Your estate plan

[(poco) Sforzando]

We always talk about buying CDs here, but I don't think we talk about what to do with them after we're gone. At age 73 I realize I will have to decide what to do with not only all my CDs, but also a large collection of musical scores and books about music, not to mention films on DVD/BluRay, books, and original art. What thoughts do any of you have on how to handle such matters in your will? As I update my estate plan, I want my collections to go to people who can make good use of them, not just have them thrown out. (And please don't just say, "give them to me!" - which will instantly rule you out, or "donate to your local library." I have a very large collection, and many libraries these days are not accepting donations at all.)

[Mirror Image]

Could any of your CDs or scores be donated to an orchestra or chamber ensemble that has some sort of donation program? This would be ideal as I'd want to make sure these recordings and scores get in the hands of musicians who can study them.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Could any of your CDs or scores be donated to an orchestra or chamber ensemble that has some sort of donation program? This would be ideal as I'd want to make sure these recordings and scores get in the hands of musicians who can study them.

The problem is to find any such ensemble that has such a donation program. And it would have to be sufficiently close to me that they could pick up the items. I do not want to burden my executor with the effort and cost of packing and shipping literally thousands of CDs and scores.

[Mapman]

Maybe a university library would have a use for it? Some libraries have accepted large CD donations (e.g. https://lib.msu.edu/collections/rovi/).

[Rosalba]

It's a good idea to have a plan. I had a friend who amassed a huge collection of vinyl records of singers. Suddenly he was taken ill and within a few months his children helped him to find a care home. His flat had to be vacated quickly and a relative took all his records away in a van, probably to a charity shop. He never forgave this, though he knew it would have been difficult to find buyers and take months to arrange as it was a specialised collection.

It tends to put me off collecting things, if I'm honest.

[MusicTurner]

It's a good idea to have a plan. I had a friend who amassed a huge collection of vinyl records of singers. Suddenly he was taken ill and within a few months his children helped him to find a care home. His flat had to be vacated quickly and a relative took all his records away in a van, probably to a charity shop. He never forgave this, though he knew it would have been difficult to find buyers and take months to arrange as it was a specialised collection.
(...)

Agree, good to have a plan , supposedly with say two scenarios -  how to move to a smaller dwelling, and that of one's will. And one tricky thing is that one's collection can be more of a burden than an assett to many people nowadays, especially if it takes up a good deal of place. In earlier days, it would have been easier to find interested people (or sell).

[Mirror Image]

The problem is to find any such ensemble that has such a donation program. And it would have to be sufficiently close to me that they could pick up the items. I do not want to burden my executor with the effort and cost of packing and shipping literally thousands of CDs and scores.

I understand. I'll have to do something thinking and perhaps my brain that only uses 1% can think of something!

[Roasted Swan]

We always talk about buying CDs here, but I don't think we talk about what to do with them after we're gone. At age 73 I realize I will have to decide what to do with not only all my CDs, but also a large collection of musical scores and books about music, not to mention films on DVD/BluRay, books, and original art. What thoughts do any of you have on how to handle such matters in your will? As I update my estate plan, I want my collections to go to people who can make good use of them, not just have them thrown out. (And please don't just say, "give them to me!" - which will instantly rule you out, or "donate to your local library." I have a very large collection, and many libraries these days are not accepting donations at all.)

This is very hard.  I know from my own quite recent experience of my parent's estate is that there is a gulf between what you would like to be able to inherit/absorb into your own living space and what you practically can.  My father's life and work was in the field of English literature, he had a large number of books new and old (some very).  But I had no idea what book were precious especially to him either on a personal or indeed financial level.  I wish that he had prepared some documentation of the "key" things he owned and without a shadow of doubt I would have kept all of them.  Instead the vast bulk did go to Charity Shops where I hoped that someone with his interests would value what they got and also the charity involved would be supported by the money generated. 

For me I am almost certain that the CD's I have will just have to be disposed of - sheer physical space and the out of date (by then if not already!) tech they represent will mean they will be at best an anachronism.  The sheet music bothers me more because there is considerable rarity in much of that and I know from current experience of trying to track down old editions to perform now just how much has already disappeared - at best into the archives of indifferent publishers.  I have a long term plan - a bit like IMSLP - to make available scans of the rarest music online for free reference/access.  At least that way the possibility of the music being played/heard remains.

[vandermolen]

You raise a very important question Larry.
In my own case I'm sure that my wife will send the whole lot to the municipal skip/dump as soon as I am gone - or possibly hold a celebratory bonfire, so that the whole lot go up in some kind of Towering Inferno.
I sometimes open up CDs that I have purchased second hand to find copies of reviews inside and carefully annotated comments. These CDs have obviously been treasured and carefully looked-after and it makes me quite sad to see them. However, I guess that some people just decide to have a clear out while they are still alive. I'm starting (reluctantly) to donate CDs to charity shop (there is a market for them in the local town Tunbridge Wells). I take them to the Mind and Oxfam charity shop and Mind, from time to time, let me know how much my CD (and book) donations have made for their charity. Painful as the process of giving away books and CDs is for me I have to admit that there is also something therapeutic about it, especially at this stage of my life.

[foxandpeng]

You raise a very important question Larry.
In my own case I'm sure that my wife will send the whole lot to the municipal skip/dump as soon as I am gone - or possibly hold a celebratory bonfire, so that the whole lot go up in some kind of Towering Inferno.
I sometimes open up CDs that I have purchased second hand to find copies of reviews inside and carefully annotated comments. These CDs have obviously been treasured and carefully looked-after and it makes me quite sad to see them. However, I guess that some people just decide to have a clear out while they are still alive. I'm starting (reluctantly) to donate CDs to charity shop (there is a market for them in the local town Tunbridge Wells). I take them to the Mind and Oxfam charity shop and Mind, from time to time, let me know how much my CD (and book) donations have made for their charity. Painful as the process of giving away books and CDs is for me I have to admit that there is also something therapeutic about it, especially at this stage of my life.

I am an inveterate hoarder. I have a library of several thousand books that has been agonising to pare down, because my reading interests don't coincide with anything that my family will wish to cherish in the same way that I have. I have multiple works of obscure theological interest, that despite my 4 children's shared commitment, are too technical or academic, too obscure, too narrow in scope, too complex, too voluminous, etc. I have taken to donating some to theological libraries. The rest will need to be buried with me in some cavernous tomb where my cold, dead hands will refuse to loose their grip. Having collected them over 40 years at great care and cost, it is painful to consider parting with them.

As for my music, I have now converted everything to mp3 for the sake of space and because my ears don't require lossless fidelity, and have them stored on several HDs with at least one redundancy just in case. The hard copies have all gone to Oxfam because at the time, I had no idea what else to do with them. I rarely engage with these files due to the satisfying reach of Spotify et al.

Although I intend to live to at least my early centenarian years, my fleshly immortality is sadly unlikely. My wife has instructions to break all copyright rules with complete abandon, and distribute the digital files to anyone who requests them.

I object profoundly to mortality. It can broadly knob off.

[André]

Looking at those walls of CDs my eldest daughter told me last year, « I hope you sell this all before you die, Daddy ». While her remark was none too subtle, I know it was not mean, just realistic. After all she's a police officer, with a very cool head, sentiments be damned. I agree with her thinking that a classical record collection is useless to 99.5% of the general population. As for charitable institutions, they tend to their clientele and have no need for that kind of thing. Carefully planned pruning such as Jeffrey does and the occasional sale to used CD shops will reduce the trouble caretakers or heirs face when the time comes to clear everything. I'm not harbouring any illusions: my cd collection is financially worthless once I'm gone 

[MusicTurner]

That said, I think at least currently, and unless one is 300 km/miles or more from the nearest sizeable town, any classically orientated, big collection of a certain quality can still be sold, provided that some effort and patience in promoting/listing is put in it, and the price is modest enough ...

The collector providing some guidance in that field might be convenient, if one hasn't got personal connections already sharing those interests and the knowledge.

[Spotted Horses]

I think my CDs will all go to the dump. (Unfortunately the boxes are not recyclable, as far as I know). I already sent most of them.

I had to relocate and it was a practical necessity to get rid of virtually my entire collection of books (well over a thousand volumes). I donated a few to a local library, but they had a limit on the number of books they would receive at one time (two boxes, I think). The rest I gave to a charity shop. At some point I asked the charity shop what they did with the books. Mostly they were sold as wood pulp.

So, don't worry your little head about it.

[foxandpeng]

At some point I asked the charity shop what they did with the books. Mostly they were sold as wood pulp.

[DavidW]

It might be worth doing a penny auction plus shipping on ebay, that way it goes into the hands of someone that might be interested in the collection.

[vandermolen]

Larry has started a most interesting thread and I have enjoyed reading the thoughtful responses. I used to sell some of my CDs via Amazon Marketplace but my account no longer exists and trying to restore it has been frustrating.
I'm hoping that my daughter will keep the 24 (soon to be 25 I hope) CDs for which I wrote the booklet notes (many of them are on the bookshelves in her old bedroom still in their cellophane wrappers  )
My wife has (on several occasions) accused me of 'having an affair' with my CD collection. Some years ago I amused my daughter by explaining to her that, if the house burnt down,  I'd be sure to rescue her, my wife and the cat as soon as I'd rescued my CD collection. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Thank you all for your interesting responses. We do have a used CD shop in the area that claims they buy anything, even what they call "sheet music." (Though I think that full scores of Wagner operas, Mahler symphonies, and the like would come to a lot of sheets.) They do have a classical section, but it amounts to maybe 5% of their inventory and rarely sells. Nonetheless, I should talk to them to see if they'd accept a bequeathal once I hit the great CD store in the sky.

I have better hopes of bequeathing them my fairly substantial collection of films, many of which are expensive Criterion titles with their excellent supplements and packaging. But who knows if, by the time I kick the bucket, the current DVD/BluRay technology will still be popular? Well, the store still sells LPs, so perhaps I'm ok there.

I had thought of giving my scores to a select group of friends, and this is how I've structured my current will. But this causes big problems in itself. What if these people can't be located, or if they're dead themselves? How are they to take physical possession of the items, what if there's something desirable that several people fight over (though I can't think of anything now), what if my executor balks at boxing and shipping 100s of scores or CDs and who's going to take the time and money to do this?

I'd love for my scores to go to deserving poor music students, since printed music is very expensive and there may well be some grad students who would love a free bound Eulenberg set of the Ring operas in mint condition. Or even my autographed scores of Stockhausen's Gruppen and Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre, even though that sage Brooklyn Buddha David Hurwitz has opined that these masterpieces are "junk." Perhaps I should contact the music libraries or music departments at the top universities in my area (which would be Hofstra and StonyBrook, or the best schools in Manhattan like NYU, Juilliard, and/or Columbia).

The biggest concern is original art. I have a small and not very valuable collection, but there are some nice pieces and I'd hate for them to be discarded. And unlike books or records, many of these pieces are one of a kind, and the artists involved might want to recover them for their own use.

A lot of thinking has to be done here.







.

[MusicTurner]

I think my CDs will all go to the dump. (Unfortunately the boxes are not recyclable, as far as I know). I already sent most of them.

I had to relocate and it was a practical necessity to get rid of virtually my entire collection of books (well over a thousand volumes). I donated a few to a local library, but they had a limit on the number of books they would receive at one time (two boxes, I think). The rest I gave to a charity shop. At some point I asked the charity shop what they did with the books. Mostly they were sold as wood pulp.

So, don't worry your little head about it.

I was never unable to sell lots starting from 50x CDs, preferably more, and with a mix of varied repertoire and OK recordings, via local second-hand websites here in the Copenhagen region.

This however at very modest prices, say starting at an average of 0.2 -0.3 Euros pr piece in the lot. With good photographs showing the content, in the advertisement.

I skipped selling at ebay or abroad,  because postal rates have become excessive, even for a single CD, slowing and minimizing sales. Years ago there could be good profits in it, also for LPs. A  record sale was Bach/Szigeti 3LP mint, bought for 6.5 Euros, sold for 550 Euros to a Korean collector, around 10 years ago.

Haven't tried with books, but know people who buy up individual titles at charity shops & flea markets etc. & sell them on the web - not via antiquarian shops. So for some items, there must be a little money there.

[steve ridgway]

I gave my collection of Moon books to an astronomical society library (they already had Patrick Moore's collection) some years ago and the CDs are currently selling well on Discogs. I don't want to be in the position of either having to get rid in a rush to downsize the house or for the wife to throw them in the skip.

[André]

  I detect a good dose of anxiety and fatalism around here...