Story about an antique dealer

Continued from yesterday....

My former boss, who liked antiques, told me this story.

There was an antique dealer roaming the countryside, hoping to find antique furniture in a farmer's barn or shed.

He stumbled upon one, and in the process of negotiating a price, he told the farmer "well, that furniture isn't good for anything except firewood". They settled on a price, and the dealer said he would be there the next day to pick it up.

When he returned, he was shocked to find the furniture hacked up. The farmer said "well, you told me it was only good for firewood, so I thought I would help you out".

HA

I found it amusing. Perhaps you will also.

Dealing with dealers at the estate sale

My Mother had Christmas dishes which were given to her about 10 years ago. Not anything from our childhood.

None of us wanted them, so they were up for sale.

A woman came in the 2nd day, and picked them up to buy when I was in another part of the house. When I returned to the cashier table (which my sister was handling), our helper was busily packing up the dishes for this woman.

I thought it was a little odd this woman was happy to just stand out of the way, and even give some instructions on the packing, but not offering to help in any way.

I mean heck, this wasn't a department store, and she got them very cheaply.

She was telling us these were for her mother who lives one state over, about a 5 hour drive.... then something about she might ship them to her, then some
other things, and my radar started going off. Since I had missed the initial conversation, I wasn't sure if I should be wondering about her story or not... not that it really mattered, she paid what they were marked.

However, when they were boxed up, a guy came to the door to help her carry them to their vehicle.

I recognized him as someone who had come in the day before, looked around, and left. He was better dressed than most of the people we were seeing.

An hour or so after he left, and I had time to digest what went on, I told my sister and her friend (our helper) that the woman was a dealer.

They were both shocked, and wanted to know why I thought so.

I found it amusing that the next day, both of them were recounting things the woman said which made them suspicious.

Yea, right.

Well, they are both stay at home Mom's who have home schooled their children, so they are not use to running into people who outright lie to you.

Oh, the really funny thing is I realized later the woman just assumed these dishes are like 40 or 50 years old. The only problem with that, is she will be misrepresenting them to any buyers.

I know someone who has a 2nd home in the area she claims her Mother lives. So, I think I will ask her to put out the word if anyone sees these dishes in an antique store. It's a small world, one never knows.

The dealer is probably telling everyone what rubes we are.

Which reminds me of a joke...

More on the estate sale...

It was interesting running the estate sale, especially after the chaos of the first few hours.

When we opened, of course there was the line at the door, probably 15 people marched in. One woman (who had been to the house days before the sale, offering to "help")
came to the cashier table with lots of Christmas items. As she laid them out, I saw some old Christmas items, which I had not seen on a table.


I asked the woman where she had got the Christmas items, she pointed to a blue tub which was unpacked, labeled in my Mother's handwriting "Christmas Decorations".
I told the woman that item was not for sale, quickly returned it to the storage tub and took the tub out to my car.

When we were setting up I kept saying "I haven't seen the old Christmas ornaments". As my Mother never got rid of anything, I knew there were ornaments from my childhood, which I had seen in recent years.


I have yet to unpack the tub and look at everything, but am quite certain it contains all the missing Christmas items. It will be fun when I do. I remember unpacking them a few years ago, when I put up the tree for my Mom, before her stroke.
She had quit using the old ornaments a long time ago, but never got rid of them, and I remembered then how much fun it was to take the walk down memory lane.

The Estate Sale is Over- Thank God

OMG

We held the estate sale Thursday/Friday/Saturday, which was during spring break (as I suggested).

So, a little, or a lot of whining about my sister. Sorry, but I use this blog to vent.

She has been going to our Mom's house almost every day for the last 2 months.

Most people would have had everything sorted and ready to be priced for sale by then, but of course, not her. She had not even touched the garage, or the 2 outbuildings, claiming that was for our brother's to do. My brother's came last week and moved out all the furniture, cleaned out most of the outbuildings, but didn't really have time to sort through everything in the garage.

So my brother who lives in town came over on Monday and started cleaning out the garage. I was telling him what to do, then my sister thought we had to have tables in the garage, so pulled him away from sorting to make tables, which wasted an entire afternoon.

By the time the sale came, we had tables, but everything was still on the floor in a big pile. I was at my Mom's until 9:30 the night before the sale, just trying to get some stuff out on the table. The next day I set up a 5 cent box in the garage, and started throwing bits and pieces into it. One guy sat through there and sifted out all kinds of things. Of course, who knows if it came out of the 5 cent box, or the 25 cent table, but honestly, I was just trying to get stuff out of the house, so we wouldn't have to haul it off or deal with it later.

We did have a dealer come through, who found a very old small wrench. I could have been a jerk and told him it wasn't for sale, but I hate to do that, so gave it to him for 25 cents. He got a good deal, and it was the last day of the sale and we had a snow storm (first day of spring), so at least he got something for his troubles.

Although a lot of things went out of the house way too cheaply, since my sister thinks she doesn't have the time to try and sell anything on Ebay, that's the way it goes.

However, the good news is, after 3 days of sorting though things, realizing I didn't know what they were worth, but thought things might have some value, I started carting things home. My sister said "if someone else wants to take the time to sell things on Ebay, they can keep the money", so that's what I plan to do.

My sister didn't price anything in the house, because she doesn't go to garage or estate sales, or resale shops. That's fair enough. I told her if she got everything organized I would go around and price it, but all she got organized were the books, tapes, toys.

Anyway, we survived. My sister's friend came and helped. She was great. Such a work horse. I don't know what we would have done without her. Every night and morning she and I would go around reorganizing, and I would get prices on more things. If you don't have a price on it, or at least a sign above saying the price of stuff on that table, many people (including me) won't take the time to ask for a price. We had 4 old phones sitting out, but no prices, and I finally noticed that about 2 hours before the end of the sale, priced them for a couple of bucks each, and they were gone.

At least the people who came the last day of the sale had some things to buy.
And, I did call 2 of my friends, and sold them things over the phone. One was a fireplace tool set, which apparently I had bought for my parents. My friend is planning to do an outdoor fireplace, so she can use them. She got them for $10.00, as I had marked them at 20.00, but the last day we were selling everything at 50% off.

We did have issues with a couple of collectors, but that's for another posting.

It's amazing how much we got rid of, but I was sure pricing it to move. And, a lot of people were happy to get the bargains.

So, my Mom's stuff has made a lot of people happy, and people got to know the provenance of some items, and that's always fun.

As I said when I sold all my stuff from my house 7 years ago "I set my stuff free, to make other people happy".

And over the next few days, there will be lots of people saying "I got a great deal at an estate sale", and it will be with a smile on their face when they utter those words.

Mother would be proud.