash would be a good thankyou for all his kindness ya know?

whole lot goes to my youngest, also a gamer, and he knows he can do whatever he wants with it, keep it, sell it, skip it, whatever

I don't really care what happens to my "toys" after I'm gone. I have much more valuable items in my posession to worry about

My son knows what's worth keeping, selling and donating. My wife knows that my Dogs of War can be sold in emergency, but my son would handle it.

Ideally?
All my gaming stuff would be interred with me Egyptian Pharoh style for my use in the afterlife.
Or just to cause some archeoligist waaaay down the line to wonder "WTF?"

In reality....
No one else in my family plays RPGs or Minis games.
My closest cousins do play a very limited range of Boardgames though.

So my cousins (and thier kids) have 1st choice on any of my Boardgames they might be interested in.

All the rest? And theres a lot.... I've got a list of instructions on who to offer what, how to dispose of certain pieces, and what to do with the rest.

And there's even a short list of people/shops that are, under no circumstance, to get anything I've owned. They won't get anything from me in life, & they won't be getting anything from my estate.
If they are the last/only choice? My instructions are to burn it.

Launch them into space! Or give them to my nephews. Probably the second.

I hope I will have the presence of mind to sell off or give away most of my stuff as I get older.

However, my wife knows that in the case of a sudden end, she should just call my gaming buddies to haul away whatever they want. I have been meaning to give her the contact info for a couple of bulk-buyers who will give her a pittance (but at least something) to clear out what's left and keep it from going in the trash.

The new development is that my son is getting into wargaming, so of course he'd have first dibs on whatever he wants and if he wanted to undertake selling it off that would be up to him.

A friend and I have made a deal that when one of us goes, the other will go through the hobby, sell what they can and give the money to the surviving spouse, and can keep an armyu of choice as payment/a thank you/ memento. Not sure what will happen to whichever of us outlives the other.

If my son is into it when he is older, he can have it. My partner can sell/throw it all away. I expect that whatever happens, the majority will go in the bin. To be honest, I am getting more and more tempted to make a head start and just start clearing out things now that I know I'll never get around to finishing.

Everyone 40+ or with parents that are aging should read the book "Being Mortal" Depressing but important.


Since I design games, I have left instructions that at my wake the games I made are to be played, using the collections for the games.

Then, after the wake, anyone who attends can literally take whatever they want and the rest is to be sold/scrapped as desired.

However, I think a fitting remembrance and understanding of my life and passion is for my family and friends to play the games I have designed one last time at the service.

I've started to get rid of some bits as my health has declined, I'm not old but I've started to think differently about my stash. (which also includes loads of airfix and the like)
There's stuff up in my loft that I'll never get round to doing anything with, my project for the next year or two is to organise it, sell what I can, donate what's left of value to my hobby club, throw the rest away.

Decades ago, I lost a friend to suicide. He and I played our first games of Dungeons and Dragons together, and countless other games from the late 70s and early to mid 80s. After he had died, I visited his family (he was in college, all his stuff was back in our home town at his parents' place). All I remember is being scared, so terrified of saying the wrong thing and not at all being comfortable. At one point, the family offered me his collection. Confused, I turned it down. I suppose I should have helped them sort through it, sell some, get rid of the rest (resale value would have been negligible at the time, I imagine, but the collection was big).

Since that time, these sorts of thoughts (how to manage my collection after I'm gone) come often. My "stuff" is pretty unwieldy at this point - scores of boardgames, hundreds of books, thousands of minis...

I should probably write down what should happen to it. I reckon I'd like my boys to keep a few things, but most of it should get sold off or given away.

Interesting topic...

I told my wife should anything suddenly happen to me she should take her time to put everything on Ebay to at least get some bucks for it. But if I had enough of a notice to plan a bit:

My kids would get first choice to select anything they want to keep for memory. Then there are some rarer and OOP models I would gift to hobyists I met and befriended along the way. For the rest I would try and find a hobbyist who would "keep the band together" and finally even give them some time on the tabletop. Or some kid only just starting who would be honestly happy about it.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Interesting topic...

I told my wife should anything suddenly happen to me she should take her time to put everything on Ebay to at least get some bucks for it.

This is the first idea that I assume many folks have when thinking about this topic. However after taking the time to sell off most of a friend's collection I learnrd that it really turns out to be a massive chore.

Unless you have a beneficiary who really enjoys eBay selling, I highly recommend not leaving that burden to those you leave behind. Even a bulk seller or a middleman who takes a big cut may be worth it to save your loved ones the many hours of work required to research, photograph, post and ship your collections.

@Eilif: yeah, good point. I should think about that

To my nephews if they want it. Otherwise, who cares? Toys are toys.

I want my toys interred in my burial mound with me.

Minimalism is the answer. Sell what you don't play. Don't hoard for no reason other than the hoarding instinct. Be aware of the endowment effect. Keep what you're using, get rid of the rest.

To quote the declutter phrase “does it spark joy”

Sometimes the answer is yes, even though I know I’ll never play it again. Just having a shelf full of Car Wars books/maps/chits is a touchtone to the happy days of my youth. Will I ever play again? Nope. I’ve moved on from that place as a gamer in my life. For me that is enough reason to keep them on the shelf. Does my son have that attachment? Nope. Just junk to him.

But he’s going to have to be the one to toss it out. Sorry about that. (Not sorry)

Eilif wrote:
Unless you have a beneficiary who really enjoys eBay selling, I highly recommend not leaving that burden to those you leave behind. Even a bulk seller or a middleman who takes a big cut may be worth it to save your loved ones the many hours of work required to research, photograph, post and ship your collections.

That's why you see a lot of these things go through auction houses.
Heck its a good way to declutter in general. You can sell things on their own or box them up and just get rid of them quickly and simply. Yes selling individually on Ebay or Facebook trading groups can get you more money - indeed I'd argue that right now FB trading groups are where you want to be unless you've something really exclusive that will sell well on ebay; otherwise those trader groups are where a lot of trading happens now.

Cyel wrote:Minimalism is the answer. Sell what you don't play. Don't hoard for no reason other than the hoarding instinct. Be aware of the endowment effect. Keep what you're using, get rid of the rest.

There are risks with both extremes. Hoarding to extreme levels where it impacts your life in a negative way can even get as bad as it starts to impact your health and safety

At the other end of the scale selling out of one hobby and buying into it again later when your interest swings back is always going to cost more. There's even a risk that when buying back in what you had before won't be on sale again and you have to hunt for rare copies that might be in worse condition or might cost a small fortune to get hold of.


I'm a big fan of realising that our interests shift over time and that sometimes its better to box up one hobby or part of a hobby in a neat way and set it to one side. Then its there for if you get interested again later and you can dive right back in.
I'm not a big fan of just selling stuff becuase you're not using it or engaging with it right now. I think if you want to do that you want to have an objective beyond just clearing space if at all possible. Clearing space, freeing up money, investing into something greater. If you are not in a dire situation (eg moving to a much smaller place and cannot store things at all; or financially in a bad spot and having to sell) then take things cautiously.

I'm old enough now that this question isn't as easy to avoid as it used to be. I've probably got decades left to go, including at least two or three more decades of active painting
(maybe more if I'm lucky,) but as the Muslims say, inshallah, "God willing." My father tells me that in Saudi people even say this if you tell them "See you tomorrow," since no one knows the future.

There are two kinds of miniatures in my collection: the small number I've worked hard on and am proud of, and the big pile I haven't gotten to yet, most of which I will never get to.

For better of worse, our hobby doesn't accord consistent monetary value to labor and craftsmanship. I might have done my best paint job ever on a Warcaster miniature, but the fan base for that franchise is small, so my paint job might not increase the economic value of that miniature at all. So forget economic value: I want the painted ones I'm proudest of to got to members of my family, and to my friends in the hobby.

As for the untouched majority of my collection, there's a miniscule amount that might be worth listing on ebay for my family's benefit, but I'd prefer to give most of it to interested friends in the hobby. That isn't always easy, given our hobby's wide range of tastes: one person's treasure really is another person's junk, depending on brand, age, genre, and even the material that the minis are made from. (I have one good friend who reviles metal miniatures, while others would probably only want the Oldhammer stuff.)

Ideally, as little as possible ends up in a landfill. As a hobbyist, I can't help but love plastic and all the remarkable, wonderful things that mankind has made from it. As a person concerned about the environment and climate change, the least I can do is try to make sure that the plastic I've collected doesn't get thrown in the trash when I'm gone. My last resort would probably be the "Swap Shop" at our local dump (if it still exists when I pass,) where people take things they don't need that other people might want, and it's available to the public for free, like a free thrift store. Failing that, give it to a local hobby shop or list it as a couple of job lots on ebay.

Thank you, Infinite_array, for starting this thread, because I needed to start addressing this seriously and begin making arrangements. I'm going to organize my collection, start asking people I know if there's anything I have that they'd want, and keep a list my wife and kids will have access to. The hardest thing that I should start doing is begin selling off things I'll never get to that no one in my immediate circle wants. I've always struggled with preemptively "downsizing" my collection, probably partly due to a subconscious, atavistic aversion to acknowledging my own mortality, but partly because I'm a kit-basher. When you never know what might come in handy in a future kitbash, it's that much harder to jettison anything.

It will go wherever it goes.
I will be dead, and thus, beyond caring. None of my family will know what to do with it.
I may include a note that any surviving wargames terrain can be donated to one of the local FLGS for their use (if such are still around).

Hmm, suddenly I was struck by the idea of opening a "wargamers hall of fame" type place, where surviving friends/family can send their deceased loved ones miniatures for display, so that their memories may live on.

I can't imagine what my wife would do with my stuff, I would hope she would do her homework on its true value, then try to sell it and recoup some money, but too often you see people that think they have a 'golden ticket" and think they are going to get a ton of money for next to nothing. Even if you had a high-end comic that is worth thousands of dollars, it is not that easy, you have to find someone willing to spend thousands of dollars for that item. Just recently I gutted my Playstation Three collection, most games were only worth $5 or less. At that point, I was ready to move on and it was only collecting dust and to get something out of it was enough.

But I have been around long enough to see people that have passed in the hobby and their families know very little about it. They knew the person that passed had spent thousands of dollars over the years on his stuff and expected to be able to walk into the game store and get about that same amount. Sometimes that can be true but rarely, in most shops, you would be lucky to get 35% of the value out of it if they even buy used stuff, I understand stores need to make a profit to stay open, and bulk buying causes them to get stuck with most of the items that most people don't think about. There are other routes like eBay but that usually requires to learn knowledge of what you are selling, time, and effort to get the additional value. I have seen this with magic cards and Warhammer stuff, both times people walked into the store with a ton of stuff, thinking it was going to be a payday only to find out the true value is a lot less.

 Easy E wrote:
Everyone 40+ or with parents that are aging should read the book "Being Mortal" Depressing but important.


Since I design games, I have left instructions that at my wake the games I made are to be played, using the collections for the games.

Then, after the wake, anyone who attends can literally take whatever they want and the rest is to be sold/scrapped as desired.

However, I think a fitting remembrance and understanding of my life and passion is for my family and friends to play the games I have designed one last time at the service.

That is a great idea.

I'll look at the book too. Parents ain't getting no younger