When I discovered that there were so many bitcoin forks, and forks of forks, I realized that I wanted a full collection of them :-) So I got  motivation not only get some money from forks, but also collect forks. It's a kind of irrational motivation, just like collecting physical coins for numismatic purposes.
Do I understand correct that some forks can be claimed solely through their own wallet, and this can be done only provided you have synced the whole blockchain, so this is the very reason why claiming some forks (such forks) takes a lot of time?

This was very helpful in checking in on old wallets and sweeping them to see if they were holding bitcoin when these forks were made.

Still very relevant in 2023! Thank you my friend.

Are you sure this applies to your case? If your funds were just send to a regular Bitcoin address, offline signing with an Electrum-clone is much easier.

I'm not sure. https://bch.info/en/wallets doesn't mention it, and that link came from https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/). I can't easily check what I used, because that means I need to backup and overwrite my spare laptop partition.

I think this is okay.
Note that I wouldn't trust the "official" websites either! Don't risk running that software on your normal computer, Forks were meant to make the creator rich, not you. So keep it offline, and keep it away from your normal system.

Correct. My advice: get rid of them I'd gladly provide my services for this (it's been a while).

You forgot BSV in your list. It's the most annoying one with the shittiest wallet software, but still worth something.

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For privacy: if you link any of your addresses together on a Fork-chain, that's basically the same as linking them on the Bitcoin chain. If you're okay with that, you don't have to worry about it. If you don't want it: keep them separate.

So offline signing in Electrum Forks should work. But you'll need some Forkcoin dust to avoid replay protection. Without that, chances are several of your Forks end up on the wrong chain on your Ledger, and getting them back would require getting the private key out of your Ledger. That involves risks, so just avoid it

By including some dust (a small amount) that only exists on one chain in your Forkcoin transaction, you make sure it can't be replayed on another chain.

The lack of replay protection may mess it up, or insecure wallets could steal your funds. Keeping it offline and signing after receiving some dust is the safe way to go.

It's been a while since you posted about your case (May last year), and it's late here, so I'll read more tomorrow. But the first thing that comes to mind is you may have mined your coins to a public key instead of an address. In that case, Electrum won't show that balance in a watch-only wallet. It will work with the private key, but that means you're dealing with a hot wallet (and I wouldn't trust Fork wallets at all!).

Feel free to give a summary of the current status (all Bitcoins moved to safety already?), I'll reply more tomorrow.

I don't follow much Fork news, so I'm not sure if anything changed, but the lack of replay protection may be a problem for BCH/BSV/eCash. The sure solution is to include Fork dust on only that chain in your transaction.
I don't have a working BSV wallet, for the other 2 I can send you Fork dust. I do however have 2 BSV dust private keys, but the wallets are very shitty so sending it is annoying.

It went up:
BCH: $45k
BSV: $8k
eCash: $5k
BTG: $4k
BCD: $100

BCH and BTG can be stored on Ledger. BSV is the worst to deal with, and selling them is a hassle too. Not many exchanges except them, and the few that accept them shouldn't be trusted with much. So send small chunks only to reduce your risk.

Have you read my post on send-to-pubkey?
Using the full node and downloading the full chain is probably the easiest solution. Take it offline before entering your private key, create the transaction, and wipe it before ever going online again. It may be tiny compared to the Bitcoins you sold, but still no need risking your money in a hot wallet.

They changed the address format, but the old ones are still compatible. It's mainly meant to prevent wrong-chain deposits.

Yes. Any transaction that includes an input that doesn't exist on another chain, can't be replayed elsewhere.

That should be okay if there other Forks have moved already. And that's usually the order in which I move Forkcoins.

Bestchange may show more options (all of them require the same caution).

Yes.

The BCH chain is a lot smaller than Bitcoin.

Dusting the original legacy address is the easiest way, so it also works when you import the private key. But it could be a different address, as long as you include the input.

Since you're using the full node, you could probably just load the wallet.dat and do a rescan.

Sounds good to me. Disclaimer: I haven't verified the URLs, up to you to find the correct one for the real Fork wallet.