Former ham in trouble over hoarding radios and other stuff

[N2EY]

2hours would do much in my house. There are WELL over 1000 radios in there!

I presume you meant "wouldn't".

1000? How do you know without an inventory?

73 de Jim, N2EY

[N2EY]

Funny - because while I agree about the amount of stuff, I disagree that much of it is worthy of recording in an inventory. I have nice things, but not much that I consider to have much value

(I get that for insurance purposes, there's a replacement value consideration. So while my couch isn't worth the $2000 I originally paid if I were to sell it, it would cost close to that to replace with a similar new one.)

True, but the situation is different when dealing with "collections".

For example, I knew an audiophile whose collection was well over 20,000 discs. 78s, 45s and 33-1/3. Some were highly valuable collectibles, others were mid-range, still others were pretty much junk. They were not sorted, either.

So to do an inventory that would identify the valuable ones would require inventorying all 20,000+ as the first step.

73 de Jim, N2EY

[WF7A]

I wonder how comfortable people will be showing a stranger what they own and where it is stashed...

Not a problem--have yourself bonded by an insurer and sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) so the homeowner will be protected.

Trust me, it will take more than two hours for just about any house since not only will you have to take pictures--with the homeowner present to give you basic data about the items you're entering--but also you'd need time to move or lift stuff to get model and serial numbers, etc. It would take at least a few days, not hours, per average house. Of course, if you had a coworker with you where he would read off the info and you'd type (or wand) it in that would speed things up a bit.

[KA3JLW]

True, but the situation is different when dealing with "collections".

For example, I knew an audiophile whose collection was well over 20,000 discs. 78s, 45s and 33-1/3. Some were highly valuable collectibles, others were mid-range, still others were pretty much junk. They were not sorted, either.

So to do an inventory that would identify the valuable ones would require inventorying all 20,000+ as the first step.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Certainly.

Interestingly though, I still think the general premise of "it ain't really worth what you think" holds true. Paul Mahwhinney owned the largest record collection in the world, over 3 million items valued at an estimated $54 million at one point - $18 each item, that seems reasonable, right? When talking well preserved and sorted copies, all different, of mostly LPs?

Not even close. The collection stil hasn't sold at $3 million, and efforts to build a museum for this collection that dwarfs the library of congress' have failed. Even a bid by the Library fell through.

As we've pointed out before, my point is that unless the pile is generating ongoing money, it becomes a huge liability - regardless of the knowledge of the people holding it. Paul's collection has been in knowledgable hands but meanwhile he needs money for some medical help...and can't get it, all he has is a giant pile of records and the bills needed to keep it all from melting.

[N2EY]

Paul Mahwhinney owned the largest record collection in the world, over 3 million items valued at an estimated $54 million at one point - $18 each item, that seems reasonable, right? When talking well preserved and sorted copies, all different, of mostly LPs?

Not even close. The collection stil hasn't sold at $3 million, and efforts to build a museum for this collection that dwarfs the library of congress' have failed. Even a bid by the Library fell through.

That's because the collection is too big.

As we've pointed out before, my point is that unless the pile is generating ongoing money, it becomes a huge liability - regardless of the knowledge of the people holding it. Paul's collection has been in knowledgable hands but meanwhile he needs money for some medical help...and can't get it, all he has is a giant pile of records and the bills needed to keep it all from melting.

Yep. Lots of folks want the individual records but nobody can deal with 3 million of them at once!

The obvious solution is to break up the collection - but that takes a lot of time and know-how. Selling them one at a time will take forever; selling in groups requires a lot of knowledge (do you try to sell all the Louis Armstrong records as a group? What about records where he and another artist are featured?)

There is also the "4D32 effect":

The 4D32 was a popular ham transmitting tube right after WW2. It was actually designed to be a radar pulse modulator, but did a good job in rigs such as the Viking 1. But it was quickly supplanted by the 6146 - or rather, a pair of them.

Conventional wisdom was that the 4D32 was only made by a few manufacturers for a short time. As supplies of 4D32s dried up, prices rose. Some hams converted the rigs to use the 24 volt heater version (4D22?), others to use a pair of 6146s. 4D32 prices rose higher and higher as the tube got rarer. Meanwhile the price of rigs using it fell. Some folks hoarded NOS 4D32s as a sort of investment.

Then a whole bunch of them suddenly appeared on the market. Turned out a military warehouse was finally cleaned out, and the tubes surplused. Prices plummeted as supply overwhelmed demand. Folks holding onto stashes of them were bitterly disappointed because what they had thought of as being worth hundreds of dollars suddenly became worth dozens - at best. Worse, nobody wanted 4D32s in large numbers.

73 de Jim, N2EY