In my humble opinion

Newsflash! Nobody wants your stuff

By JONATHAN CHARLES FOX
Posted 3/30/22

As a general rule, I prefer to think of myself as somewhat clever, or if nothing else, original. Therefore, I usually go online to make sure other writers have not used a title I might have in mind. …

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In my humble opinion

Newsflash! Nobody wants your stuff

Posted

As a general rule, I prefer to think of myself as somewhat clever, or if nothing else, original. Therefore, I usually go online to make sure other writers have not used a title I might have in mind. But when I looked up “Nobody wants your stuff” as a headline, dozens—maybe hundreds—of articles named the same popped up. Although the information is just dawning on me, apparently plenty has been said on the subject. So I added the word “newsflash” to make it mine.

If you follow my weekly adventures with Dharma the Wonder Dog here in the pages of the award-winning River  Reporter, then you know I’ve recently been to a funeral, sat Shiva (Jewish mourning) with relatives, been to a cemetery in Binghamton and buried my 94-year-old aunt Marcia there just a week or two ago.

Being in her apartment brought up a lot of memories, looking at all of her tchotchkes and old photos, and questioning why she left me an antique cameo, which is defined on the Google as “a brooch-type of carved jewelry which was very popular during the 19th and early 20th century and pinned to [ladies’] garments with a loop of metal or a ribbon. Typically,” the description concludes, “a cameo brooch is for a woman.” And worn by women, I might add.

Puzzled, I guess I appreciated the sentiment, but unless I find out it’s a priceless heirloom (which sounds iffy, IMHO) I have no sentimental attachment to it, no memory of it,  and (TBH) don’t even want it, much less know what to do with it.

While at the cemetery, I couldn’t help but notice a gargantuan monument emblazoned with the name FOX on it, and not just some generic stone, but that of my paternal grandparents. It suddenly dawned on me that I’m the last male Fox in my family and when I got home, took a look around and sighed. “Nobody wants my stuff,” I murmured to the dog.

I have no real heirs to speak of and everything I own is described somewhere in these other writers’ articles as being unwanted, unclaimed and unloved by a future generation that doesn’t even exist.

“So please forgive the morbidity,” Forbes Magazine contributor Richard Eisenberg wrote, “but if you’re lucky enough to still have one or more parents alive, it would be wise to start figuring out what you’ll do with their furniture, china, crystal, flatware, jewelry, artwork and tchotchkes [there’s that word again!] when the mournful time comes.”

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted this sad issue.

“Are you one of the many people who have been carefully amassing, polishing and preserving all kinds of collections for posterity?” the article asked. “Here is some really bad news—nobody wants it but you! As one furniture dealer, speaking about early-20th century goods, commented, ‘It’s never coming back.’”

A piece I read at Topretirements.com stated that  “It is very hard for people to part with objects that represent emotional or sentimental ties with the past. Many people develop feelings of guilt about losing objects tied to their ancestors, while others go into denial.” I think they mean me.

Another article on the NextAvenue.org blog went into detail, which basically amounted to a description of the contents of my home. According to them, “nobody wants “glass and ceramic figurines. Way too old-fashioned and fussy today.”  God help me. In addition, silver-plate (uh-huh) and china (I have my mother’s) were on the list. “Millennials aren’t interested in polishing silver or storing multiple china sets.” Oy.

While I may not have a collection of  “chickens, bells, shoes, flowers, bees, trolls, ladies in big gowns, pirates, monks, figures on steins, dogs, horses, pigs, cars and babies” as Marketwatch warns against, I do have far too many things with foxes on them, all of which have been given to me over a lifetime, unasked for and (TBH) generally unwanted. I know my name. No need to be cutesy about it. And again, I’m the last in the line.

“Even though they are filled with memories of those who gave them to you, they have no market value. And they do not fit into the Zen-like tranquil aesthetic of a 20- or 30-something’s home.” Great.

Also on every list: “Heavy, dark, antique furniture.” I am so screwed. Searching frantically for a way out of this mess I continued my research because even the sainted Barbara Fox said “I don’t care what you do with it. I’ll be dead.” Thanks, Mom.

The good news? There is still a market for this sort of furniture, etc; and that market, I read somewhere, is “in the fashionable areas of the U.S.—most often the secondhand shop. You’ll receive less than a quarter of the purchase price if you sell on consignment in one. Unless your furniture is midcentury modern [it is definitely not] there’s a good chance you will have to pay someone to take it off your hands.” To say the least, I’m a little overwhelmed scanning the contents of Camp Fox, because I’m fairly sure that nobody wants my stuff.

What to do about your stuff

There are a variety of things you can do, once you get over the grief you might have that no one wants your stuff. Here are some of the best suggestions I’ve come across:

Get started planning now, and don’t add any more to the collections. (Like antique ladies’ pins?) The worst thing you can do is to burden your heirs (I’m so sorry) with disposing of stuff they don’t like and know nothing about.

Find out what is worth. You can search online, hire an appraiser, or go to an antiques dealer. That process might find you some outlets.

Hire a service to liquidate it. Conduct an estate sale, put it on consignment, or sell it on eBay. Novaliquidation.com is the type of company that will help you get rid of everything at once. I bought a dumb book to help organize my thoughts and will make some notes about particular items that I would like to bequeath to particular people, but they probably won’t care, won’t want it, or both. IMHO. #whatwouldbarbarafoxsay

Fun Fact: A tchotchke is a small, cheap ornamental trinket or souvenir; a knickknack. Tchotchke is taken from Yiddish, a dialect of German-based on Hebrew. It has several English spellings, including chotchke, tchachke and chachki.

tchotchke, antiques, stuff, sentimental objects, furniture

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