A friend’s husband just passed away, and he was a collector of antique musical instruments from around the world, leaving her with lots of this stuff lying around the house.
He bought and sold them on eBay, but his wife has never used eBay and she has no idea what value these things have.
Any ideas what she can do?
I would think that she can find a reputable antique dealer and ask him to sell everything and they can split the profits. Is this a good idea? If yes, how can she find someone who will not rip her off? Also, what’s a fair split of the profits?
She lives near San Francisco, so if you guys know anyone in that area that can help with any of this, any pointers will be greatly appreciated.
Any other approaches to this problem?
Here in Aus you can (for a fee of course) get an antiques appraiser to come and give a valuation for the instruments.
Then, depending upon whether they’re likely to be truly collectable or not, your friend can send them to auction, whereupon the auctioneer pockets something like 10% (if my memory serves me correctly).
Ebay can be a pain in the bum, especially if you don’t know the ‘worth’ of something.
Try searching for “ebay seller” in services in San Francisco Craigslist.
Negotiate a percentage of sales. She can monitor the ebay listings as to not get ripped off. She should try a few items with a few different people to see how well they get along.
ebay is actually a good way of determining what the market value is for stuff like this. So, whatever price she gets for it after putting it up on ebay and accurately describing it, is probably what it is worth. If she has no idea what it is and why it might be collectible or valuable, then putting up an old non-descript violin on ebay is probably not a good idea.
I went through this the year my mom and her partner both died. They had been antique dealers so had piles of weird medical antiques and many, many, many pieces of brass instruments.
We went with an auctioneer that they had done a lot of business with, unfortunately I don’t think he was the best choice. His clientele weren’t really collectors of musical instruments - I think they were pretty much just indiscriminate eBay sellers of whatever they could get on the cheap at auction. Oh well! For better or worse, you only get one chance in life to make mistakes like that.
My advice would be to seek out auctioneers in the Bay Area and find one with a really good reputation who specializes in musical instruments. Ask them to look over the pieces and see if they could sell them. Auctioneers will usually take a percentage price, have her ask them what they charge - do not offer them a 50/50 split.
If the instruments are particularly valuable, you may not want to limit the search to just Bay Area antique dealers, especially given specializations. If, for example, one of the instruments is an antique harpsichord, but the local dealers specialize in string instruments, it might be worth talking to a harpsichord specialist in Chicago.
If the stuff was bought on Ebay she might look into his account and see if she can track down the purchase price. Then she’ll at least have a break even target to shoot for when she sells them.
A local auction house we go to (in Minnesota) charges as follows:
$200.00 & Up=10% per lot
$0-$199.99=$20.00 flat fee per lot
They advertise well and have a good reputation here. I’d recommend finding a similar auction house in their neighborhood.