genejockey 

Apropos of datlas's cleaning out of his Dad's storage space - when Mrs. GJ got back from SoCal the other day, she brought with her a baggie of various jewelry, which she'd offered to help her friend's family determine the value of. The baggie contained 6 watches, of which 2 were solid 14kt gold, and the other 4 were just trash. Three rings - again, 2 14kt, and one just trash. Some cufflinks with no hallmarks, but I think one pair might have been solid gold, one solid silver, and the other 2 pair just trash.

This is what happens - folks have some valuable pieces among a lot of crap. They knew what was good and what was crap, but then they got old and dotty and/or died, and to the kids it's all just "Mom and Dad's stuff", and often they'll practically give it away, either with a garage/estate sale, or to someone who will offer a single price for the lot. Talking with other watch collectors, you'd find some folks who'd say they were building the collection to leave it to their kids. But you know, kids don't care about or understand their parents' collections of anything. It ends up being stuff to get rid off after they die. I suppose I should not complain, since this is how I got a lot of my watches for so cheap - Dad or Granddad wore them for years but then maybe they stopped working and they couldn't be bothered to get them fixed, and they could get a new watch that kept better time for less than the cost of fixing the old one, so it goes in a drawer, and decades later - well see the first paragraph.