I am in two minds about selling medals once the recipient has died. There's little point in the family keeping the medals if they will just sit in a box in a drawer and never see the light of day. Even selling/donating them to a museum may well mean the same fate; there are drawers full of medals at Hendon that will probably never be on public display. At least if they are sold to a collector, they will be cherished and almost certainly displayed, even if it is to a select number of individuals. Most medal collectors will try and research the recipient to try and put the medals in some sort of context. The story of the medals left to a family may well be lost within a generation or two.