We Brits are fairly sentimental as a nation; we adore our pets, we’re nostalgic about past sporting glories, and we endlessly search for pictures of kittens on the internet. But how sentimental are we when it comes to our family…?
Vintage jewellery retailer William May wanted to find out, and conducted a survey of 2,000 of us to find out whether we could put a price on a treasured family heirloom. Would we be willing to part with that Victorian brooch handed down by Great Aunt Lizzie, or that rather dull landscape painting we inherited from Grandpa Albert? Or could we just callously flog it, if it meant a bit of extra cash?
Well, it seems we all have our price, and on average, the minimum we’d accept for a family heirloom is £441.76. Perhaps that’s no real surprise, considering that if something is just sitting around gathering dust in our attic, or it isn’t particularly attractive or useful, the lure of making some money from it that we can use to help fund our lifestyle is too great.
However, the most unsentimental part of the UK turned out to be Wales; they’d be prepared to accept just £279.84 to part with a piece of family history! Second least sentimental region was the North West, where the minimum they’d accept is £363.21. However, the part of the UK that places the highest price on sentiment and nostalgia is Northern Ireland, who wouldn’t kiss goodbye to a dusty old artefact for less than £595.33.
To find out how your region compares, check out this informative infographic created by our friends over at William May!
It can be tempting to want to sell something off which came from someone who has long departed the family, so it can benefit the current family. And with the cost of living so high, and treats so hard to save up for, you can hardly blame people.
East Midlanders would be most likely to sell their family heirlooms to pay for a well-deserved holiday; South Westerners would use the cash for a deposit for a new house; and those in Yorkshire and the Humber would put the money they made towards a wedding.
The survey also found that while some of us may indeed consider ourselves sentimental, the lure of having some disposable income is too great for over half of us: 56% of Brits admit they just wouldn’t feel guilty about selling off an heirloom.
When broken down by gender, interestingly it seems men are much more likely to feel bad about it, with 47% of them admitting they would feel guilty, compared to just 40% of women.
Almost a third of risk-taking Brits also said that they would consider selling a family heirloom without confirming with their families that it was ok to do so – which may result in a few family feuds down the line! But, hearteningly, 44% of sentimental Brits say that they have considered investing in a piece of jewellery so that it may be passed down as an heirloom to their future generations. Who hopefully won’t end up selling it.
‘It’s perhaps no real surprise that when there’s a choice between having cash in your hand to spend on something useful, or having an old object just sitting around, people would rather make money off a family heirloom,’ said a spokesperson from William May. ‘However, certain things, like jewellery, can of course still be used and repurposed – gems can be reset, rings can be resized – to hopefully be enjoyed by a new generation. And vintage jewellery is very fashionable!’
