Personal items at auction

Kansas4010 · Oct 25, 2023

What do you guys do with a family's personal items that you happen to buy. A while ago I bought a box and when I got home found a photo album. The family didn't want it even though it was them in the pictures. Also was a pilots log book from 1917. I kept the log book but burnt the pictures. The other day I came home with a box of books. One of them was a yearbook from 1948. The school is still around so I contacted them and they want it. So I mailed it to them. I feel guilty destroying a family's personal items but what do you do when no one wants it?

Rich'sToys · Oct 25, 2023

Maybe check with the local County Historical Society. They may not want them either, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

redtom · Oct 25, 2023

Sounds like you did exactly what I would've done. Historical items are neat and worth donating, personal items, if unwanted, should be destroyed. I inherited stacks of photo albums from an aunt that never had children. She liked to take pics and had stacks of albums of people no one knew. I burned them. My neighbor lost and arm in accident and had a hook. He was quite handy and mechanical and crafted a few different hooks and had a cosmetic hand. VERY strangely, when they had an auction I saw a box on the wagon with his hook arms in it. Someone bought them. I would've melted or destroyed them.

David from Kansas · Oct 25, 2023

I have had something similar happen. I bought an old military foot locker at an auction after discovering that it had some old paper money from the Philipine Islands that were of WW2 vintage. Asked the auctioneer about it and he said the family had gone thru everything so just keep it as apparently they, the family, didn't want it. There was a name and address on the locker from a town only about 100 miles from me but I couldn't find any info on the name. I suppose some of my personal items will end up the same way, or just tossed. I have many photos that I acquired during my 40+ years in the ARNG, beginning during basic training, AIT, etc., many taken during active duty stints, most of fellow soldiers that my family never knew so why would they want them. Just the way things are.

730virgil · Oct 25, 2023

I know what you are talking about Mrs 730 got a bunch of family pictures. Her mom didn't know who most of the people were some of them she thought she might have an idea but wasn't sure.
After Mrs 730 passed away i got them what to do with them burn them I guess?

Michael Soldan · Oct 25, 2023

Our Legion will accept any artifacts from military service including military pictures, letters and so on. A museum may also be interested in some artifacts

RCP · Oct 25, 2023

When I was about 15, we went to a household auction that had a lot of personal items. The auctioneer was trying to sell things by the cardboard box and no one would bid. My mother was visibly upset and made the comment that when the time came if we did want those kinds of items to destroy them rather than trying to sell them.

paul · Oct 25, 2023

We have a religious based second hand thrift store in town. One shelf is old time pictures, various scenes of families and landscapes and street and farm work views. The workers said they too were surprised but pleased at how popular and well selling those were, made money for the poor or a new organ or whatever the money was going to that week.

If the family doesnt want them, and its ok with religious denominations to resell them, I say do what you want with the personal items, at least to a point.

Paul

Traditional Farmer · Oct 25, 2023

Unfortunately fewer people all the time seem to care about the history of their families.I have quite a few items given to me by older family members over the years and I'm the last one that will care about them.

Wheat47 · Oct 25, 2023

Dad was visiting the local small-town museum/historical building.
It is a first-rate set up. Well supported, great displays and such.
Anyway, while Dad was there, he came upon a couple of the museum volunteers
sorting a box of old pictures. They were talking among themselves, Who is this,
What are they doing, Where was this and so forth.
Dad glanced at the pic's and said, Well, that is such and such a family,
or so and so persons, they are threshing, that was over at the old 'xyz school, etc.
The volunteers invited Dad to sit down and help sort. And he did!!
He had a great time, and museum gained lots of other wise lost knowledge.
He actually went there several times to help sort with pictures.
Both Dad and the museum benefited.

Sprint 6 · Oct 25, 2023

We used to buy defaulted storage units for resale. It always amazed me what people would have in a storage units that they should have on their home. I burnt photo albums, diplomas, baby books, and their corn collections.

37 chief · Oct 25, 2023

Don't feel bad. No one wanted them, or they would have removed them from the box. I have a ragged old US flag from my wife's aunt It must have meant something to someone. Now it sits on my shelf in the garage. I have pictures of my old girl friend, I will let someone else deal with them, when I'm gone. Stan

Wheat47 · Oct 25, 2023

Dad was visiting the local small-town museum/historical building.
It is a first-rate set up. Well supported, great displays and such.
Anyway, while Dad was there, he came upon a couple of the museum volunteers
sorting a box of old pictures. They were talking among themselves, Who is this,
What are they doing, Where was this and so forth.
Dad glanced at the pic's and said, Well, that is such and such a family,
or so and so persons, they are threshing, that was over at the old 'xyz school, etc.
The volunteers invited Dad to sit down and help sort. And he did!!
He had a great time, and museum gained lots of other wise lost knowledge.
He actually went there several times to help sort with pictures.
Both Dad and the museum benefited.

showcrop · Oct 26, 2023

Most of us are just too busy for most of our lives to care much about the past, but in our later years it becomes a pleasant pastime. In her later years my mother would sit and look again and again through two shoe boxes of old photos from her child hood that someone had dug up somewhere.

paul · Oct 26, 2023

Same here TF, no kids and younger generations of relatives are spread out, not in ag, and or just too far away in age to really care.

I can understand that, but still.....

I have a cradle and scye here that my grandpa got from his father in law as a wedding gift. What does a person do with that? Ya know such items.

Paul

WNYBill · Oct 26, 2023

We have 2 huge photo albums that we have to go through with the kids. There will be a lot of pictures of people I don't recognize....BUT I CAN'T THROW THEM AWAY. I am holding on to my Mother's diploma from college that she was so proud of, just can't toss it and forget selling any of that stuff.

Hoofer B · Oct 26, 2023

That is a great story Wheat 47

Wheat47 · Oct 26, 2023

Thank you

Vito · Oct 26, 2023

Donate it to the local fair if they have a dedicated farm exhibit.

Vito

Ande · Oct 26, 2023

A big thank you to your Dad,as we cannot throw away history

Personal items at auction

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