A person who has spent a lifetime building a collection of anything and is working on an estate plan, often wants that collection to remain in the family. That can be difficult, if your children are not interested in the collection.
It is not exactly a secret that children often grow up to have different passions and interests than their parents. A parent might have a love for old movie memorabilia and amassed an impressive collection over the years. The children, however, might not have a connection with that memorabilia and might not be interested in it.
This can be a problem for many collectors, since they fear having their collections broken up after they pass away with the individual pieces going to strangers, as Barron's discusses in "How to Get Your Child Interested in Your Collection."
One thing that collectors can do is work to get their children interested in the collection.
It is best to start this when your children are young by including them in the collection process. However, if it is too late to do that, there are alternatives.
Parents can talk to their children in order to let them know why the collection is so important and what it would mean to the parent if the collection were to be sold out of the family. This helps give the children an emotional stake in preserving the collection.
If that does not work, then collectors do have some estate planning options about how their collections should be handled. For example, it might be possible to bequeath the entire collection to an interested museum or library.
Reference: Barron's (May 2, 2017) "How to Get Your Child Interested in Your Collection."
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