What will happen to your most cherished possessions when you die? You don’t want to know

September 19, 2026 — 5:30am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

The younger generation doesn’t want our stuff. Sorry, correction. Upon our demise, the children are happy to accept the house, the clapped-out car and the bank account (should there be anything in it) – they are less keen on the furniture, the crockery and the table linen. This is according to a recent report which, while British, rings uncomfortably true.

An auctioneer is quoted in the report: “A lot of the things baby boomers collected and treasured aren’t really worth a huge amount at the moment, and [they are] flooding the market at the same time.”

Jocasta and I are hardly “collectors”. We don’t have a lazy Jackson Pollock in the second bedroom. Jocasta lacks a Louis Vuitton handbag lurking in her top drawer. But surely our stuff is worth something?

The bookshelf we inherited from Jocasta’s father is beautiful, all dark wood and skilful inlays. As is the silver bowl we picked up two decades ago on a holiday in Mexico – probably fake silver, but it looks lovely, sitting there atop Max’s bookshelf. Plus, there are our dining table and chairs, built from Sydney blue gum by some bloke in Kempsey, the timbers so big you risk a hernia whenever you offer someone a seat.

Where will these things go when we die? According to the report: to........

© The Age