cleaning out my parents attic
 

Last week I finally cleaned out my parents attic. Since the both died last year I am busy trying to get the house ready to put on the market at some point. The attic has been the final resting place for many things and some of what was left was put up there in 1966 when the bought the house.

Among other things I went through 3 or 4 mostly empty trunks that my grand parents used when they returned to England from China in about 1928; the trunks were used again when they came to the USA in 1957. Most of them had all kinds of stickers saying Cunard Line and White Star Line from the ships. My dad told me that my grandfather had ordered them while in his last post in Beijing from the Montgomery Wards catalog.

In one trunk I found many old newspapers from England. They were special editions of the Times with feature stories on things like King George V Silver Jubilee, his death a year later and several papers and magazines covering the coronation of his son Edward VIII. They are all in pretty amazing shape considering they are around 74 years old and were in an attic that got hot in summer and cold in winter.

You never know what you will find. This was pretty cool.

WoW, I would be interested in anything you had with photos of old rugby matches. Would glad to make a deal for them and pay shipping.

Pretty neat.

My condolences. I still have to clean out my mom's condo and she died a year ago December.

If nothing else, stick those trunks on eBay. There is a good chance they are valuable. Leave the stickers on.

Might as well sell them, the elephants are probably dead by now.

That's a hard thing to do, chris, I know. But it is really interesting finding stuff while you're doing that, and thinking about the history of your family while you're at it. I'd keep it all if I were you.

Definitely keep it all.

Get archive bags for the papers (at a comic book store).

Keep one or two things that mean the most to you; sell the rest on ebay.

Antiques Road Show!!!

Oh cool, do you guys have that too?

One of the most popular shows on PBS.

I used to love watching that :)

I saw a great episode last week...amazing the things people have just laying around that end up being worth something.

I really love the end parts, where they talk to folks who are laughing saying things like "I brought in my great grandmother's emerald brooch...turns out it came from Dollar General and is worth a buck fifty."