Do you know where your shtuff is going ???

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
got a call from a buddy the other day, that works at a local scrap place that I haul scrap to regularly... seems someones estate just brought in a big box of rifle actions & gun parts, a 55 gallon drum of brass cases, & a 30 gallon drum of new bullets... no complete guns, & no loaded ammo, but looks like when the gun enthusiast died, all his reloading stuff, & "parts" went to the scrap yard...

there were 30-40 different calibers of brass, all either looked new, or at least polished & ready to load, even had some new short magnum calibers... bullets were all cast lead, most sized & lubed, but some as cast, & in a variety of calibers & bullet weights ( BTW, all his molds were in the iron box )... iron box had "several" complete Enfield Martini actions, several Remington Rolling Blocks, some old Mauser actions... bullet molds, revolver grip frames, & a whole lot of etc.

I'm trying to get a particularly nice Enfield Martini action from him, & I was given a stainless Blackhawk grip frame, that was customized with an trigger over travel stop screw, & a lanyard ring ( stop screw & lanyard ring were missing, but threaded holes in the right places )

So... please make your your family knows the value of all of your stuff ( not just the guns ) I'm expecting to pay around $200-$250 for that Martini action... that's a heck of a lot more than the $5.00 - $10.00 or less, the scrap price, that the family members got for it... hoping to find out what calibers of brass were in the barrel as well...
 
My wife has been given the instruction that if something were to happen to me, she is to bring my shooting buddy over to the house and he will tell her exactly what everything is and how much she should expect to get for it. Knowing him, he will probably buy half of it from her anyway (and I trust him to offer her a fair price) and offer to sell the rest for her.

I also keep a spreadsheet with the bigger items listed on it (guns, press, safe, etc), but for all the components and odds-and-ends, she knows to use him as a resource.
 
Now, that's something to think about! I have a gun inventory list with some basic information on it. But, nothing on misc parts, ammo, bullets, and other stuff that might look like "junk" to the untrained eye. Not to mention a box full of collectible tiny toy guns I got from somewhere - I can see the wife tossing those in the can.

We all know the best thing to do, don't we. We just don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. But, the bottom line is that it would be best for me go sell off the not-so-obvious valuables now, instead of trying to educate a family about why this bag of bullets is worth $100 and why that bag of parts should fetch $300.

Then again, all my "can't buy those anymore, saving them for....doomsday" stuff really is just junk if my body ends up beating doomsday to the punch. Maybe we are supposed to leave a few bargains on the table for some other enterprising young gun enthusiast to stumble upon after we die?:confused:
 
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Let's remember the prayer of the gun enthusiast.

"Please don't let my wife sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them."
 
Unless someone dies young and unexpectedly there is no reason for this. My dad gave most of his stuff away by the time he was in his mid-80's. He certainly couldn't use it anymore. Not just gun stuff either. The Tiller and all of his tools.

I'm only in my mid 50's. I've already given lots of my guns away to my kids and grandkids. To be honest most of it was bought with them in mind years ago. I never bought one gun without also buying something very similar so each of my kids could own roughly the same thing.
 
Unless someone dies young and unexpectedly there is no reason for this. My dad gave most of his stuff away by the time he was in his mid-80's. He certainly couldn't use it anymore. Not just gun stuff either. The Tiller and all of his tools.
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+1.

Giving gifts in the here and now is 1000% better than letting others squabble over them when you have gone on to the hereafter.

You get to see some of the joy involved, and zero Lawyers get a cut ......
 
I can only hope that his guns & things thought about more prominently got well distributed but if those people knew the work he put into casting ( for example ) they might have wanted some of those boolits... but instead they all ended up in the recycle ( so I have to assume that they held no sentimental value to the family, so anything that was parts ( & just for example, it's been 20 years since I saw an Enfield Martini action this nice ) got tossed in the scrap... hope his family didn't need the extra $250.00 from that one item alone... ( which is what I'm hoping I can get it for )

brand new cartridge cases in the scrap ??? apparently no one understood about reloading... I wonder what they got for a 55 gallon drum of perfectly good brass ???
 
Everyone regardless of age should have a will,,,

Everyone regardless of age should have a will,,,
Or at least instructions on how to dole out their personal possessions.

I now have a will that states where everything goes,,,
Right down to ammunition allocation.

My younger brother has accepted the responsibility,,,
So in case of my sudden demise,,,
He knows who it all goes to.

Since I'm the only remaining firearm enthusiast in my family,,,
A few guns will go to members of this forum.

But I agree that as soon as I start to get decrepit,,,
I'll start handing some guns out early,,,
If I can't shoot them anymore,,,
I can enjoy giving them out.

I'll have someone take pictures of the event,,,
That way I can enjoy it again and again.

Aarond

.
 
I agree everyone should have a will... but how likely is it that unfired brass and other odds and ends will end up in a will.

The uneducated morons that dispose of vintage authentic STG44s at gun buybacks aren't smart or savy enough to have a will, or probably know how to read anyway... so it's unlikely that would make a difference.

I know little about chemistry, for instance, but I know enough to know that the glass vials and beakers and microscopes are valuable and I certainly wouldn't dump them off at recycling!

I mean seriously, in this day and age if a person doesn't recognize that a bucket or boxes full of gun parts has more value than scrap, they can't be helped.

Yes, family members should have the basic idea that this stuff is valuable and if I die, here's a long list or even a gun book of values.... and if you're not sure, spend and afternoon looking up prices online. It couldn't be simpler with the resources available today.
 
So... please make your your family knows the value of all of your stuff ( not just the guns ) I'm expecting to pay around $200-$250 for that Martini action... that's a heck of a lot more than the $5.00 - $10.00 or less, the scrap price, that the family members got for it... hoping to find out what calibers of brass were in the barrel as well...
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I'm in the process of writing a "dead book" document. Among many other things, it will detail my firearms hoard. Item, values, what's compatible with what, how I'd prefer them to be dispersed.
 
Pretty much what I am doing, but not in book form. External hard drive in safe deposit box contains photos and serial numbers (numbers came in handy one time when somebody broke in) most anything we own as far as antiques, cameras, weapons, tools, etc. A spreadsheet for the tools so the family knows what goes with each tool.
 
Having everything written down is extremely important, as you can't rely on verbal communication to be adhered to. My father had verbally stated that several of his guns were coming to me when he passed, but my step-sister got in there first and made sure everything got sold off by making up her own story. The only thing my dad and I ever bonded over, and I did not get a single one of them.
 
External hard drive in safe deposit box contains photos and serial numbers (numbers came in handy one time when somebody broke in)
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I'd have a paper back-up. 20 years ago, I might have been inclined to store such a document on a floppy drive in Lotus 123. Maybe it would even still work, if someone could get their hands on a computer with a floppy drive... and Lotus 123:eek:
 
A good friend who lived seventy miles away died two years ago. He knew it was coming and told his wife to call me when she was ready to dispose of his things. He sold nearly all his firearms while he was sick but still had a basement full of shooting gear accumulated over a lifetime. She calls me about a year later to tell me she is ready to let the stuff go.

When I go to her house I find out some of his local "friends" had already been there. All his high end reloading equipment, reference books, and much more I remembered he had was already gone. Talking to her it appeared they paid her hardly anything and some she just gave them when they told her it would make it "easier" on me.

I ended up getting her about eight thousand dollars for what was left. She was estatic; she thought it was just a pile of junk. I could have likely got her twice that much if I'd had all of it but didn't tell her that.

I guess the moral of the story is tell your family be wary of "friends" trying to do them a favor. Tell them somebody you trust and to not let anything go until that somebody looks it over first.
 
I keep a spread sheet on most everything. However If I am dead it won't make a lick of difference to me. That will be their problem as I fade away. Figure i have 20 to 25 years left.
 
Estates can be like that when the younger genaration seem to only want to know what they get out of it . I've bought Civil war relics that I know were handed down for Genarations until they get to the ones that have aquired so much debt that they liqidate everything and split it . My "kids" seem to like the same thing I do so I'm sure they will use some of my stuff . It may be hard for them to sort it out for a while I'm kinda one of them Preppers .
 
I went to an auction last Fall up in Idaho. It was outdoors and had the usual stuff - city office equipment, tools, a couple tractors. What I went for though, was the 2 semi trailers that were FULL of some guy's entire gun-related estate (shelves on both sides of the trailers to the roof). Story was this guy didn't have any kids, outlived his wife and everything went to a niece of his who hadn't the slightest clue what to do with it OR the time to do it, so she called the auction house.

There were about 100 handguns(he had a penchant for old S&W and Astras apparently) and 20+ rifles, some WWII. There were cases and cases and CASES of ammo. There were 5-gallon buckets full of parts. Reloading stuff out the wazoo.

Result? Things went for fair prices. Sure, there were a couple of guns that went a little high due to 2 guys getting in a bidding war. But overall they went for decent money. The ammo as well. Those that knew what they were looking at in the parts buckets probably got good deals. Holsters were sold by the shoebox-full.

I sure wish that family that sent everything to the scrapyard had just put it all in a well-advertised auction. Even at a 25% take for the auctioneer, I'll bet there was $15-20K left over for dear-old Niece.
 
Let me jump in on this too. My issue is that I have a son and daughter that is married and I love both of their spouse's. But I feel my collection should go to my children but feel bad about not leaving an equal amount to my son-in-law. Yes I want to leave his some but not sure how to draw the line.

Also my son now live in Maryland and can not legally have some of the better guns that I would like to leave/give him. Yes I have a will in place but nothing is really mentioned about each gun and the reloading stuff that goes with it.

I think that is going into a separate letter listing all guns and stuff and who gets what.
 
There may have not been any family involved. Could be the reason the deceased had so much money left over for gun stuff. Could be the will stated that everything was to be given to his church......or the cat. The lawyers disposed of it the fastest and easiest way they knew how. If there was family involved, believe me, there would have been more greed. If the widow/family would have hired a handy man to clean out the shed, that stuff would have ended up at his house and not the junk man.
 
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