What to do, ultimately, with my equipment albums/discs.

[Kal Rubinson]

Then there's the software longevity issue:

That's why I rip everything to file. They are the undead because, while their physical media will eventually die, they reproduce perfect clones of themselves to perpetuate the library.

 

[Ranasakawa]

I'm planning on selling the lot on ebay once it's no longer a passion for me. I sold my entire vinyl as an example

 

[ar surround]

My stuff? I’m taking it with me...my trains, too. LOL

My heirs have no interest in my equipment or music. I offered to give all of the vinyl in my big box sets when my great nephew got a turntable. Fleetwood Mac, Tull, etc…he had no interest. Well, at least some inventive artist will make small flower pots or ashtrays out of them

 

[4-earredwonder]

AND THEN THERE'S THIS

 

[Lucanu]

I’m 48 now and this question raise up everytime I see my gear. I’m a passionate collector of vintage and uncommon video formats, starting from VCR (not the videorecorder, but the video format), open reel videotapes (not professional use), 8mm, super8, beta, vhs, video2000, video8/Hi8 and Laserdiscs. It’s all hooked up and running along with quad hardware/software, and modern formats up to 4K/8K Atmos and so on.
And been also a musician I have many basses, some valuable guitars, amps and so on.
I have no brothers, sisters or wife, just friends.
I don’t really know what would happen when I’ll pass. I only know that my friends are younger than me and they know how much I love my stuff.
They would build a Museum if they only could, but I think they will simply sell everything or just enjoy what they could of my stuff

 

[David Freeman]

First. I hope this is the correct location in the forum to post this question. "Use this forum to discuss what you can do to preserve your vintage equipment......". By "preserving," I'm talking about when I'm gone.

I'm not sure what's going to happen when someday, hopefully a long time from now, I leave this earth. With no children and nieces/nephews that either I'm really not close to or have no interest in my hobby, what should happen with my 4 channel pride and joy? The last thing I want is for this stuff to end up in Goodwill or someplace similar. I'll have to haunt people who got my QRX-9001 for $20 and I hope I'll have better things to do in the afterlife.

It's not like the stuff needs to be sold so the money can be left to someone. There's no one so important to me (other than my spouse) that I plan to leave any cash to. And he'll be just fine with our savings.

Is anyone in a similar situation? If so, do you have thoughts or plans?

(Just so you know, my demise hopefully won't be anytime soon. I'm not that old, healthy and looking forward to much more life. But sometimes, you start to think......)

Well greetings from the UK
The good news is .... I am even older than you and my quad gear dates back to 1974 ...QRX 5500. I still have loads of QS,SQ,CD4,Q8 software ..... and keep acquiring more. Very happy to purchase stuff!

 

[Stupy]

I'm hoping one of the kids when adults will appreciate what's going on. I think there is a reasonable chance of it but reading this thread ... maybe not. Though I've had too many kids so that helps the odds.

Mortality is not a matter I am ready to accept. Too much work to do. I'm still not sure it's even worth thinking about; better things to do with our time. Like find more music.

I am precisely one generation down from most here and do not understand the apathy of my generation. Spotify and soundbars? It's embarrassing. They do not even realise that they are dirty words; they just say them... in public... even to your face! I'm not a chap easily offended but that talk just ain't OK in any company.

 

[barfle]

My mother had a fairly extensive collection of lladro figurines that none of her heirs are interested in. I accepted the task of selling the. in ebay, although I’ve shirked that duty so far, as I’ve been silent on the site for a couple of years, and they keep changing how their listing software works.

I’m getting back into the market with a handful of laser discs and other stuff I’m no longer interested in, but I don’t know of anyone who would be interested in doing that with lower-value items like vinyl. With 1500 LPs, I’d be surprised if the whole collection is worth $10 thousand, and it would be as big a job dispersing them as it has been gathering them.

 

[gene_stl]

I have a young audio friend here in st. louis that buys and sells lots of estate gear. With respect to classical vinyl he goes through the stacks of records, keeps what he wants and drops the rest off at goodwill or half price books. He loves vinyl. But he says "classical vinyl is mostly worthless".

 

[gvl_guy]

Yes--in situations like @gvl_guy 's (where there are no obvious heirs or beneficiaries and no one to leave instructions to--not even a need or a desire to ensure that his stuff is sold at "market value"), a solution like this would at least stand a chance of keeping his collection alive in the community, dispersed among people who care about it.

I've spoken with librarians at both my county and university libraries, and the only reason any of them are interested in taking donations of books or CDs is so that they can sell them at their semi-annual fundraisers and/or pass them on to a "picker" or a wholesaler for pennies on the dollar. But for the most part they'd rather not mess with donations at all.

When I'm gone, I don't care about the money. If the executor gets $.05 on the dollar doesn't concern me at all. I just want someone to end up with the stuff who would use, appreciate and care for the equipment and albums/discs.

I did a crazy thing with my parents and grandparents 78rpm records (both the old shellac ones and some cardboard Hit of the Week ones). I joined a Facebook group for such things, lurked for a bit, and eventually found a nice young man in his 20's that enjoyed the music. We chatted and sent him all the records free of charge. (I think there were 10 of them.) I even ended up getting a "present" from him, something we never even discussed. He digitized the audio and sent me the files. That worked out REALLY well.

 

[barfle]

I don’t believe any of this is about the money, it’s about having the things we love being appreciated. Unfortunately, nobody loves my stuff as much as I do. Nobody likes to think that their pride and joy will end up in a polluted landfill, and I believe that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

It doesn’t seem like we’ve come up with a good answer yet.

 

[aludra]

Thank you for this timely and important thread....I also have a good sized collection and have thought about what to do with it all when I'm gone....My 2 sons while liking surround sound they have no interest in my collection of equipment and discs.

I completely agree with GVLguy and Barfle above.....I don't care about the money, I want this stuff to wind up with someone who understands it and will appreciate and preserve it all.

I've thought about donating it all to some younger member here at QuadraphonicQuad but have no clue how to even go about such a thing.....But it would make me very happy to know my stuff is in good hands.

Again....Thank you for this thread...with the daily obituaries posted here it's hard not to think about your mortality sometimes.

Now back to listening to great Quad!

Mike

​

 

[par4ken]

It always bothers me when I see an estate sale or even eBay listings for items that a deceased person must have loved and cherished! His/her heirs have no interest in what was once his passion!I It also bothers me when the hiers try to get top dollar for everything like all they care about is the money!

That being said it's not realistic to expect ones heirs to even have space for a large collection of vinyl CD's tapes etc., let alone a huge collection of vintage equipment. I guess that it wouldn't hurt to downsize a bit at some point! In any case does it really matter once you are gone?

 

[Infomas]

There's not much that I have that my family would be interested in. I gave my daughter all of my soundtrack vinyl (she loves plays and anything Disney and they have a turntable at their house). When I'm gone there are a handful of albums she might want. I am slowly prepping my vinyl (and later I'll start on the CDs) to sell to Amoeba Music in Hollywood. I have a big enough collection that they will come to my house and make an offer. For now, I plan to keep multi channel discs, a few vinyl discs and anything signed by the artist. But, it is time (I'm 66) to start letting everything go. I just don't play physical media anymore. It used to be fun showing off the collection when we all had collections. Most of my friends these days have almost nothing. So, they just look at it in wonder and honestly, that just isn't all that much fun.

 

[mandrix]

Well I understand that transporting a bunch of stuff for any distance could be a problem.
I have everything ripped, mainly to .iso format as that's just as easily playable these days as flac, so I see no need to duplicate everything.
So currently I have a bunch of smaller HDD's boxed up on the shelf that have the bulk of my Surround BD's as backup.
On my main pc I have at present 11 HDD's that have duplicates on separate HDD's of all the DVDA/DVD/SACD/DTS-CD/ & one copy of the previously mentioned BD's.

All a person has to do is come and pull the drives out of the machine and they have my entire music collection. All my disc players are boxed up except the Oppo 103. Boxes available for it and for the AVR's.

The living room would probably look bare without all my disc cabinets, and boxing and transporting them all would be a pita, so I suspect they won't disturb the Mrs. should I leave before her. She has been asked to make a phone call to a particular number to come pick up whatever they want. Should I be the lone survivor, my Daughter will be given instructions on whom to contact and say "come and get it!". Anything left over at that point my Daughter can do with as she sees fit.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Every time I visit this thread this picture flashes through my mind:

What would Jim do?

 

[Blackwood]

I’ve joked with my wife that when I die, she could call 800-GOT-JUNK, throw all my stuff in the truck, then throw me on top of the pile and let them drive off.

But more seriously, I’ve wrestled with this from time to time.

My biggest concern is not that I’ll die and something will have to be done with all this stuff, but that I’ll reach a point where I realize that I’m the one who will have to arrange parting with it, likely if I end up having to move to any sort of retirement or care facility. That will be devastating.

If I die before I have to dispose of it (fingers crossed), my kids know they can pick and choose what they want. While their listening habits are different than mine, they grew up with my music and I know there are certain things they have a bond with.

I don’t want to burden my wife with trying to get a proper price for things or having to figure out what a proper price is. If she wants to give it all away to a local store or a local person that would appreciate it, great.

I’d actually love to have it all just given to someone as a gift when I die after the kids make their claims. I can think of so many people who have gifted me music or equipment over the years. To know that someone else would get that same joy would make me happy.

 

[jaybird100]

I’m 48 now and this question raise up everytime I see my gear. I’m a passionate collector of vintage and uncommon video formats, starting from VCR (not the videorecorder, but the video format), open reel videotapes (not professional use), 8mm, super8, beta, vhs, video2000, video8/Hi8 and Laserdiscs. It’s all hooked up and running along with quad hardware/software, and modern formats up to 4K/8K Atmos and so on.
And been also a musician I have many basses, some valuable guitars, amps and so on.
I have no brothers, sisters or wife, just friends.
I don’t really know what would happen when I’ll pass. I only know that my friends are younger than me and they know how much I love my stuff.
They would build a Museum if they only could, but I think they will simply sell everything or just enjoy what they could of my stuff

First, Luca, let's hope you're not going anywhere for a long time! I'd talk to my friends; would they want it? Would they keep, and enjoy it, or would they sell it? Make your wishes known to them, and put it in writing when you come to a decision.

 

[Nyad]

Hmm, make will , appoint an executor, leave specific instructions, (like put my Quad/ Surround stuff on Quadraphonicquad for sale & give the money to charity... put my Lp's on the local vinyl appreciation site etc) or send to the local auction house, but def make a will, otherwise landfill is possible, which would be a criminal shame.

 

[baward]

Personally, I would donate records and CDs etc., and not be too concerned with the (probably tiny) resale value of them. I have prepared a document that I've put with my Will stuff called 'What to do with all my stuff' to assist my executors and family.

As the collector of old analogue synthesisers, I regard myself as custodian of them, ready to be passed on to another collector. A bonus is that many of them are worth many thousands of pounds/dollars/Euros, which will go the grandkids.

"You can't take it with you"