\u201cIf you are reading this,\u201d the officer continued, \u201cthen one of my children has done exactly what I feared, and I have already made sure that child cannot keep the collection alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s letter included a complete inventory of every coin, with photographs, purchase receipts, and handwritten notes identifying which pieces were meant for each of us.<\/p>\n
The collection had never been left to Victor by tradition or family name.<\/p>\n
Half was specifically mine.<\/p>\n
The gold piece Victor prized most carried my name beside its catalogue number because Dad remembered I had helped him save for it by giving up my birthday money when I was eleven.<\/p>\n
The bank contacted Victor and demanded that the contents be returned for formal inventory. He claimed he had already moved several coins to a dealer for appraisal.<\/p>\n
That dealer confirmed Victor had attempted to sell them.<\/p>\n
The bank\u2019s legal department preserved the vault logs, while my attorney obtained an order preventing any further transfer. Most of the collection was recovered within days.<\/p>\n
Then the final sentence of Dad\u2019s letter was read:<\/p>\n
\u201cAny child who tries to sell the collection before dividing it as instructed forfeits the right to choose first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victor lost the privilege Dad had originally given him to select his half.<\/p>\n
I chose first.<\/p>\n
I took the gold piece, the blue penny folders, and every coin tied to those Sunday afternoons.<\/p>\n
Victor accused me of breaking the family apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I replied. \u201cDad divided the coins. You tried to take them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believed the family name made the collection his.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s records proved memory belonged equally to both his children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIf you are reading this,\u201d the officer continued, \u201cthen one of my children has done exactly what I feared, and I have already made sure that child… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3627,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions\/3627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}