^this. When my father died he had several collections. I took the guns and watches, my siblings took the art and furniture (I was a bit pissed as there were serval pieces I loved growing up and my father had said he wanted me to have, but they just took them- always put things in writing when you are estate planning with your kids!!), but he had a sizable wine collection of which none of us knew anything. We sent it to a local auction house in LA and it brought some serious money. There were a few lots left that weren’t worth much so we got those back and they got gifted away.
Despite any fees etc- it was the easiest way to get top dollar for things we had no interest in keeping and would have been a steep learning curve to try and broker ourselves.
Seeing as you had the guns, they were brave taking anything!
😀
Seriously the trouble with dealing with fair estate distribution is that where there is a will there is a relative!
My brother and I got dudded by my evil sister (an extremely overbearing narcissist, mind you so is the brother, though only she has a history of fraud, the brother always got away with it)
My parents joint will was conveniently changed on Mum's deathbed in suspicious circumstances. ( Dad had already passed @ 10yrs earlier) The original will distribution was 2/5th each to my brother and myself and the balance to her as the evil sister had already got some of her share early, Back when the estate was worth a lot more than it was in the end.
As my parents had moved Interstate ( to the Gold Coast, Queensland, a state that has a reputation as a fraudsters paradise due to a long historical tradition of dubious political and business practices)
This move was close to my sister (more of her evil machinations and largely against my fathers free will) the tyranny of distance became a factor in all the problems.
The new distribution was 3 ways equal......I wouldn't have argued the toss on that, but it got worse. The Sister became the will executor and she refused to settle, indeed she didn't even bother to inform my brother of Mum's illness or death at all and got angry at me for letting him know that Mum had passed.
I should point out here that the bother and sister absolutely hate one another, where as I just dislike either of them and avoid them if possible,
She wouldn't even tell us when or where the funeral was, we managed to find that out ourselves, unfortunately I couldn't get a flight in time so I missed it, the brother managed to get there.
The sister then accused me of not caring! Talk about being set up to fail!
Anyway as I said it took quite a few years for the estate to be settled as the sister, kept on using evasive tactics like continuing to change lawyers with out informing us of who we were now supposed to be dealing with. In the mean time she was probably renting Mum's house out for holiday rentals on an online short stay platform like Air B&B! Remember we were on the other side of the continent so It would have been next to impossible to monitor.
We finally got her cornered and she finally agreed to finalise the will, at a 3 way split, but by then all the antiques, artworks, jewelry and money had disappeared, leaving only the house left to be sold, we were told all that other stuff was either thrown out or given away as it was "worthless", we were expected to swallow this obvious lie even though the brother is actually a "shy and honest antique dealer" of @ 50 +yrs experience so knew exactly how much it was all worth to the last cent!
Even when the the final settlement was presented we were given a huge list of expense deductions which amongst other strange irregularities contained an absurdly large number of key copies cut for Mum's house, hence, my suspicions of the place being used as a short stay rental.
We refused this list of expense deductions, forcing her to sell the house and splitting the result 3 ways.
Meanwile the former sales rep sister who dosen't work anymore ,drives her Ferarri and BMW to and fro from her luxury Gold Coast residence.
So JW going on my experience, you got off lightly mate!
