Anyone here have to deal with collectibles (sports cards, comics, rare books, art, etc.) in their property division? How did you approach?

My STBXW and I both have a ton — literally thousands of items, impossible to inventory. Almost all acquired during the marriage. Big headache in our settlement talks.

We’ve both done plenty of “flipping” over the years to support our collecting, so we have a decent idea of what many pieces are worth at top dollar. At top dollar “my stuff” (things I’d want to keep that she wouldn’t care about) is worth 5x “her stuff”, and worth low six figures. However, she can generate significant revenue from renting her items, which is harder to estimate, but brings their value closer in line with mine.

Actual money spent on either of our items during the marriage was minimal, especially factoring in proceeds from items that were sold (I.e., the collections basically paid for themselves).

We’d both like to keep our stuff. I’ve argued (validated by my attorney, another attorney, and a couple other collectors I know) that the simplest way to handle is to estimate what we could get from selling all the stuff in a package deal, which would be about 20% of “top dollar.” That’s how much money we’d be working with if a judge ordered the stuff sold and the proceeds split. Numbers end up small enough that I can give her more furniture and a better car and we end up “even” from a property standpoint.

I’ve also pitched the alternative of splitting proceeds from whatever we sell off for the next 2 years. Don’t love this option because it is complicated, likely to lead to arguments, and gives us both an incentive to just not sell stuff.

Naturally, she wants to value my stuff at top dollar and have me buy her out. But that would be insane to me. I never paid “full collector prices,” so I wouldn’t want to now. It would also be impractical for me to do that and then try to sell at top dollar — realistically, it would amount to a decade worth of work on my part, or using a third party who would take about 50% (and still wouldn’t be able to sell all of it).

End of the day, this stuff had been a fun hobby for me for years, but I’d rather liquidate than give up equity/retirement savings just to keep my stuff. And I definitely don’t want the burden of having to sell it off piece by piece as a decade-long 2nd job. I’d sooner just sell the stuff all at once at a wholesale price than either of those other options, but STBXW is complaining that would “rob her” of $10ks of “value.” Or we could just both let one another keep our stuff and move on with life, knowing that the real world value of the collectibles and “full collector value” end up being very different after factoring in effort, time value of money, etc