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Antiques & Collectibles

Estate tag sale or auction?

jewelisfabulous

5 years ago

Antiques and collectibles expert and author, Harry Rinker, states that sellers in an area where auctions are common should not attempt a tag sale and vice versa. Do you agree? Which do you prefer?

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Comments (8)

User
5 years ago
I prefer the estate sale -- you can come, look, see the price and go. With an auction it's a crap shoot. Every auction I've been to, what I want is almost always the last to sell and often it starts above my max bid!!!! So a wasted day. Or not, my car is usually full of cheap things I bid on while I waited -- LOL! But the bargains are at those auctions. My $200 china cabinet -- my $25 sterling to name but two!
hounds_x_two
5 years ago
They both do very well in this area, so I don’t agree! I enjoy both. There is a successful Antiques Auction company and there are several Estate/Tag Sale businesses, along with the occasional private sales.
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Thirteen years ago my mother suddenly died and I was left with a 3,000 square foot house that she had inherited from her parents. It was absolutely loaded with very fine furniture and every conceivable antique, valuables, paintings, clothing, jewelry, etc. Here's how I handled it. The local estate sale pro came and told me she would do the sale for 25% of the gross. I decided against giving up control over pricing and giving such a big "cut" to that woman. I had a cousin who is very familiar with estate sales, so I asked her to help me. It took me 7 weeks, working 10+ hours a day, 7 days a week, to organize for the sale. The cousin helped me for about 20 hours during that period, she was key because I had no idea how to price things. She had these thick books about antiques that helped us with pricing. My brother and I chose all the furniture and items we wanted to keep and we put these in bedrooms, which were off-limits to people coming into the house. We started with local used furniture and antique dealers, who were invited to come to the house to buy - that took several days. We then had a word-of-mouth estate sale every day for a week, then advertised in the local paper for another week. Finally, we had garage sale type items left and we conducted that sale on a weekend. The following week I had the movers come and pack shipments to the 2 cities where my brother and I live. I donated the remainder of the items, keeping careful records for the tax writeoff. The proceeds from the sales were $18,000, moving costs were $6,000, so we were very successful. I gave several valuable items to my helpful cousin (worth $1,000 at least and they were sentimental things that she wanted and chose) and I paid her $700 for her help. I also gave some items to my mother's friends, they chose items they wanted. I always had at least two people present during the estate sale days and we watched people like hawks. We had no theft, but we only let a few people in the house at a time and they were confined to the living and dining rooms. I had more help for the garage sale days and those were the most stressful, but by then there weren't any especially valuable items left to steal. Final thoughts would be that, if you do the sale yourself, sorting things out will take more time than you think. Unless you know how to price things, you will be at a real disadvantage. Mark every single item with a price and put signage on anything "not for sale." You can phone local used furniture stores and antique dealers to give them "first pick." Make sure you have 1-2 other people in the house to help, watch the people who come to make sure they don't switch tags or pocket small items. Good luck with your decision and the task ahead.
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Annie is right about the etiquette. You may already know every bit of this, but here goes: Usually, if you are considering something, don't pick it up and carry it around unless you intend to buy it. If your hand is resting on something, you've claimed it until you decide. If you pick things up to examine them, put them back exactly as you found them. If you want a price reduction, ask gently if the seller can do any better, or if that is his/her best price. Never say "That's too much" or "That's not worth it." Just say, 'Thank you." The nicer you are, the more likely it is that you'll get a reduction. If you take cloth bags with you to carry your purchases in, try to keep them in your bag or pocketbook until you need them. It's sad to say, but it makes sellers a little wary if you are carrying a giant sack around. You'd be astonished at how many small things can disappear. Love, Your mother.
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Most basic things already said. My own experience? Some are wonderful and will not only get your adrenalin up and send you home with some things not available anywhere else, but will also give you the chance to see the insides of beautiful old homes in your area. I have bought lovely old mirrors, patio furniture, prints, dishes, and even basic pots & pans at estate sales. These can be put on by the family and friends, or by an antique store or company. And even though some complain about higher prices by a company-run sale, they are usually very well organized, with numbers given out at the door one hour before sale begins and orderly entry. They have change and they have 'docents' in each room to facilitate your purchase, as well as to answer questions. On the flip side, as some Californios already mentioned, anyone can put in an ad and call it an estate sale. If I decide to move and sell a lot of my furniture to cut down on having to move it, I might list it as an estate sale. I see nothing wrong with that. If I go to a sale and I find a great old chair or a dresser or even some yard equipment that the seller doesn't want to take with them, I don't care what they call it. Here's my check/I'll go pull up my truck! But also, they can be way over-priced, ill-run, and a free-for-all that can be frightening, as the lady with the Coach handbag and diamond earrings starts fighting with the lady in the sweats and athletic shoes over the crystal chandelier. People sometimes lose their decency in their lust to get a deal. Come early, wear comfortable clothes, put your money in your pocket (so you don't struggle with your purse or worse--knock something off a table with your purse as someone bumps you) and maybe carry a cloth tote for small items. Keep your sense of humor, be prepared to make a quick decision, have a plan for pick-up if you find something big, and have checks as well as enough cash to do what you need to do. If you find something you want, pick it up. Or pull the tag and take it straight to the cashier so no one else gets that antique lamp while you are wandering around. But do go. Try it. Make your own decision about whether it's fun or infuriating. Red
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"Leaving your family with a mess you have created is very thoughtless and unfair." I'm in this club, too, and based on what my family and I had to deal with after my parents died, I'm not doing this to my kids, either. Plus I just don't want to live like that, surrounded by stuff I no longer want or use. For us it was complicated by the fact that my parents lived on the opposite coast. They were more packrats than hoarders, with a nice apartment and some very nice things, most of which they never used any more. But 40 years worth of stuff in closets and drawers and cupboards adds up. It was a long and complicated affair to make arrangements to travel to clean out their place. Further complicated by the fact that it was a rental, so the landlord was breathing down our necks and not at all understanding of the time and distance constraints. And it was over the holidays and we had been away sorting out their stuff (ie hauling it away by the truckload) from their vacation home. Far far away. My husband and I are incredibly lucky we're self-employed, because we could make our own schedules (up to a point); any employer would have fired us that year. But we lost out on work/$$ and had to impose on my elderly inlaws to look after our own things while we were away so long. We took as much of the good stuff as we could in a trailer. But most of it wasn't to our taste or there wasn't room for it. Thank goodness for a Goodwill just a block away, and three willing kids (ours) to help haul stuff over there. Really, with a "garbage room" on each floor of the building, and the Goodwill on the way to the subway station not to mention a maid who would have been happy for the shoes and purses etc., my parents could have been disposing of a bag of stuff a week on the way to work for years and not been in this situation. A friend told me that before her father died in his 90s, he started giving things away. So that by the time he died, he was down to a bed, table, chair, one plate, one bowl, one fork, etc., some favorite books, the television, and so on. He transferred the deed to land he owned to his daughter. All very Thoreauvian, and very selfless. She said it took her less than a week to deal with his house and estate. Sigh... All a huge reminder for me of what NOT to do, including not waiting until the very last minute, and a good lesson for my kids, too. And though I've always been a steady declutterer (though I like my pretty things, too), I became even steadier after returning from that first trip. For what it's worth, I've never bothered with garage sales. Anything in decent shape goes to Goodwill, which is faster, easier, and benefits others...
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Helen
5 years ago
I think it depends on what is being sold.

In my personal experience of liquidating my parents' home, auctions are really only interested in higher end pieces. If you have some of those, they can be individually placed with an auction house.

A lot of antiques and collectibles have very little value in today's market because no one is interested in them.
jewelisfabulous
Original Author
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Just to clarify, the auctions I'm referring to are the kind where everyday household items and furniture are placed in the seller's yard or on a flatbed in boxes and attendees bid to an auctioneer (quite unlike a Sotheby's or Christie's auction).
pudgeder
5 years ago
I love to go to those kinds of auctions, Jewel. In my area, we have both. People DO have interest in the antiques, just not as many as it used to be. The auctions need to be well advertised. There can still be some pretty heated bidding wars in a live auction.

Most auction companies (not referring to Sotheby's or Christie's) will
take 15 - 20% off the top. That is usually negotiable. Some will charge
a "buyer's fee" anywhere from 3 -10% on top of the bidding price.

I also go to garage/tag/estate sales. Having conducted a few, they are a LOT of work!
maifleur01
5 years ago
The question for me is do you want to get rid of everything without a lot of work. Auctions and Estate Sales companies can get rid of everything. Tag Sales you will be left with a bunch of leftovers. I agree with the comment about using a consignment to an dealer if you have any high end things. I would however have someone unknown to the consignment house visit to see if the items are so over priced that no one will purchase. A place here was doing that then buying the items cheap the selling at the price they should have been labeled in the first place. If some things have really high labels and most in the shop are close to what most would pay for them is a clue that this may be happening. I have also seen this at Estate Sales.
jewelisfabulous
Original Author
5 years ago
It's interesting how the name of things is different in various parts of the country. In my area, Estate Tag is the same thing and run by a company. A garage sale is not called a tag sale and is run by the homeowner/seller.

We definitely have at least one Estate Tag company that way overprices items as you've observed. I imagine those sellers have a ton leftover, which would be annoying as heck to deal with.
maifleur01
5 years ago
jewelis what I saw at the estate sale of a friend who had a lot of nice things was that the overpriced stuff suddenly was being sold to friends of the estate sale company on the last day of the sale. Probably $20+K of furniture alone for less than $500. Some estate sale companies guarantee to take anything that is not sold and "donate" it. I had been looking at furniture about that time and knew what the prices should be once the markup in stores was removed. This is why when someone that I know is thinking about doing this I suggest that they visit a couple of the companies sales before signing a contract. While there are ethical companies my friend did not select one. I never told her because I knew she had debated between donation and selling but it opened my eyes.

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