I’m doing this right now… Trying to sell my deceased grandma’s silverware to tide me over until I can find work. Quite a lot of stuff with a relatively popular design. I might even have a pretty rare cheese slicer. I just don’t understand why people buy this stuff, for outrageous prices, only to use it twice in their lifetime.
Never been through something like this, but I have been to garage/estate sales (years ago), and it amazed me how much shit people were actually selling. A lot of this was pure junk. However, what surprised me even more was how much some of this crap was worth, and how much some people would pay for it!
I’ve occasionally caught “Antiques Roadshow” and it’s amusing to see that some of this stuff is virtually worthless, whereas some is worth a lot of $.
What’s interesting even more is they redo some old episodes of Antique Roadshow and show what the prices are for that item are no. Often items are valued for half of what they were worth even 10 years ago.
People just dont want alot of old stuff anymore.
My FIL is close to a hoarder. He has 350 acres up in Michigan. He goes to swap meets and will buy anything he can “get a deal on.” A backhoe. Old driving simulators. Playground equipment. And he NEVER throws anything out, no matter how inexpensive or broken.
When he fills up one outbuilding, he throws up another. 2 serious barns, with double truck doors, probably at least 50’x80’, with several smaller garages/stables/semi-trailers… Keeps talking about how valuable something at the bottom of some pile might be, whereas the rest of us don’t see that a broken strap lawnchair is ever going to be of any value…
We use to play a parlor game, wondering how many dumpsters it would take to empty them after he dies (turns 90 in Jan.) Fortunately, he dicked over my wife and her siblings, in favor of his 2d wife and their kids, so it won’t be our problem!
I have a friend who owns an auction house and also appears on the Roadshow. Business is good for him. I acknowledge that he’s just one guy and maybe the market more broadly is down.
I’m a casual frequenter of flea markets and based on my own experiences prices don’t seem to be moving much. My rule of thumb 20 years ago was that a barrister’s bookcase in good condition was roughly $200/shelf at a flea market, and that seems still true today.
ETA, out of curiosity I just did a quick Craigslist search for barrister’s bookcases and boy are they cheap. Saw a very nice one for just $50.
How do these types of collections get liquidated? Sometimes the guys on “American Pickers” go to a place like this, where there’s endless stuff in the yard and in barn after barn. They usually end up buying an item or two, but the owner seems reluctant to sell anything. (I’m sure a lot of that is for TV). There’s so much stuff, it seems like it would be overwhelming to try to sell it. It doesn’t seem like it would be worth all the effort that would take for the money it would bring in.
There’s an auction house near me that will inspect the contents of outbuildings and storage rooms like this. If they like what they find, they will make a deal with the current owner. The auction house will clean out the building at no cost to the owners, right down to the bare walls. Anything the auction house don’t want goes to the the landfill. Anything they like becomes the property of the auction house and is sold for profit. None of this money goes back to the original owners and all of it is kept as profit by the auction house. The original owners get a clean building and one less headache.
I assume this is a fairly common practice and may well be welcomed by people trying to handle the liquidation of an estate.
I seem to remember that there was a reality TV show about a crew that did exactly this.
Especially if they’re dead.
Well that is the difference. At a flea market you have sellers who want a certain price. On Craigslist you have people just wanting to get rid of stuff. I know an antique dealer and she often buys items dirt cheap off Craigslist or thrift stores and then resells them.
Earlier today, I saw a sign with an arrow pointing to an estate sale as I was driving home, and stopped by. As I was entering, a lady I know was on her way out and told me that there wasn’t much stuff, and she was right; it looked like they had moved out and took what they wanted with them.
Anyway, I did find some things I could use, and left them at the table while I inspected the garage. When I came back, the guys running the sale were leafing through the books I was going to buy and making jokes about them. :rolleyes: Not appropriate behavior by any means, although I did go ahead and buy that stuff.
I had an uncle that collected a lot of stuff, mainly old farm equipment. He died a couple years ago and they finally did the big auction in May. Some of the pieces got bought by museums which is nice.
Apparently didn’t bring in as much money as hoped, but the farm is now a lot less cluttered.
His widow has a ton of handmade stuff. So much she “rotates” the stock from storage to on display 4 times a year at the start of each season. And then probably only a fraction of it gets brought out.
I don’t know what is going to happen to all that. There’s just too much of it and yet it’s all handmade and somewhat personal to the family.
I think in the majority of cases, the heirs/subsequent owners have to pay someone to remove it. Can be an expensive proposition in terms of labor/dumpsters. I’d imagine whatever rate you agreed upon would reflect the cleaner’s ability to scrap/resell anything.
Parts of some of my FIL’s buildings represent the worst you’ve seen on Pickers - tho his house is nice and clean, and some portions of some garages/workshops are usable. He always forgets or is unable to find what he has - so you’ll see a shelf w/ 10 cans of WD-40, or a pile of 20 gas cans… And he always says whatever is in the pile is “antigue” or otherwise valuable. Well, to anyone else’s eyes, it MIGHT have been of some value at some time, but has deteriorates since.
My firm opinion is that the majority of what is in those piles in junk - worth nothing to nobody. But, depending on who you talk to and how they value their time, it might be worth something to them to try to ferret out what value can be pulled out of it. Then they have to figure out where to store it while they try to sell it, how to transport it, how to locate potential buyers, etc…
Yes, of course, but the last time I looked for barrister’s bookcases on Cragslist (three years ago?) the prices were comparable to the $200/shelf price I mentioned above. In fact I didn’t buy one at the time because I didn’t want to spend that much. Now that I see cheap ones…I don’t really have a need.
I love your house! I remember when you were trying to decide what colors to paint it. I love the red and white.
After my father died a his good friend, who is knowledgable about tools, helped my mother with a sale. Dad had tons of tools, from hammers and wrenches up to a big air compressor. And even before the sale his two grandsons, and my two BIL, got toolkits stocked from Dad’s stuff, with lots left over.
Some other items in the house, like canning equipment and other kitchen items were sold, plus one of the two freezers. So some money was made, and Mom insisted that the friend take at least 10% of the sales.
As early as folks arrived on the first day it seems they REALLY like hand tools.
if you’ve got a line on decently made cheap air compressors you can make a killing at a swap meet ……… it was the one thing I was asked about almost hourly in the 4-5 years I worked at the swap meet