You could go thru with a roll of masking tape and a marker and just price stuff and sell it yourself. Marking the stuff gets easier after a while as long as you have someone help man the tables of stuff you should be able to do ok. give it a try and then what doesn't sell then donate it.

I'd hold off the litle stuff like jewelry until later and not let someone bamboozle you into letting it go cheap. a jeweler might be able to ive you an idea. DS has had a jeweler take out stones so he could sell as scrapgold on ebay.

Before you do anything try another Estate Sale company. Then if they don't want to do it, explore other options. You could offer all the stuff to a group that does garage sales for fundraising. I'll bet someone will help you out. Good luck.

I would call around to a few places that might be interested in buying the bulk lot. You may not get a lot, but something is better than nothing. I would hang on to the really good stuff and have a sale somewhere, somehow, or sell it on Ebay or get a booth at an antiques mall or something, though.

When I cleaned out MIL's house, I got the biggest dumpster I could, and filled it. We donated tons to food kitchens and shelters. I sold a lot of stuff (cookware, furniture, etc) just out of the house to neighbors and their friends and then we had "the mother of all yard sales" to get rid of what ever good stuff we had left. Pulled in over $2K in one day on that deal. I ebayed the china.

Also, Goodwill MIGHT come and get your furniture and other nice things, you could ask. Good luck. I vowed to pare down too, after that fiasco.

I feel your pain. When my Dad died 5 1/2 years ago we got rid of soooo much stuff. Fortunately my DH enjoyed taking lot of it to the flea market. Then my Mom got rid of some of her stuff but not nearly enough. She has not lived in her house for 2 years and will never be able to go back but she wouldn't let me do anything with it. Now she has decided we can rent it to my best friend. We spent 8 hours there today and only packed up one room! Actually the room had stuff from other rooms from when we had some painting done 2 years ago. I just stuck a bunch of stuff in 2 bedrooms and never did anything about the mess. The other bedroom is worse than this one. We threw out lots of stuff and DH will take some the flea market. I will list the furniture on either a local online forum or Craigs list.

Good luck with getting rid of the "treasures".

Linda

Call an auction company. I'll bet they will do it.

You could take the nicer stuff to a consignment shop, the rest you could put into boxes marked $1.00 or $2.00 per box - the easy way to have a garage sale and the stuff will be GONE! I went to an estate sale like that once - got some great bargins and the lady had her lawn cleared of all of it within a couple hours.

Not sure where you live here in Mo., but auctions go over big it seems. Try an auction company. Would save the jewelry and have a jeweler look at it and appraise it. Costume jewelry sells very well. You may have better stuff than you realize.

Usually people with flea market booths will buy lots of stuff. If it's in boxes let them just give you a bid on a pile. When I first started my thrift shop I would buy yardsale leftovers to stock my shop. If I had a place to store it and lived close enough I would buy it and it would be like Christmas for me. lol

I am not a regular poster, Kat, but this struck home with me. If you think you have any "special" stuff, Google it and see what you come up with.
My concern for you is that, saying "depression", there may be some really valuable things. I am not an expert but look for labels, inscriptions, "made in" (expecially early China - best will not have the word, but some symbols), etc.
Wish I could help more. I have spent some time with things from my GiGi (great grand) and mother's family and I am happy to keep these treasures.
At least get a second opine. Actually if you know a realtor who is trustworthy, he/she could recommend someone. They have to do this regularly for clients.

I watch the show "Cash in the Attic" which finds old unique items in people's homes and sells them at auction. One woman had an old (early 1900's ) jewelry box filled with her Grandmother's jewelry, some costume pieces, some real gold and silver. Guess what? She put the whole thing on auction and only got $100 for the box and jewelry. what a ripoff!

Vintage jewelry must be really big right now. The last two antique shows I went to, they had more booths for that than anything. Wasn't cheap either.

I know someone who had the same problem...and talked to a couple of auction houses and they both wanted $3500 up front for advertising, and I think it was 30% of what the items brought.

I'd have a couple of big yard sales. Place ads and put up good signs and mark things very reasonable. Don't put antique store prices on things and sell it. After you've had a couple of sales, donate the rest or give it away.

It sounds like an overwhelming situation and you just want it GONE, and I can't blame you. I will again suggest calling an auction company.

See if you can find an auctioneer close to you that might do the job.

Here is a link that might be useful: missouri auctioneer listing

"I just know it's probably from the 1940's & most likely costume jewelry."

You may be able to get big bucks for the stuff. Bakelite and Lucite vintage jewelry is quite collectible. Certain styles of the era are popular even it it is not true Bakelite. Google some of the places that sell it online and contact them.

I would try to get another estate sale company in to go through things and see if there are any items worth it to be put up for auction. Do not rely on just that one estate sale company to give you advice.

Way back when..........when my grandfather died, my mother did a bunch of rummage sales. It barely put a dent in the amount of stuff my grandfather had saved like a packrat. (Depression Era guy.) Then, my mom had someone come in to look at the stuff. This auction woman pawed through the stuff and found some valuable stuff that had gone unrecognized. For instance, my grandfather had a shoebox full of pens he had saved. My mom had put 50 cents on it for the rummage sales. No one bought it. The auction woman found a pen in there called *Big Red* from the late '20s and it sold at auction for a LOT of money. (This was before they reissued the reproductions) A little plastic box turned out to be an Art Deco celluloid cigarette holder. $$$$. A can opener was vintage Harley Davidson issue. It was sent to a store out East on consignment and fetched a pretty penny. I could go on and on. My point being that you could have treasure trove of collectibles. If you do not have the time or the knowledge of collectibles, have someone come in to look over the stuff again. There are places who will list things on eBay for you for a percentage of what it sells for.

One persons junk is another man's treasure. My one cousin is always on the lookout at sale for old rusty, vintage tools she uses for decoration. She just cringes when at estate sales she is told "Oh yeah, we had a lot of old tools. They were all rusty and beat up, so we threw them out before the sale."

Some things are only valuable to certain individuals. When my uncle died, there was an old, floor model radio in nice wood cabinet. My brother removed the guts from it and was going to use the nice Art Decor cabinet. Another cousin (who is into vintage radios) went ballistic finding this out, as it turns out the vacuum tubes that were tossed out and hauled away in the dumpster, were valuable to collectors who use them to recondition old radios, and worth waaaaay more that that crappy cabinet was.

BTW, if there is a lot of stuff Goodwill and similar organizations will come to your house to pick everything up. They will give you a receipt for taxes.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the replys, suggestions, advice & mostly support! Thanks so much!

The reason I don't think a yard/garage sale won't work is because I babysit my two sweet granddaughters 3-4 days a week from 7:30am to 6:30pm sometimes later. One is 3 & the other is only 18 mos. I swore I would never want to take care of another living thing after my Mom & Dad, but my DS's company went under & now DDIL had to start working full-time. I just couldn't bear to see the little ones put into daycare, and right now daycare costs would be too high for them to cover, so I've become a GrannyNanny--LOL

Also, we are just a tad bit out of the way. Home lots here are approx. 3 acres so garage/subdivision sales have never gone over very big at all. No one wants to drive from one house to the next.

I might have to put the furniture pieces in our local newspaper. The only drawback to that is that I don't like to be alone when people come to look at stuff. My DH will be doing alot of traveling for his job Mon. thru Fri. especially Sept. thru end of year, so anything would have to be evenings or weekends when he is home. I have 3 indoor sweet kitty furbabies, but they are not much at protection except from mice. And, my one stray feral kitty just likes to attack my feet when I feed him--LOL Talk about biting the hand that feeds you--the little ingrate. ;)

And, Sadly, with so many people having to go thru foreclosures & selling their homes etc. moving sales are getting to be fairly common too.

Anyway, thanks again for the responses & all the shoulders to cry on. I will consider my options & look at the links too.
Blessings ~~ katclaws

I go to a lot of yard sales and I do not like to go to ones in subdivisions. For one thing, the newer houses have less stuff that I am interested in. However, I don't blame you for not wanting to have a yard sale. I won't have them either because I live out in the country and I don't want strangers coming to my house, especially since I am alone so much.

I'd call around and try to find someone to buy the whole lot of it.

If you do an auction, take it to a weekly auction type place, don't have one specifically for your stuff, or they will charge you a high price for advertising.

Oh man - do I get that. We had to clean out my
Mom & Dad's place when they passed. I am guessing
they still had just about everything that they had ever
had.

I promised right then and there - I wasn't leaving that
kind of a mess for anyone. I have pared right down
to bare minimum and I have the most empty basement I
have ever had. Don't miss a single thing either.