Inherenting the herd?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by rgregg48

…Are people going to hand down the herd?

Hi rgregg

I'm 72 years old. My 'herd' will be passed on to others when I'm no longer able to play (because of age or issues) and not to make money.

Only one of our sons plays, and so far none of the grandsons. I'm looking at people who play well, and who may need a boost to assist their playing.

I will do so with my wife's support and advice.

Right now, I'm still playing and enjoying my guitars, but my wife and I talk about not only guitars but distributing cameras, lenses, lights etc which can be useful to others. And when I closed my recording studio, I gave a bunch of equipment to a friend who teaches ladies in a prison to write & record blues.

We sold a decent little car for $1 to a friend's granddaughter this year. She needed to get to/from work, and we didn't need a third vehicle.

I have no issues with people selling guitars/gear they inherit, but find they usually think it's worth more than it actually is (and many of us think our gear is more valuable than it is).

[rstaight]

I have 2 nieces that are into music. One is a bass player and has been in a few bands.

The other is a sophomore at Ohio University in the school of music. She is studying to be a band director.

Hopefully they would be interested in them.

[llew]

I have a nephew who plays and my niece's husband plays so I'll let them have whatever they want and the balance (if any?) will go to a couple of guys I play with at church. I like the idea of paying them forward. I've said all along I'm just the care taker of these guitars. Keeping them well played and in good condition for the next generation...

[rstaight]

I was reading through this thread again and I remembered before all of this Covid business the local jams.

There is a gentleman who is 97. He's a fiddle player and plays his dads fiddle.

There is hope that our instruments will be making music after we're gone. And in a small way we will be also.

[llew]

Originally Posted by rstaight

I was reading through this thread again and I remembered before all of this Covid business the local jams.

There is a gentleman who is 97. He's a fiddle player and plays his dads fiddle.

There is hope that our instruments will be making music after we're gone. And in a small way we will be also.

Yep...I like this concept a lot!

[Goat Mick]

This is something that I have been thinking about recently. I don't care what happens to my gigging guitars because those are basically tools and I'll probably thin those out myself when I decide to hang up the gigging lifestyle.

There are two heirloom guitars that do concern me some. My dad's J-45 and the Taylor 710 my wife got me when she was pregnant with our daughter. My daughter doesn't play guitar (and is left handed while I'm right handed) and no grandkids in the foreseeable future. I know my daughter will want to hang onto one or both of those guitars after I'm gone, but this means I'm also going to have to educate her on making sure the guitars are correctly stored and humidified. I know it would break her heart to open the case one day and there were cracks or serious damage to them.

[stormin1155]

I'm a tech/luthier, and I frequently get customers that have inherited guitars from a relative. So far I've not encountered any large "herds"... a half dozen is the most so far. But I've worked on some pretty remarkable inherited instruments... 1917 Gibson mandolin, 1942 J-45, 1963 Martin 00-18... stuff like that.

[mawmow]

I wasn't handed down any. Now, what could MY herd become ?

Should I suddenly pass out, I keep a list of my guitars with market price
so my son could help my widow sell them on the used market.

She could also only as local seller to take them on consignment.

Now, should I live long enough, I would downsize the herd every Spring,
selling the ones I played less during the cold season.

If I end owning less than six, I could leave them to grandchildren...

[KevinH]

Neither of my kids play guitar, though they have played other instruments in the early years. I've encouraged, but neither has yet picked up the guitar bug. Nevertheless I'm hopeful that they'll discover how much fun a guitar can be - at least after the first few months of finger torture.

My plan is to reduce whatever the collection is in the future down to two and suggest they each hang on to one guitar at least until they retire and find time to give it a go. And if I slip away before my collection is trimmed, I'm leaving a document to help them figure out what to do with them. I like ljguitar's idea of giving them to people that would use them.

[bufflehead]

I'm hoping to wear my guitars out before I'm done with them.

[Cameleye]

All of my instruments and accessories will end up with my sons. One is an excellent player, another is pretty good and the other two have children who may someday play. (All my grandchildren were given nice old Harmony ukes a while ago.) I have designated one son to handle distribution.

[archerscreek]

Especially now with the amount of blended families, deceased individuals commonly leave assets to multiple people. If people are planning for dispersal of their assets after death and they have a collection of valuable items like guitars, I would expect most either assign individual items to individual people, leave instructions for the estate to sell them off and disperse the money, or do a combination of the two. So itÂ’s probably rare that any one person will inherit 10 or more expensive guitars.

And remember, when a person is in charge of selling off the assets of a deceased individual, they have to act reasonably or else they can and will get sued by beneficiaries. ThatÂ’s one reason why I doubt we will see expensive guitars going for thousands less than they normally would.

[AllThumbsBruce]

When my dad was in his mid 80's he told me he had always wanted to play guitar, so I bought him a modestly priced guitar for his birthday. He really loved that thing, and, although he never really learned to play, he would get it out and strum a one-finger G with great joy. When he passed a few years later I inherited his guitar. After a while I found I was not playing it so I gave it to a veterans program for troubled vets. Since my Dad was a WWII combat vet himself I thought he would approve.

Of our four kids plus significant others, only my son's wife plays. But maybe the grandkids will. So I have not yet made arrangements for the guitars.

[jrb715]

This will be my son's decision. He started to play in college, he's twenty-five now, and is still more or less a beginner. But he'll get them all: four electrics and ten acoustics--with some pretty nice guitars in the lot. Knowing him, whether he plays them or not (and I think he will), he'll surely keep the Collings with Bill's signatures just to let them age and, maybe, pass them down to his kids.

[fuman]

The older I get, the more weight this thinking carries. I don't want my kids to have to deal with a bunch of stuff. Even if it's really nice stuff. It's a good idea to leave a codicil to your will that explains how to sell instruments and what you estimate their worth to be, if you do NOT have an intended beneficiary. It's also a good idea to talk to your family about it if you have a large amount of gear. One might consider a charitable auction as an option.