Warbird Information Exchange

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

I always hate those kind of "personal effects" sales of Veterans on Ebay. These kinds of groupings are nearly always from estate sales after the Veteran passes away. The part that is sad, is that there is a family that allowed that to happen. They allowed all of those memories and personal artifacts to leave the family to be sold to the highest bidder. If really irks me that the family doesn't care enough to remember the Veteran by keeping the artifacts in the family, or possibly donating them to a local museum.

*rant over*

I agree with you 100% warbird - doesn't the family care enough to treasue this stuff?! I don't understand that. But at least it's not getting thrown into a dumpster...

I know in my case there may be no choice. The death tax from the state of Ohio alone will cost the Estate of my father $75,000 cash due.That does not include over $45,000 in fees to the lawyers, courts, and exeutrix. I will have to sell some of Dad's cherished items like the Corvette, and his 1942 Harley Davidson WLA.

Maybe your rant should be directed at our "leaders" sucking the money from dead folks.

That's understandable, Oscar Deuce. I'm not talking about non-service related items like a Corvette or Motorcycles. I'm talking about personal effects, like medals, awards, photographs, uniforms - things that probably have little intrinsic monetary value, but huge emotional and sentimental value to the families.

Yes, the death tax is very evil. We do need some reform on a lot of things related to money owed after death.

That's my point, the personal items may be all they havet o sell to meet obligations.

My dad was an Ohio State Highway Patrolman, I will not have to sell his patrol related things, but I do have to make hard decisions on what to sell to pay off the state.

Oh, O.K., I understand. Yes, that is very unfortunate. It's similar to the Robin Olds situation.

The way I look at it is that the ebay buyers know what their buying and want it enough to pay sometimes big money.
That means (at least in my mind) that they appreciate it.

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Don't touch my junk!!

I do understand the disgust over “selling off history” but you can’t preserve EVERY veteran’s stuff. Think of all the B-4 bags that each aviation museum in the country must be holding onto. And how much stuff gets donated to museums, to go into storage and never to be seen by anyone other than the employees of the museum? If in the hands of a well-heeled collector, at least there’s a chance someone will get to see the items when they get shown off on display somewhere.
I had something happen once that still baffles me. I was driving from Aberdeen proving Grounds to Gettysburg one day and took a back road to avoid an accident scene and came across someone’s house being emptied. There were two footlockers on the curb and the grandkids told me to take them. Inside was EVERYTHING their granddad brought back from WW2, including all his uniforms. The guy had been in the 101st AB. The grandkids said there was “nothing valuable in there,” and one confirmed he’d looked and found no guns. That’s all they cared about. This was in 1998 and US WW2 stuff was just starting to climb to the prices we see today. I actually wound up selling both of them to a dealer nearby less than an hour later for well into four figures as he was a big time 101st AB collector and it meant more to him. I knew he’d keep all the stuff together. If I hadn’t scooped them up, the trash guy on Monday would have hauled it all to the dump.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)