I was wondering about the following, and I welcome views and responses from you.

Where do old go sets go to?
I mean, go is mainly played by older people. What if a go player with a nice go set dies? Is it sold? Is it stored? Is it scrapped?

I am afraid many beautiful go sets are just disposed of or scrapped because heirs do not know what do with it. Please tell me I am wrong.

As far as I can tell, old go sets end up on Ebay being called Vintage. Not too long ago I bought an old folding board (possibly kaya) off Ebay for more than I would have been willing to spend for a new one, just because it felt like it had history. (And was possibly kaya. )

I would imagine that there's as many answers to this question as there is to "what happens to one's money when they die?" Only the government doesn't collect gobans....

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

The government (any government) will collect money, but also - if circumstances warrant so - gobans. Either dead or alive.
Governments have possessed stranger items than gobans.

If one dies, both money and goban go to the heirs. Heirs use the money. What do they do with the gobans?

There is a general prejudice in Japan against used items so really high quality go equipment in excellent shape can be bought used on Japanese auction sites. The problem is getting it shipped to anothr country. There are services in Japan that will take care of that for a fee.

to OP: By the way, I think your folding board is very likely not genuine kaya, probably shin kaya (spruce, "imitation" kaya). Many people try to sell used go boards made of spruce as kaya (with or without the "possibly") on internet sites because the Japanese name for the material has "kaya" as part of it.

I believe T Mark Hall's rather fine old board went to the British Museum.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it seems even very damaged gobans can be repaired; check out the pictures on this page!

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.shopping.yahoo.co.jp%2Fmegumidogosyogi%2Fb8ebc8d7be.html&edit-text=&act=url

Perhaps there is more likelihood of a board being repaired and re-used?

Totally unbelievable!
If that link does not work and/or photos are not shown properly, you may want to look at the original webpage (in Japanese but with original photos) here: http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/megumidogosyogi/c08cbbb8ef2.html.