Clearing a parent’s house is rarely a tidy job. Somewhere between the loft, the spare room and the garage, most executors find the boxes: old toys, shoeboxes of cards, a dusty train set, a shelf of annuals nobody has read in forty years. It all looks like clutter, and the temptation is to bag it up for the tip or the car boot and move on. Before you do, it is worth pausing, because collectibles are the one category of house contents where families get the value wrong in both directions.
The rule that governs everything is simple. For probate, you declare what an item would realistically fetch on the open market on the day the person died. Not what it cost new. Not the insurance figure. Not what it means to the family. On one side of that rule sits the risk of chasing a tabloid headline and expecting a fortune for a played-with toy. On the other, and this is the one we see catch people out more often, sits the risk of throwing away something genuinely valuable because it looked like junk. This piece walks through seven things we see overlooked again and again.
What actually has to go on the form (and at what value)
Household and personal goods are declared to HMRC on form IHT407 household and personal goods, which is submitted alongside the IHT400. The form covers antiques, jewellery, cars and boats as well as the ordinary furniture and domestic items in a home. Individual items of jewellery worth £1,500 or more have to be listed separately; lower-value bits and pieces can be grouped as a total.
The legal test for what a thing is worth comes from the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 s.160, which defines value as the price the property “might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market at that time”. That is the yardstick for every item below. The fuller question of how you actually arrive at a defensible figure comes at the end. For now, hold onto the phrase open-market value, because it does all the heavy lifting.
1. Boxed and carded vintage toys: Star Wars, Corgi, Dinky, Action Man
If there is one lesson worth taking from years on the rostrum, it is this: with vintage toys, the packaging can be worth more than the toy. A loose figure and the same figure still sealed on its original card are not in the same league. We have watched trays of loose figures make pounds while a single carded example a few lots later makes several hundred.
A real number makes the point better than any rule. A tray of loose Palitoy and Kenner three-and-three-quarter-inch Star Wars figures, the sort of thing that gets scooped into a bin bag, sold for £880 at Potteries Auctions. That is a decent sum for what most families would treat as landfill, and it is a fraction of what a mint carded example of a rare figure can reach. The value drivers are consistent: mint condition with no paint loss, original boxes or intact blister cards, rare early variants, and completeness right down to the tiny weapons and capes that get lost first.
You will have seen the record prices in the press, and they are real, but they sit at the very tip of the market. A 1979 Kenner rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype sold for $1,342,000 at Goldin Auctions, and Ken Goldin described it as “one of the most important action figures in the entire hobby”. That is a factory reject that was saved rather than destroyed, not the norm. Treat headlines like that as the extreme edge, not the going rate for your relative’s collection. If you would like a steadier view of the whole estate, see our guide to house contents valuations.
2. Trading cards: Pokémon, football, Magic: The Gathering
Before any prices make sense, you need to understand grading, because it is the single biggest thing that separates a valuable card from a worthless one. Two companies dominate: PSA and CGC. They inspect a card, certify its condition on a numbered scale, and seal it in a tamper-proof slab with a certificate number. The number is permanent, verifiable proof of condition, which is why a graded card and a raw ungraded card are simply not comparable. The steepest jump in value comes right at the top, between a grade of nine and a perfect ten, where the price can multiply several times over.
That is how a card ends up making headlines. A 1998 Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA 10, once owned by Logan Paul, sold for $16,492,000 at Goldin in an auction that closed in February 2026, a world record for any trading card. It is a thrilling number and completely irrelevant to almost every shoebox of cards we are asked about.
The more useful lesson is that this market moves fast and falls hard. A Base Set Charizard graded PSA 10 that made $493,230 in January 2021 sold for $45,200 in November 2025. Same card, same grade, a fraction of the price a few years on. So value a collection at what it is worth now, not at the peak a headline captured. Two warnings from experience: reproductions are everywhere, and re-sealed or re-weighed packs are a known trick. If a card carries a grading slab, check the certificate number on the grader’s own website before you rely on it.
3. Model railways and die-cast: Hornby, Bassett-Lowke, Märklin, Dinky
Model railways get written off as a dusty hobby with no resale value, and that assumption costs families money. Pre-war tinplate, rare liveries and boxed locomotives can carry real value, and the original box matters as much here as it does with toys. A Bassett-Lowke O-gauge Flying Scotsman sold for £420 at Special Auction Services in January 2026, and at the rarer end an antique Bing tank locomotive with rolling stock made £13,000 at Anderson & Garland in Newcastle. Not every train set is a treasure, but do not assume the box in the loft is worthless before someone who knows the field has looked at it.
4. Comics and annuals: British Beano and Dandy, American key issues
Condition and grading decide comic values, much as they do with cards, so the same caution applies. The British angle is the one most relevant to UK lofts. A Beano #1 from 1938, complete with its free Whoopee Mask gift, sold for £26,000 at Comic Book Postal Auctions in September 2024. The striking part is that the very same copy had sold for £6,820 back in 1999, which shows how far this corner of the market has moved. American key issues make the eye-watering numbers, an Action Comics #1 reached $6,000,000 at Heritage in April 2024, but those are once-in-a-lifetime finds. One practical warning: on early British issues, restoration usually lowers value, so leave any repair decisions to a specialist.
5. Taxidermy and natural history: the one with a legal trap
This is the category that needs the most care, because two things are true at once. Victorian domestic taxidermy by named makers such as Rowland Ward or Peter Spicer is perfectly legal to sell and genuinely collectable. Errol Fuller of Summers Place Auctions has noted that antique taxidermy “no longer represents a threat to the world’s wildlife”, and cases of birds and mammals turn up regularly in the saleroom.
But some specimens cannot lawfully be sold at all, and this is where an executor can get into difficulty without realising it. Under the Ivory Act 2018, dealing in elephant ivory has been prohibited since 6 June 2022, subject only to a narrow set of exemptions, and the ban was extended to hippopotamus, killer whale, narwhal and sperm whale from 28 January 2025. Separately, to sell a specimen of a species listed on Annex A you generally need a valid Article 10 certificate, as set out in the GOV.UK guidance on the Article 10 CITES certificate.
Because there is often no lawful market for these items, the legal position feeds directly into how they should be treated for probate, and the treatment is genuinely nuanced. Do not assume a value in either direction. If you find ivory, a bird of prey, or anything that might be an endangered species, stop and take specialist and legal advice before you sell or declare anything.
6. Retro video games and consoles
Are old games worth checking before the skip?
Yes, and this is a market executors almost never think to check. Sealed and boxed titles are where the value sits, and authentication matters here just as much as it does with cards. A first-production sealed Legend of Zelda graded by CGC realised $288,000 at Heritage in February 2024. As Kenneth Thrower of CGC Video Games put it, expert grading gives buyers “the highest level of confidence when an ultra-rare game like this becomes available”. The same warning applies as elsewhere: fakes and re-sealed games exist, so an ungraded lot from an unverified seller carries real risk. A sealed cartridge in a drawer is worth a proper look before anything goes in the skip.
7. Vintage Lego and other sealed sets
The principle to close on is the cleanest of the lot: sealed and complete drives value, opened and mixed usually does not. The Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon set number 10179 shows the gap plainly. A mint sealed example, still in its original shipping carton, sold for £1,300 at Vectis in August 2023, while an open but complete example made £800 at Auctioneum in December 2023. Same set, hundreds of pounds apart on the strength of an unbroken seal.
Lego is not the only overlooked category worth a second glance. Vinyl records and music memorabilia, fashion dolls like Barbie and Sindy, fountain pens and militaria all turn up in house clearances and all can carry value that gets missed. The habit worth forming is simple: look before you bin.
So what actually goes on the IHT400 and IHT407?
The answer runs down the middle of everything above. Realistic open-market value at the date of death. Not the best-case headline the tabloids printed, not the insurance figure, and not zero just because something looks like junk.
The two-way risk is worth stating plainly, because we see both halves of it constantly. As we have said elsewhere, we regularly see families overvalue household contents by thousands, when in truth once you account for condition, age and resale demand most ordinary items do not hold much value. The most common error of all is using the wrong method entirely. Insurance valuations are typically far higher than resale value, so jewellery insured for £5,000 might only fetch £2,000 to £3,000 if sold, and using that inflated figure can push an estate into paying tax it does not owe. Yet at the same time, the collectibles that could genuinely raise the estate’s value get bagged up for the tip.
The reassuring part is that you rarely need to become an expert yourself. For most items, a few good photographs are enough for a specialist to give you a defensible figure, one you can stand behind if HMRC ever asks how you reached it.
A gentler word for the overwhelmed executor
A house full of a lifetime’s belongings is a lot to face, especially when you are grieving and the paperwork will not wait. Nobody expects you to tell a carded Kenner figure from a later reissue, or a graded card from a raw one, or a legal piece of taxidermy from one that cannot be sold. That is not your job, and getting it wrong is not a failing.
Taking the guesswork off your plate is exactly what we are here for. If it would help, we can value the whole estate through our estate valuation service, so you can get on with everything else that is being asked of you.
FAQ
Do I have to declare old toys and collectibles for probate?
Yes. Toys, cards, comics and similar items are personal possessions and form part of the estate. They go on form IHT407 at their open-market value on the date of death, along with the rest of the household goods. Low-value items can be grouped together, but anything of genuine worth should be identified and valued properly.
My relative’s Star Wars figures were on the news as worth thousands, is mine?
Almost certainly not at those levels. Record prices apply only to ultra-rare items in mint condition, often sealed or professionally graded. A loose, played-with figure is usually worth a fraction of a carded one. Have it looked at before you assume either a fortune or nothing, because the truth for most collections sits well below the headline.
Can I sell collectibles before probate is granted?
It depends partly on your role. As Helen Gowin, Partner in the Private Client Group at SAS Daniels LLP, explains, certain assets can be dealt with without a grant and chattels often fall into that category. Where there is no valid will, personal representatives are administrators whose authority only begins once the Grant of Letters of Administration is issued, so they should be more cautious. Whatever your position, if the estate is near or above the inheritance tax threshold, get a valuation first and keep dated records of anything you sell.
How do I value something if I don’t know what it is?
You photograph it and ask someone who does. For the great majority of items, clear photographs showing condition, any markings and the box or packaging are enough for a specialist to identify the item and give you a realistic figure. You do not need to research it yourself or risk a guess that HMRC could later question.