[QUOTE=johnbaz;7408798]I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to move a large portion of my collection on so it's not left for the wife to fathom out what to do with it at some time but starting with the lower quality ones first then moving up to the better stuff!

That's a particular concern as you get older. When I was diagnosed with lung cancer I cleared all bar one out, thinking it was one less burden for walnutfarmMarg. then I found I'd been misdiagnosed and replaced the lot, plus, plus, plus, always looking for a better example and moving the previous best at MM or similar. But it's still there, in the back or my mind, that statistically she should outlive me by a good 15 years. All at once the tagline 'Don't let my wife sell my guns for what she thinks I paid for them' is reality. It's not fair to dump a load of allsorts on her ( 1951 A70 pickup, !953 Bedford fire engine, the motorbikes, the spares, the 70+ magnetos etc, etc) but I'm loth to part with it all just yet. It'd be handy to know how long I've got left. I've already outlived all Mum's family by 3 years (68, the lot of them) whereas if I can make it to Dad's 86 I'll have had 3 years profit on what I paid into my personal pension. Living just to outsmart the Pru!

Only 2 weeks ago I was in a mate's yard when a mutual friend arrived, wanting to buy some 56lb weights. Tommy had 28 at home but declined to sell them because he 'liked looking at them!' I had to ask him if he realised how sad that sounded but I knew exactly what he meant. Another mate, a widower, collected car mascots and badges . He'd had cancer twice and knew he was on borrowed time but just carried on collecting, presumably thinking somebody else would clear it all up when he'd gone. That seemed very selfish but he'd only got 3 nephews that he detested. One of them got £1000 from him and tore it up.

Happy families, eh?

ATB,Mick