In today’s video, we are going to be discussing how to handle if more than one individual inherits an award like an Olympic medal.
The Winter Olympics just finished. That means there will be 109 sets of medals awarded in the last few weeks. That’s 327 when you count gold, silver and bronze.
What would happen if one of our clients inherited an Olympic medal that a deceased loved and earned? Or an Oscar award or a Heisman trophy?
What do all these have in common besides reflecting some pretty serious achievement?
They, and any other award or trophy, represent some potential problems when inherited. If only one person inherits such an item, no problem. That beneficiary can choose to keep it or sell it or whatever.
If, however, more than one person inherits an item and the beneficiaries want to keep it, it’s not like you can just split it up. The family therefore has to decide who gets it.
Also, if such an item is part of a whole bunch of stuff that multiple people are inheriting, you need to make sure that everyone is getting a fair share.
That would raise the question of how much that Olympic medal or Oscar or Heisman would get. You see, not every award is created equal. Well, they are but they don’t stay that way.
Strictly speaking, given the market rate for its material, an Olympic gold medal is currently worth around $810. But that doesn’t take into account how much a particular medal would fetch at a sale.
One of the gold medals that Michael Phelps won in the 2004 Summer Olympics is certainly worth a lot more than many of the others earned that same year.
And it’s not like medals or trophies are sold all that often. Even if they were, each one has its own value based on the winner and/or history behind the win.
For example, OJ Simpson’s Heisman trophy sold at auction for $255,000 but I think we can all agree that it came with a history that few others do.
When we have a client who inherits a unique item, we make sure to get an expert with that type of item to either give a valuation or auction it.
