Begin with meaning, not value
A keepsake does not need to be financially valuable to be important. A recipe card, tool, piece of jewelry, military item, quilt, letter, or everyday household object may represent a person, place, skill, or family tradition. You and your parents may enjoy sharing stories about their items. This can be particularly important if your parents have to move into a different living situation. By gathering their stories early, you can help identify which items they’ll want to feature in a new space.
Try to do the story-gathering without discussing financial value and inheritance. Those will come up, but they can get a little tricky and lead to arguments, whereas the stories should not.
It’s likely that you do want some of your parents’ household items, but not necessarily the ones they see as valuable. When you are looking for something to talk to your parents about, tell them memories you have about growing up and how items in their homes bring those up for you.
Record the story
If you or your parents would like to capture their stories, do it. This may be an audio recording, a photograph, a written note, or a video tour of their home. It can be an assignment for grandkids to gather this information and package it up to share with the family, possibly as a holiday gift.
But also … you don’t need to do this. I bought one of those year-long subscriptions where parents are prompted to write on a different topic each week, and my parents had no interest in participating. I’m also not that interested in capturing stories, though I do enjoy photos. There is not a requirement for every family to capture every photo, video, story, recipe, and family tree. Do what brings you and your parents joy and connection.
It’s all Beanie Babies
Your parents will tell you their keepsakes are financially valuable. This is true for everything from collectible figurines to big pieces of furniture. One of the difficulties of being in the boomer generation is that there were many others who bought the same things they did, and now those folks are all trying to sell them to our generation. And we are not eager consumers. Another difficulty is that their aging brains are trying to justify them having kept the items, and they’ll convince them that these keepsakes are investments.
You can probably avoid telling them this. If they think they’re gifting you something valuable, and it’s not so valuable, no harm is done. You may need to tell them of the low value if they’re trying to give equivalent gifts to various people or if they’re trying to sell items to generate income. In these cases, you’ll want to set value based on either attempting to sell the items or finding prices of other recently sold items.
If you try to sell your parents’ keepsakes, start with the easiest-to-sell item and venue. This could mean taking an old necklace into a jeweler or posting a baseball card on ebay. Try to balance doing it the easiest way possible and one of the higher-valued items they have. You can then use that experience to set the bar, knowing all other sales will be more work for less reward.
If you are looking for comparable sales, make sure you’re looking at actual sales and not just asking prices. On Ebay, you can filter for just sold or completed items. Consider that these are your best case, if you sell at that same venue, and you’ll also have to deal with creating a listing, corresponding with buyers, packaging, and mailing. If you sell on Facebook Marketplace, you’ll have a much narrower set of customers and many false offers, so you’ll sell for less money.
You parents will overvalue both items they treasure and items they are ready to part with. They will also underestimate the time and hassle to sell. If you have options that allow you to get rid of items faster than selling, push those.
Give it away
Do your parents find joy in gifting? That is lovely! And it is wonderful when your parents’ gifts are gratefully received. I have several tables and dressers I’ve gotten from my parents, just like my mom is the happy recipient of my hand-me-down Kizik sneakers. Everyday items without sentimental value are often exchanged among family members, particularly when the recipient has a need and the giver has a good option to offer.
It is trickier when the gifts are not wanted. Your parent may have a sentimental attachment to an item and want it to go to a good home. They may have restrictions on how it is handled even after they give it away. Or it may be something they deem as valuable but that the recipient really doesn’t want. (I’m looking at you, silver-that-needs-polishing.) If you are the intended recipient, you can choose to accept it graciously and then never show it again or you can push back on receiving it. We typically choose the easier path, which means acceptance of small things and rejection of large things.
You may wish to intervene and help other friends and family understand the intent of gifts from your parents. That is the most you should get involved. This information can allow the recipient to decide how to respond. But the details of that response are not your business, even if it hurts your parents’ feelings. If you struggle with this, talk to a therapist.
Preserve in place
Unless there is danger in doing so, your parents should keep their valuables as long as they want. In fact, this is often the smoothest situation, for them to not see what happens to the keepsakes after they leave your parents’ care. Gather the stories, if you choose, and listen to your parents’ wishes. Try not to commit to specific allocation of items after their death, instead listening to and agreeing with the intent (e.g., “remember Grandpa Jimmy’s great barbecue” rather than “keep the old smoker that hasn’t worked for 20 years”).
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Next step
Start a keepsake plan.