Okay, having gotten the papers and information and rate structure from the Valuator Guy, we can now say authoritatively that it's going to cost us as much or more to have Mom's stuff valued as it's actually worth.*

This is a problem.

I mean, it's not like we want to just throw the stuff away, okay? But the VG's list of charges made it pretty clear that we're going to wind up paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $800-$1000. Leaving aside the fact that neither of us really has $1000 to spare at the moment, this strikes me as quite a racket.

He charges you $100/hour for research to figure out if what you have is worth anything? Excuse me? Am I not hiring him as an expert and do I not expect him to know about things? I can look stuff up online or get library books and do research, without his assistance.

I'm not sure what we're going to wind up doing. I still think taking the coins in to RMC is a good idea and plan to do that next week. I'm betting we can take some of the other stuff in to one of the local "antique malls" and get someone there to take them on consignment or something.

I'm going to think about that for a while.

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* Leaving aside the highly unlikely possibility that there's some kind of buried treasure in it all.