When my mother died she left behind a rather large collection of collectable dolls — not my thing, and not heirlooms for sure. (They represented I think the first time she finally had disposable income — at like age 60 or so. So she collected these things she liked.)
Regardless, I wasn't about to dump them at a local Goodwill. They meant something to her and I was quite sure she would want them to go to someone who would appreciate them as much as she did — to another doll collector I thought.
The thought of the tediousness of selling them though had me packing them up and storing them first in a storage unit in Morgan Hill for several years — even after I had moved with the wife back to the Midwaste.
A trip out to California in the van-turned-RV though and I finally brought them to Nebraska — first in my garage, then down into the basement. But again they sat for years.
This year I made a kind of resolution to "live more lightly" and so began the process of putting each doll up on eBay.
I came to learn about the dolls as I created little descriptions for the listings, tried to answer the odd question that a potential bidder had. In fact in the end I ended up keeping one of the dolls in memory of my mother. (One doll for some reason I kept coming back to look at — had a hard time imagining selling it because it was so ... stunning.) My daughters also each picked out a doll to keep in memory of grandma.
Yeah, heirlooms, etc. can be a kind of burden. As a parent myself now I make a point to let my girls know that they can toss anything of mine they wish to once I shrug off this mortal coil.