Over Christmas I was privileged to look over a pretty big collection of railwayana and model railway stuff. The model railway stuff seems to be mostly 1950's to late-80s, with literally hundreds of coaches, wagons and locos, whilst the railwayana is just about everything related to railways, UK, and overseas, and ranges from rail chairs (aka scrap metal!) to tickets, signal box gubbins (including a lever and line occupation instruments), works plates, lamps - everything. I did see a few specific collectable items (a lovely condition Blue Pullman, for example), but most of the wagons and coaches are the sort of thing you see for £3-£10 on junk stands at model railway exhibitions. There were some Ratio wooden coaches, and a few coaches by TTR(?), as well as some tinplate stuff in pretty good condition.
The owner died about 5 years ago, and his wife has no real idea how to sell it, but is aware that this stuff has value. What she doesn't want is a barrage of second-hand dealers cherry-picking. She has already been offered £200 for the lot, which she quite rightly refused - there must be several K's worth of stuff, all told. She's nervous that once word gets out about what and where it all is she'll be burgled, so ideally wants it to go in one hit.
So, any ideas? Will auction houses be interested in this sort of thing? Which ones (if any) are reputable, and will be prepared to travel to have a look? How does the process work?