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Post by William Swiger on Aug 2, 2015 13:26:40 GMT
Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”
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Post by demonskull on Aug 2, 2015 13:27:11 GMT
I live in Europe, my generation has an estimated life expectancy of 90 years, i'm in fantastic shape, never smocked, drank or done any drugs, so i will start worrying about this in 30 years, and if my clean lifestyle pays off it might even be 40 or 50. Seriously how old is everybody to be worrying about passing on collections or anything for that matter? Accidents happen, but the likely hood of them happening where i live would be the equivalent to winning the lottery upside down, i'm definitely not worried :D. As for where they go that's pretty simple, i work in a military museum, they get given directly to it so the boys and gals can have a quick toss around with them and then document it all over a cold bear in the blazing Portuguese sun. God bless Europe. I live a similar lifestyle, no bad habits, no stupid mistake while growing up. I'm 60 and the odds are I'll be around for a while yet. Accidents do happen. My older brother passed away in a freak accident so like an insurance premium, you plan for the worst and hope for the best. A plan for your collection isn't something you do for yourself, it's something you do for those who may out survive you.
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Post by svante on Aug 2, 2015 13:58:38 GMT
Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” Or proclaiming: "What pain and agony my last 20 years have been! I can no longer breath, feel or move, death take me, death take me, for i long desperately a new, a new body with which to breath, a new body with which to feel a new body with which to move and a new body with which to live a new" Svante Nilsson.
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Post by Croccifixio on Aug 2, 2015 14:20:15 GMT
I think planning this is less about worrying for ourselves and more of worrying for our beloved swords. I for one would rather they be given to a person who can appreciate them and care for them instead of being sold to finance my heirs.
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Post by Voltan on Aug 2, 2015 16:57:19 GMT
"You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan."
--Leslie Nielsen, as Frank Drebin, from "The Naked Gun"
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Post by William Swiger on Aug 2, 2015 17:20:18 GMT
Yeah - I have known people who worked out, ate healthy, did not smoke and died early from heart problems, cancer and other things. Have know people just the opposite who ate bad, smoked, drank and lived into their nineties. Genetics will play a part but I have seen very old people who outlived their children with their kids dying from something the parent never had. It is all a crap shoot and don't take any day for granted.
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Post by Cos on Aug 2, 2015 17:43:08 GMT
Yeah - I have known people who worked out, ate healthy, did not smoke and died early from heart problems, cancer and other things. Have know people just the opposite who ate bad, smoked, drank and lived into their nineties. Genetics will play a part but I have seen very old people who outlived their children with their kids dying from something the parent never had. It is all a crap shoot and don't take any day for granted. Well said, Bill.
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Sean (Shadowhowler)
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Aug 2, 2015 18:25:57 GMT
Yeah - I have known people who worked out, ate healthy, did not smoke and died early from heart problems, cancer and other things. Have know people just the opposite who ate bad, smoked, drank and lived into their nineties. Genetics will play a part but I have seen very old people who outlived their children with their kids dying from something the parent never had. It is all a crap shoot and don't take any day for granted. Exactly. Both my parents died recently... at around 60... however they were also both heavy drug addicts and alcoholics and smokers.... none of which I am... so I'm hopping I take more after my grandmother, who is 84 and still going. :-) However, I also have seen some weird cases... my other grandmother on my fathers side... died at 80 and was a chronic smoker, drinker, and eat what would be considered today a poor diet. On of my friends from school died unexpectedly at 19 from a brain tumor, my best friend when I was 11 was shot, right in front of me, in a gang banger drive by that was meant for his older brother, in a rival gang. Life is what happens while you are making plans... and not a single one of us knows when our number is up. We can stack the odds in our favor by eating right, working out, not smoking and not drinking to excess... but NONE of that is a guarantee of a long life.
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Post by chrisperoni on Aug 2, 2015 18:47:33 GMT
I should make a continuing list detailing each sword and the value, but I'd have to keep that a secret from my wife until I was gone.
I suppose the plan would be to give a favorite to my brother, another to my oldest brother in law, have one more engraved with something about me, then kept on display somewhere. The rest I would have her sell to you folks.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2015 19:02:26 GMT
Some years ago, I approached a couple of friends that have contact information with next of kin and are familiar with both the modern and antique collection of arms. Similarly with other collections of any real worth. If nothing else, those will cover final expenses and or be appreciated. Somewhere in my file folders is one marked inventory and I may actually put info in there one day, then dump it to a flash drive but stuff like naps have always taken precedent
Mortality is one of those eternal mysteries and the end game always individual.
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Post by sonofarwyn on Aug 3, 2015 22:29:45 GMT
As I have gotten older, this has been something I have added to my lists of "need to do". I figured my stuff goes to the nephew, if he is interested by that point, otherwise, its up in the air. I was recently asked by my parents to be the executor of their will (ugh) but it was a pretty good experience to see what NEEDED to be done, and how specifically.My dad, the ex-Air Force maintenance officer, laid everything out in exact detail (no one was surprised). I get his gun collection. Only thing I cared about getting a good home. My brother would just sell them all and hold a catfish boil for his buddies. Dad has stuff in his collection that probably has a good home awaiting it in a museum some place. I have been eying my firearms and sword collection. While nothing like Dad's, its something that will only become more valuable over time. It is worthwhile to list the stuff out, with the provenance, just so someone could sort it all out. Pictures help. Not only that folks, but I sure as heck you "large collection" types have good homeowners policies! Getting my stuff insured was interesting, to say the least....
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Aug 3, 2015 23:21:18 GMT
I looked into getting my swords and firearms specifically insured... it was a huge pain in the butt, required a bunch of riders to be attached to the policy, cost a lot of money and be a really huge hassle. :-(
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Post by randomnobody on Aug 3, 2015 23:47:59 GMT
I don't have much in the way of swords, but my other hobby has tens of thousands in money spent just sitting around. I've contemplated getting a working tally of how much each piece was purchased for, against the exchange rate at the time (where applicable) versus today's exchange rate versus approximate current market value (assessed by "completed auctions" at eBay and the like) and keeping it in one of the filing cabinets or safes and possibly even insuring the lot...
What I'm most worried about is, almost all of it is out of the box. I still have every box, sure, but anybody left behind me probably wouldn't feel like going through my closets and trying to figure out which thing goes into which box and how. I figure if I get notice (go in for a checkup, "You have cancer. It's advanced, no more than a year..." type of thing) I'll get to packing it all up, myself...otherwise, it'll all likely wind up in the garbage...
Then again, so would my swords and knives, but hopefully not the guns. Some of those have been in the family longer than I have, and need to stay longer than I do. My oldest nephew is only 11(12 in September), though, and I don't think his mother would be keen on taking them in.
Shortly after my paternal grandfather married his second wife (grandma passed some twelve years ago to the effects of diabetes) I guess somehow the matter of his personal effects and will came up; something like "so you're living in her house now, what about all your stuff?" I guess, and the only thing he had to say to me was, "I'll make sure you get all my guns, if nothing else." I told him I'd be glad to have anything of his, "but do us a favor and stick around a while, eh?" Same with my other grandfather, I don't get up that way often (They live in PA, I'm in VA) but it seems like the last few times I've visited he's had me help rearrange some of his old storage, most recently a collection of magazines chronicling either week-by-week or month-by-month the news articles etc. of WW2 from the British side (grandparents are English). He'd mentioned earlier that he was sorting a bunch of old magazines and such to be burned at some point, and I asked if this collection was among those he planned to burn. They weren't, thank goodness, and I mentioned "I'd have been very upset if they were." His response was a very casual, "I'll leave those to you, then." So far I seem to have all his RAF memorabilia, Spitfire models (among others), framed prints of various English warbirds, his father's (my great-grandfather's) medals from his WW1 service and anything else that might be lying around military-related, "because at least [I'll] appreciate them properly." I urged him, as well, "No hurry, stick around."
My mother's fiance lost both of his parents rather suddenly (a few months each) in the span of seven or nine months last year, his father had expected to go first, and so had everything set up to go to his wife first and then their three sons. Unfortunately, the missus went first. While he was having everything switched around to reflect this, he fell ill and eventually passed, himself. He'd had it set up so the entire combined estate was split perfectly between the three sons, between various stocks/shares and other assets, including $100,000 worth of gold. Jeebus, I can't even imagine acquiring that, never mind laying out where it goes when I'm gone.
Each brother got exactly 1/3, the house was sold and split by thirds. Everything as written out by the old man. Can't even fathom the foresight and planning that went into it all.
My father, on the other hand, had only a very simple will made out when he died in an accident one day, out of the blue. Military (Air Force) took care of pretty much everything, I was only 10 at the time, so I didn't get any of how it all played out, but years down the road I got to look over the will and was surprised how unspecific it really was.
Anyway, long-windedness aside, what happens to MY collection? If I had it my way, I'd have enough time to sell it off, save a few things, and maybe my nephews would be mature enough that I could trust them to take what I would have kept. I don't have many friends, and they're all about the same age as I am, so if I go to old age, there won't be any point in leaving anything to them. I have no plans as of now of having children of my own, or even marrying, so there won't be anything left to kids or wife. However, if I go early, it isn't written (I should fix that) but I've made it known that everything gets split between my mother and sister. That is, financial assets, should any remain after putting me in the ground. Any "things" I have, I guess the nephews can go through and decide whether they want. I suppose the rest can be auctioned off through an estate or whatever, but I don't see anything going for what it's "worth" as I deem it...
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Post by Dave Kelly on Aug 3, 2015 23:52:28 GMT
AFI, Fort Leavenworth, special collections insurance for my renters policy is $9.00/1000.00 per year. Register pieces and value. That's it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2015 0:02:12 GMT
Wooden representations will be made of my best, and I'll take them with me as grave goods to serve in the next world, and to hand out in case I run into any cool people on the other side in need of arms.
I'll leave a few select pieces to be family heirlooms / gifts to friends, the rest I think will go towards outfitting current and new members of the art I study.
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Post by Gunnar Wolfgard on Aug 4, 2015 15:44:08 GMT
You guys are bumming me out. That's it, I decided I'm not going. I'm going to be the oldest gnarliest looking person on the face of the earth. But I'm going to have a good laugh when I see the look on everyones faces when they see me walking toward them with what would have been my burial sword in my hand.
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Post by Ulrich on Aug 8, 2015 9:14:57 GMT
If I find the right wife, everything goes to her. Otherwise all my property goes to the army or the government. If they don't want it, they can do with it what they want. Just in case, I would own anything at that point...
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