My uncle is terminal with esophageal cancer. For whatever reason (he’s a Nebraskan) he admired British Royalty, especially Queen Elizabeth II, all his life and has accumulated a modest but not huge collection of related memorabilia; commemorative plates, photos, and the like (pictures here 12345; I don’t think this is his entire collection).
His sister, my aunt, is somewhat loathe to pitch it all in the dumpster when he dies, but also realizes it probably has little monetary value. No one in the family wants it.
Are there Royalty Appreciation Societies or something like that who take on this kind of stuff?
My dad was a collector of 19th and early 20th Century advertising. There’s not a lot that’s more practically useless than that. He made, not a fortune or anything, but a tidy little sum from selling pieces of that collection on E-Bay when he needed money.
I’m pretty sure you’ll manage to find people who WANT your uncle’s collection on E-Bay.
Yeah, people will buy that stuff. It’s mostly tat, but it’s tat that looks in good condition, it’s getting on in years, and is therefore getting rarer. A more cynical man than I might well suggest holding onto it for a while yet, as the Queen is 91, after all…
There’s the Museum of Brands and Advertising in London, and it’s fascinating seeing adverts from the distant and not-so-distant past (I bet there are other museums like it elsewhere - and there are certainly collections at other less specific museums). If it was in good condition it would be far from worthless because it’s the kind of item that is important for social history but wasn’t always preserved well because people understandably saw it as disposable.
That looks exactly like the stuff lining the walls of a local British restaurant I go to whenever I crave an English breakfast. Maybe a similar local establishment would be interested?
