On Sunday, 5 February 2017 19:37:07 UTC+1, RichA wrote:
On Saturday, 4 February 2017 01:50:47 UTC-5, Chris.B wrote:

Surviving families are rarely equipped to place any value on a specialized collection.

Because going to Ebay and typing in a name is too hard?

Totally over-simplistic nonsense, I'm afraid.

I doubt there are 100 people alive who can positively identify and value many private collections.
Many avid "collectors" don't have the funds to afford even the most common examples within some 'disciplines.'
Not everybody collects baseball cards and I'd use them for firelighters.
That's the thing about collections. One man's obsession is another long yawn.

Many interesting collections are no more than scrap to the families or elderly wives who inherit them.
Take the simplest example: Somebody who collects telephone exchange apparatus from the past.
It probably looks like badly worn, re-painted scrap to most people.
It all weighs a ton and may have fragile glass doors and solid hardwood cases.
To the collector it is priceless because it captures a forgotten technology.
How do you value it or package it to dump it on eBay to an absolutely tiny global market?
The expert collector has passed on with only his tatty library of repair guides and notes as an impenetrable guide.
The museums don't have the funds, the display space, nor remotely the public interest to display such items.
Even a unique collection of books on some completely obscure subject may not engender any interest on eBay.
The cost of global dispersion would be crippling.

Perhaps there should be virtual [online] museums for collectors to upload 3D images and data for posterity?
Blogs certainly don't cut it and may have a vanishingly small readership.
People complain about the size of the images when they have a slow connection.
Once the blog owner passes on the unique insight into a forgotten technology goes with him.
The blog is not maintained so there is nothing new to excite other collectors.
You can't take it with you was never more true than with a collector's lifetime obsession.