The End Game

Yesterday I was fiddling on the computer and musing about international travel, so I took a look at my passport and discovered a shocking error. It says I was born in 1933. This has to be an error. To cross check this information, I looked at my driver’s license and my (faded) birth certificate, and they both had the same birth year. Am I a victim of a cascading bureaucratic error? Then I remembered that I was 8 years old when I heard President Roosevelt announce the declaration of war (WWII) over the Atwater Kent radio. I guess it must be true that I am 91 years old – soon to be 92. Since I am forced to accept that reality, I must also accept the need to do some planning. I think there are others who read this newsletter that are in the same situation. We have spent many years enjoying our car collecting and restoration hobby, and we are now faced with the end game of what to do with what we have.

The “what we have” consists of collector cars and “Stuff.” The cars will pass on to either relatives, special friends, or get sold as there is a market place that is established and accessible to our heirs; therefore, I will not dwell on that. What I do want to consider is the “Stuff.” Here is my classification of “Stuff:”

  • Memorabilia
  • Car parts
  • Tools
  • Literature
  • Paint and chemicals

The first order of business is to resolve to stop collecting. Like many of you, I follow the auctions and ads for collector cars. I see the Hemmings ad for a really nice, old pre-war Ford that has been fully restored and can probably be bought for close to the cost of the paint job. What I do to enforce this resolve is take my hands off the keyboard, sit on them, and meditate until the mood to buy passes. I say to myself: “Just work on what you have now, and do not get anything new.”

Now I have to determine how to deal with my “Stuff.”

  • Memorabilia: This includes items such as old trophies, patches, jackets, and tee shirts, sales and maintenance records, old titles, posters, and more!


    These are “dumpster doomed” items if they cannot be given away or sold. These may be classified as

    D-1 (immediate toss to dumpster)
    D-2 (toss after unsuccessful attempt to sell or give away)

  • Car Parts: These are the heart breakers. You have all these parts – some of which are take offs, some are swap meet buys, some are new but wrong for the car and some are just very rare and no longer exist – but are probably needed badly by a restorer. Then there is the just plain D-1 junk of rusted and broken parts. You fend off D-2 until the time comes that the house is sold and has to be cleared. It is a very melancholy task to D-2 them as they are the lost history of your life.

  • Tools: I can classify these as big and expensive or small and ordinary. I would like to see my tool boxes and tools given to a young person who would appreciate and use them to support their hobby interest. Not all of today’s youth just want to stare at a small screen. I am sure there are some that love to work with their mind, as well as their muscles, on old cars and would appreciate a boost to help them progress.


    The big stuff, like my lathe and milling machine, can be sold by any of several methods and should bring some substantial money. They will require professional help to remove from their current location.

  • Literature: Along with the parts, there are maintenance manuals and installation instructions, in addition to lots of parts catalogs. As a member of three car clubs, I have a lot of magazines and literature published by the club about the various make cars. I also have published books, including cocktail table books, with beautiful pictures and history articles. These could be swap meet sales items, but I am too lazy to explore that option. Better to give them to friends or take them to club meetings and say, “Help yourself.” What does not find a new home, unfortunately, becomes D-2 bound.

  • Paint and Chemicals: In the old days, you dumped them on the dirt road to keep the dust down or poured them down the drain (shame on you).  The paint goes back to the paint store for disposal, and the oil and solvents go to a parts store that has a disposal tank. The half-filled pint can with solidified touch up paint goes into the garbage can along with the bag of peeled shrimp tails.

CASE STUDY

I have told you my plan, now let’s look at a case study of an estate sale on steroids. The other week John, Harvey and I met with Andrea Robbins who owns Caring Transitions of North Denver, Longmont and Boulder, a business that works with older adults on relocation, downsizing, and estate liquidations. Andrea is currently helping an individual who can no longer engage in his automotive hobby. The auction site is in Boulder, and the merchandise is a huge collection of old car parts, memorabilia and some weird “stuff.” The gem of the auction is a 1948 Plymouth convertible that has to be one of the best in the world and will be sold at a special auction event to be determined.

Looking at this car is to realize that we are looking at the lifetime collection of a dedicated old car person and lifetime hoarder. You cannot help but feel a twinge of melancholy sentiment for what is happening.

The items for auction are in a connected garage/warehouse and have been neatly displayed on shelves in random order. I am sure Andrea knows antique furniture, household treasures and such, but she is at a total loss when it comes to pre-war car parts mixed in with oddball “stuff.” We did the best we could on helping her identify what the parts were for, and what was (most likely) valuable, and what will probably be lost history junk. Example: New pre-war wiring harness for a ??. Andrea said that she loaded four dumpsters with D-1 stuff just to create enough aisle space to see the other merchandise. We saw boxes full of license plates. She informed us that she sold 10,000 plates to a commercial dealer, and we are looking at another batch about as large!!

John and Harvey found some treasures, which they bought at a bargain price, and I bought a new telemetry clock for $5. “No, Charles, you do not need that other thing you looked at; you already have one. Now just help John and Harvey find stuff they can use.”

I told Andrea that we wanted to support her client, and I would inform my readers about the auction and share her contact information in case they would like to visit the warehouse. Inspection is by appointment only as Andrea is not there full time.

Click Here to download a PDF of images of the items in inventory

Click Here to access images of the items in inventory

Andrea Robbins
Caring Transitions of N. Denver, Longmont and Boulder
Office: 720-254-6623
arobbins@caringtransitions.com

As Eddie Fisher sang: “Turn back the hands of time, roll back the sands of time, bring back our dream divine, let’s live it over again.”

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