Selling my dads top of the line system

My dad was a musician, and I grew up in the studio. He died when I was 17. I took all his gear to a consignment shop, which closed down, and I never saw or heard anything of it again. I regret it deeply. I wish I could’ve kept it and shared with my son. 

I totally agree with your strategy to use the funds from your dad's system to pay for your kid's education. A system like your dad's doesn't fit the lifestyle of a family with 3 young children and you would likely have to pack it up and put it in storage. For the next 17 years or so you won't even have time to listen to it. If you kept it in the house you would either have to put it in locked room or constantly worry that little peanut butter and jelly covered fingers will reek havoc. I wonder how much one of those Revel woofers cost? A much better tribute to your father will be to play music in your home as they grow up and to model an appreciation and respect for a variety of recordings.

Regarding $1k+ speaker cables, I'm not sure it's "normal" but it's not unusual for a serious audiophile. This underscores my previous point. Fancy speaker cables probably don't have an emotional connection with you. When it comes to preserving your dad's memory for your children I'm guessing there are lots of things that will have more meaning than his stereo. An expensive audio system is only one small slice of who your dad was and it sounds like you will keep a few pieces as mementos.

You have your hands full for the next couple decades. You will be sending your dad's gear to good homes and you can use the money for an important purpose. Your dad raised a good son.

This may have been already mentioned, but a website called Audiogon (audiogon.com) has a service called "BlueBook".  It requires a subscription and costs $9.95 a month.  It records the sale price of all gear sold on their site, going back to the late '90's.  You can lookup the brand, then the type, then the model number for the gear you are selling.  For most gear you can get data base on actual transactions.  If the gear has no transactions, they sometime "guess" based on other similar items.  These prices can serve as starting points for online selling, whether on Audiogon itself, free sites such as Audiomart, or by the old man himself, eBay.

You could also pay a lot less to use the Audiogon Blue book - 24 hours is $4.99?  I think.  Check it out.