What's your plan for your guns when you pass?

My collection goes to my niece. My wife wasn't very happy about that but my niece would shoot them. My wife wouldn't. Since everything is "lawyered up" there will be no argument, fighting or question as to their disposal. What's funny is that I wouldn't have gotten a lawyer and just written something up, my wife insisted on the attorney.
 
I practice the same recordkeeping as NibJimP.

I have a spreadsheet....listing make, model, yr manufactured, caliber...specs on the gun....( and I have photos of my collection / that I update about once a year as well - stored on my computer - and labeled) - but I include:

a. what I paid for it
b. what the current used value is
c. and what the replacement value is ..

I also keep a USB drive and a printed copy of the spreadsheet in my safe which my wife has access to of course.

In addition to spreadsheets on all of my firearms, I also have spreadsheets for all of my reloading equipment and accessories plus any other valuables throught the house, furniture, etc. I can also use all of this information for insurance claims if I ever need to.
 
I am long divorced and have no kids, so, I have reduced my collection of 50 by at least half so my mother and sister will not have to deal with them if something should happen to me. And, now that I just found out that I am losing my job after the first of the year I may be selling a few more.:mad: Some of what I have left is S&W revolvers that I may go ahead and sell anyway just so someone wouldn't try to lowball them if they had fo sell them. A lot if the rest is tupperware that isn't worth a bunch anyway.
 
It is very likely that my wife will outlive me by many years so she gets them all. I have told her a few that I would like the kids to have when they get old and responsible enough but it will be up to her judgment if they get them.

She knows quite a bit about guns and I trust her judgment implicitly.
 
You will feel better having made and stuck with the plan to care for her in your absence. I have done most everything I can think of except for the final clearing of the garage. I have it about 60% done. Even that could be done w/ a U-Haul rental in an afternoon by the son but I need the last 40% to play with while I am still here. After my last heart attack, I was glad I had just about everything I could think of done. When it's time to go, it's time to go. We all have an allotted time here that won't deviate by one jot or tiddle.
 
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My wife wasn't very happy about that
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dajowi, I don't know where you live, but in most states, unless you have a prenup, and unless your guns were acquired before you got married, and unless the guns are in the prenup, then any liquidable assets transfer to your wife in the case of your demise.

Just like, if you were to divorce, as the estate is being divided up as community property, the guns are factored into the settlement.

Unless your situation is as described in paragraph #1, the guns also belong to your wife. You can't summarily exclude her as owner in the event you pass before she does.

Edited to amend my post. After investigation, it turns out that in some circumstances, and in some states, a husband (or wife, for that matter), can segregate some of his property for distribution to someone other than his wife in the event of his death. I guess dajowi can, in fact, bequeath his gun collection to someone other than his wife.

Apparantly dajowi's attorney knows more about the law than I do. Go figure.
 
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Easy answer. I have two sons that both enjoy recreational and competition shooting. Everything that goes "bang" goes to them.
 
the small shop that I help out at has at least a few widows come in every year to help with "all this shooting junk". The best thing is to have afriendship with a store that can so the detail work for the person that is handling the estate. The main thing is having a friendship with the shop before you need them as some of them out there will screw you over if they don't know you and yours.
 
My wife swears she'll die before me, due to her health, but one just never knows. So I've taken to building a database of my guns with dated values on average. It's kept in the safe with the guns on paper and also on media. I dread the idea of her getting taken by vultures, even the ones that pose as friends. If she KNOWS a gun is worth thousands and sells it to a good friend for hundreds, well, that's up to her and I'm OK with it.

I'm also considering the NRA.
 
To avoid hard feelings, and get to enjoy some gratitude from those recieving the guns, why not gift them while you still around?

That was the route my Grandfather went, when he had terminal cancer .....
 
mne's easy, just like everything else the wife gets them all and she would more than likely give most if not all of them to our only son.
 
I'm having the floor plate of each of my "keeper" rifles engraved with my children's names based on who has used and enjoyed which the most. Each will find "to my son Alex" or "to my daughter Katelyn" so there will never be a question. My wife will see to that, and she will have control of the hand guns to sell, shoot, or hand down as she wishes. I'm only 38, so I'm hoping to hang on to them for quite a few more years though. I'm also hoping to have a custom rifle built for each of them before I croak.
 
What's your plan for your guns when you pass?
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There's enough gun nuts in the extended family. Surviving kids get first dibs, then selected friends and relatives.

She could sell that on gunbroker as one big lot.
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There's a dealer locally who does a lot of that, selling estate guns on gunbroker.

That will necessitate my taking pictures of each gun, listing said pictures on photobucket, cataloguing each picture with a description, etc. Then all she'd have to do is follow my instructions to list on gunbroker. No reserve. No minimum, kind of thing.
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Right now I photograph each gun, and edit the pic to add in serial number and date of purchase. I also scan in the receipts for all major purchases, not just firearms. These images get saved in the "~/Pictures/receipts and other scans" directory of my home directory. My home directory gets synced to a couple different places. An Truecrypt encrypted backup gets delivered to my daughters every now and again. She has passkey. A geek could pull it all out.

I'm dealing right now with the estate of a family member who died, intestate, quite unexpectedly this summer. I've gotten access to most everything. I'm just fortunate 1)I'm a geek a technical person and 2)he didn't encrypt more than he did. As it is, I'll probably never get access to 6 bitcoins he has in an encrypted wallet. (cracked it. Woo Hoo!) Followed the price of bitcoins lately?

This has impressed on me the need for a "dead book", by which I mean a written record somewhere, of passwords, of what you have, how to get to it, and who to inform. It needs to be kept locked away, of course.

One of these days I'll get around to making one.
 
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