For the seller

Inherited a collection? What to do first

If you have inherited a collection, the most useful thing you can do first is nothing at all. Do not clean it, sort it or sell the best of it. Photograph it as it stands, write down what you remember, and only then decide what to keep and how the rest should go.

Collections are usually left by people who knew exactly what they had and never wrote it down. What looks like a room full of things is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping. There is rarely a reason to rush, and most of the mistakes happen in the first few weeks.

The first weeks: what not to do

  • Do not clean anything. Polishing, wiping lenses, washing figures or taking watches apart does harm far more often than good.
  • Do not throw away the boxes and the paperwork. Original boxes, manuals, receipts, letters and lists often matter to collectors as much as the objects themselves. Keep every bit of it with the collection.
  • Do not let the best pieces go first. It is tempting to sell the one thing everyone has heard of. Once it is gone, the collection is no longer the one that was built, the rest is harder to place, and it cannot be undone.
  • Do not say yes to whoever knocks first. People who turn up after a death notice or a house clearance advert tend to know exactly which pieces they are looking for, and leave the rest.

What to do instead

Photograph it where it stands

The shelves, the drawers, the cabinet, the room. Phone photographs are fine. Once things are packed into boxes, the way they were arranged is gone, and it often says something about what mattered to the person who arranged it.

Write down what you remember

How it started. Where the pieces came from. Which one they were proudest of, and which one they always talked about and never found. It takes an evening, and it is the part of a collection nobody can buy back later.

Let the family choose first

Before anything goes, give everyone who wants one the chance to keep something. It is easier to do while the collection is still whole, and it is the thing people most often regret not doing.

Get a rough idea of what is there

You do not need a full inventory. Roughly how many pieces, what kinds of things, and whether there are a few that look special. If it is cameras, our guide to whether old cameras are worth anything helps you understand what you are looking at.

Ask about the estate first

If an estate is still being settled, check with whoever is handling it before anything leaves the house. Some estates need the contents recorded first, and it is easier to do that while everything is still together.

The ways a collection can go

There are four, and we have written about each in where to sell a vintage camera collection: selling it yourself piece by piece, auction, a dealer, or one buyer for all of it.

The first three all take the collection apart. Auction houses and dealers take the pieces they want and leave the rest with you; selling it yourself often takes a year or more, and part of it never goes. With one buyer, everything goes together, the remarkable pieces and everything around them, and it is done.

How we handle inherited collections

A large share of the collections that come to Unseend are inherited. We take them whole: cameras, watches, audio, consoles, figures, Lego, design objects and prints, often all from the same house, the special pieces and everything around them. One person handles it from the first reply to the last object sold.

It does not matter where the house is. When a collection is worth the journey, we come to it ourselves, anywhere in the world, and pack everything properly there, so there is nothing for you to box up.

Before anything is sold we record the story, with you, on camera where the collection lives, on a video call, or in writing. It stays on every object with the collector's name, so whoever owns a piece next knows whose it was. You get a page where you can see where each one ended up.

There is no obligation in writing to us, and no hurry. No hurry is one of the options on the form. Everything else is on our Pass it on page.

Short answers

How do I find out what is in an inherited collection?

Start with the few pieces that stand out: find the maker and model of each and look them up. Then tell us about the whole collection, those pieces included.

Should I sell an inherited collection all at once?

If there is a lot of it and nobody in the family wants to spend a year on it, yes. It is also the only way the collection goes on as it was built, with its story.

Can I keep some pieces and let the rest go?

Of course. Tell us which ones stay.

Why we keep the story

A collection is not a pile of objects.

It is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping, and sold off piece by piece that is the first thing to go. So before anything is sold, we sit down with you and record it: how it started, what the best of it was, the piece that got away. That story stays on every object with the collector's name, and goes with it to whoever keeps it next. You get a page where you can see where each piece ended up.

Three ways the story gets recorded

On camera, where it lives. We travel to the collection and film it properly: you talking about how it started, the room and the shelves as they are, the objects in your hands. Wherever in the world the collection happens to be.

On a call. If the collection is sent to us rather than collected, we have the same conversation over a video call and write it up, with one photograph of the shelf as it stood.

In writing. If you would rather not talk at all, answer a handful of questions in your own time and in your own words. It goes on the objects exactly as you wrote it.

It never changes anything else, and you can always say no to it. Some conversations run ten minutes, some an afternoon. Read the collections we have taken on

If it is a whole collection

We buy whole collections, not single pieces: one person takes all of it, and the story is kept with every object. Tell us what you have and a person replies within two days.

How passing it on works, in full

1The collection
What is in it
Pick everything that applies. Something else opens a line to tell us.
Roughly how many pieces
A guess is fine. Nobody has counted.
How would you describe it
There is no wrong answer here, and a lot of ordinary is a normal collection.
One or two sentences. This is the question we care about most.
2Where it is, and how it could reach us
Town and country is enough.
How could it reach us
Unseend is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Sending and bringing are as welcome as a visit; if it is sent, we pay the freight and insure it.
When does it need to be gone
No hurry is a good answer. It lets us plan a visit properly.
3Condition and photographs
In your own words. Broken, incomplete or untested is fine and is normal; it only needs saying.
Photographs
Three to ten photographs The room and the shelves as they stand. Phone photographs are fine, and a slow walk round on video says more than any of them.Send them to hello@unseend.com
Or attach them to the reply that comes back within two days. Any of them works, and nothing is looked at until a person reads it. Do not clean up first — the shelves as they stand tell us more than a tidy arrangement.
4The number, and the story
A number or a range, whatever you have in mind. You will get an honest answer either way.
Would you tell the story of it
Filmed at the collection wherever it is, on a video call, or written in your own time. It never changes the price.
5How to reach you
The reply comes here, from a person, within two days.
Only if you would rather be called.

Answered within two days, by the person who would come, and by email at every step after that. Nothing you send is shared with anyone, and your photographs are deleted if we do not go ahead.

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