Trying to be interesting on estate planning for dealers and collectors is hard...

Let's face it, what I will be talking a week from Saturday at the ANA Convention involves what is least interesting of any topic there: death and taxes. I am afraid that my talk will quickly lose people's attention either because 1) it is too abstract and they do not think it could apply to them, or 2) it is too much "in the weeds" and people get lost.

I am using the example of what we did for John Kittredge to preserve his collection as a concrete introduction to the various concepts, but it is one situation and I am not sure people will relate.

In a nut shell, what a collector, or dealer, in numismatics has to consider is whether the actual ownership of the collection is valuable to him or her, and whether they want to preserve that collection now and into the future. If no, then it is not really an estate planning issue, it is just managing the sale of the collection either during their lifetimes, or at death, and is a perfect solution.

If the ownership is of value, then it is an estate planning issue, and requires a very different approach then traditional estate planning. this is because most collectors or dealers who wish to control the ownership of a collection during their lifetime and after their deaths, as have three concerns that most others do not. These are:

1) Who do I control the ownership of the collection, based on my principles, over time?

2) How can my heirs have access to the expertise and outside capital they need to manage, preserve and grow the collection without risk of losing control? and

3) How can I provide financial security for myself and my family without risking the sale of the collection?

There is no right or wrong answer, since this is based on the personal needs and goals of each client, but each can be done, even for a collection worth less than $200,000 (which John's was).

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