Heirlooms rant

[steadyrollingman]

I am sure that most people in this site would regard such early family photos as priceless and yet many families apparently see them as worthless junk.

When I hear of photos being found in a skip (like that Bradford collection recently) it really makes my blood boil...

[jinks]

Difficult one - could I have parted with My Grandmother's homemade quilt - NO, but the objects i have from My Grandmother are 'sentimental' to me - A brass boar ashtray that I remember seeing in her house and painting my Dad did of My Grandparent's Farm when they retired from Farming. I did manage to offload two oil paintings to my Auntie  they had no sentimental value to me in fact I don't even remember them on the wall! There's thing that I wish I had (and seen) but obviously things are shared with different descendants - The oil Paintings of My Great-Great Grandparents and the commemorative flagon that belonged to another Great-Great-Great Grandparent when they had a public house. I hope they are still in the family somewhere both people that had these items have now passed.     

[steadyrollingman]

I can only DREAM of oil paintings!

[jinks]

I didn't know of their existence until My Great Aunt showed me! so anything is possible.

[steadyrollingman]

It's a long shot but have you checked the National Portrait Gallery collection on Ancestry?

[louisa maud]

I know my son in law won't do what I did when my mother died, I brought things home that my mother said was worth money, books for instance, well they might be old but books get dirty and I don't mean content, I still have them as I can hear my mother saying "don't throw them away" there were other things as well, I do try to de-clutter, my daughter has asked me to put sticky labels on things in my glass cabinet , she will keep them if they belonged to my parents but it really is a job, I don't want numerous skips outside my door getting rid of what is deemed at the time to be junk, my daughter tells me tools go in an instant at boot sales, well she can do that job, I don't like boot sales
Photos, what do we do with them, I have stacks sent to me by a cousin who didn't know who they were, I don't know either, I don't really want to throw them away but I might have to, shown them to various family members , no one wanted them or knew who they were

Louisa Maud

[Andrew Tarr]

Photos, what do we do with them, I have stacks sent to me by a cousin who didn't know who they were, I don't know either, I don't really want to throw them away but I might have to, shown them to various family members , no one wanted them or knew who they were

If you have made all possible enquiries, I personally would take a last look and get rid.  However there are some people who like to collect them regardless, so you may be able to find an interested taker ... 

[sonofthom]

If you don't want old photos at least put them on EBay as a job lot and  allow collectors to save them. The interest in old photos tends to be particularly in relation to Victorian and Edwardian photographs. Later family "snaps" are usually of much less interest to collectors, unless the subject matter is particularly collectable, with older railway photos, for example, being very saleable.

[Viktoria]

It really upsets and yes,angers me when war medals are sold, any war but especially the First World War,not just those for gallantry ,the General Service medals all soldiers got .
One hour in a trench ,in mud and filth , the unburied dead all around - ,,shells,bullets,gas coming at you ,cold,wet ,frightened and scared you will not be up to going over the top ,just one hour of that deserved ten medals.
Then if they survived— what they returned to - the Great Depression of the twenties and thirties.
To sell those !,they take up no room at all,it truly does upset me and shows a level of ignorance and insensitivity in the sellers that ought to be
prosecutable !
Viktoria.