I don't have a lot of Nihonto. I do have a very decent WW2 collection and it's mostly going to my son (probably everything else as well). He takes good care of things and he's a good kid. But that's a LONG way off for both of us. He's 14 and I'm 36. Luckily we both have the same taste in things. I started out collecting when I was younger than him and in that time I've met a lot of collectors that were not so fortunate. Often it seems the kids actually dislike their fathers collection or don't care about it. I had a friend who was a very advanced M1 carbine collector who passed away about 6 years ago and only one of his son's was even slightly interested in his collection and from what I understand only the monetary aspect of it. He sold off the collection which is fine. Probably for the best I know his father would be happy he got something for it and that his carbine's ended up with good homes. However because he didn't understand the subject or have any respect for it he had all the parts including stocks hauled off to the dump. His father would be rolling in his grave if he knew his parts all ended up in the trash. He cared more about some of those parts then he did about entire rifles. Things like this have lead to some collectors I know attaching tags to items in their collection with instructions on where it should end up or how much it should be sold for in the event of their passing. Seems a bit morbid to me but it gives them piece of mind. One friend who probably has a very extensive GWOT collection said he plans to appoint a friend to oversee his collection when he passes. Some items he wants to go to curtain people some items he wants sold and the money to go to his family and some he wants given to younger collectors that show potential. There's a lot of ways to handle it but if I was in the position where I didn't have anyone to leave it to I think this would be the way I would want it to go as well.
