When it comes to collectors, we’re usually excited to talk about our hobbies and passions or what fuels us and makes us happy and ultimately defines who we are as people. The many adventures that we’ve been on seeking out treasures to add to our collections which separates us from other collectors and theirs. We could spend hours upon hours in a room with fellow collectors discussing rare gems and person grails, a certain artist from a comic or what made that particular issue a key book. When it comes to records, it could be something like a rare private press record from the Midwest that may not be widely known but someone realized that a certain musician who might have been just a teen at that time who played on it actually became famous years later and is now regarded as one of the greats in the genre which raised the collectibility and price of that record. For toy collectors, it could be obtaining that one prototype that only a few are known to exist which completes their collection and adds them to the rankings of the few other collectors in their field that have it as well.
Although we love talking about out collections, there’s one conversation that most of us are not ready to have when it comes to them. The conversation of what happens to your collection after you’re gone? Most of us have spent years, some decades and a lifetime collecting and building up incredible collections but what happens when the lights go out and you are no longer the caretaker of that collection? Over the last 5 or so years, I’ve seen quite a few friends and collectors pass away as well as serious collectors who I may not have had a relationship with but was very familiar with and the type of collections that they built. Most collectors that I know don’t have a contingency plan set in place in case they suddenly pass away which then places the burden on a spouse, children or family member to deal with selling their collection. Many times not knowing the actual value or even more, them not wanting to deal with the headache of figuring things out. I’ve seen quite a few times where family members have tossed items in the trash just to clear out the home or you get the vultures coming out of the woodworks offering as little cash as possible to the family to take possession of the items.
About 10 years ago I started having the uneasy conversation with friends about the future and what happens if they suddenly pass away and sadly, none of us really had a plan or a written will or trust with instructions on what should happen in that event. And then I started seeing friends pass away, friends like Biz Markie, Paul Nice, Ed Piskor, Danny The Beatmann and even my OG, Groove as well as others. One of the times where I regret not taking a person up on their offer of come over to take some of their collection was the year that legendary Bboy, Frosty Freeze from the Rock Steady Crew passed away. Returning from a European trip along with Ynot (Rock Steady Crew), the two made a stop in Philly while I was DJing at my residency at the Walnut Room and in conversation, Frosty told me about all of the crazy archives he had in his collection. Everything from live recordings of park jams on cassette, rare footage on VHS, party fliers, records and more. Frosty said, I know you’re a collector and invited me over and said to come pick out whatever I wanted. He said that he had so much stuff that I could add to my collection to make it special. I had planned to take a future drive up to New York at some point but wasn’t pressed to make it a priority. I’ve never been one to hawk people for things like a vulture but this is one time that I wish that I had because sadly, he passed away only a short time later and his collection most likely when to the garbage.
Preservation has always been important to me when it came to collecting and the one time that I acted on obtaining pieces from someone’s personal collection was years back when DJ / producer and serious collector of Kung Fu memorabilia, Paul Nice. Paul was selling some of his doubles and triples of things he’d acquired over the years from his massive collection and one summer during a phone conversation he mentioned that he was going through one his storage units and had an archive of gems that he was parting with and was giving me first grabs at it but needed to act on it. The call came in on a Wednesday and he said come to Poughkeepsie by Friday or he would call RZA or Biz Markie by Saturday and you know one of them would definitely be there to make the score. Say no more! So on Friday I took the 5 hour drive to Poughkeepsie to go through the collection pulling as many gems as possible and filled up the car for the 7 hour late night drive home in the dark with no GPS and only reading the MapQuest directions in reverse. Those were the days where you would do anything for the goods.
Since then I’ve tried to stay on fellow collectors about either thinking about slowly parting with and selling items from their collections to lighten the load for later or making sure that they have some sort of will or trust in place to make it easier on their family. Even knowing that life is short, we’re all still dragging our feet on taking the necessary steps to ensure that our collections fall into the right hands after we’re gone but the end is inevitable. A very sad but true statement that’s extremely hard to come to terms with and the conversation definitely needs to be had. So collectors, enjoy what you’ve collected, but put equal thought into the future of your collections in the same way so that it goes to the people or places where they will be loved and valued the most.