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What I am hearing from a lot of posters is a lot of unrealistic value expectations. In my experience, there is practically no market for art or collectables, or china. I know, because we have a lot of original art and antiques that we paid thousands for that no galleries want. At auction, they will bring pennies in the dollar. We had two auctions before and after we moved, and the auction fees were 40%.
It is frequently better to find a dealer who will give you a lump sum to haul away a household, or else haul it yourself to Goodwill and declare a fair value. At least you will get the write off on your taxes.
gentlearts makes a great point. I just wonder if it is a true shift in interest in consumerism, or if the focus has just shifted to electronics and such instead.
I'm about to toss my box of memories. I've offered them to my daughter several times, and she's declined. Old photos, recordings and videotapes of me way back when I did radio and voiceovers and commercials - in another life. I haven't looked at any of that stuff in over 10 years. I think I'll keep one old poster and frame it. The rest is going into the dumpster.
I urge you to have those things digitized and saved on good quality secure media! If not all of them, at least the ones you're proudest of. Your daughter may not want your box of stuff now. But - and there's no way to say this that won't strike some people as morbid - after you're gone she may well be glad to have some images and recordings of you. Maybe you could assemble a notebook with the select pictures and holders for CDs/DVDs/hard drive or whatever with the video/audio/digital pictures. Smaller than a box, clearly labeled.
I'm by no means (!!) a very sentimental person, but I treasure a few "oral history" recordings made by older relatives who have passed. I don't listen to them all the time, but every couple of years if I'm thinking of one of them I may pull out that CD and listen one more time to at least part of it. Another relative did each of them. For each person, she just sat them down with the tape recorder on the table and started them talking about their lives, at a time when they were certainly "up in years" but not frail or failing.
And I regret to this day that a decade ago I did *not* sit down with an older relative, a real chatterbox, and do an audiotape session of me prompting her to tell some of the tales of her life, and her telling them. Because now she's quite old, suffering the ravages of a vicious disease, and lost to dementia.
Today dh and I nuked the kitchen! We sorted a bunch of pots, pans, utensils, etc, into boxes, loaded up the van, and will deposit them tomorrow at Goodwill. 've already done a lot of pre-sorting, so it wasn't too bad, going through the kitchen.
Anybody need an almost never used table saw with I think, 3 or 4 brand new blades (those blades are like, $30+ a piece)?
I am now in the process of clearing out anything that takes up room that I'm certain I'll not need. Yesterday I found a high end set of gold rim Mikasa china. I've used it twice. Been in the box for over 20 years. Totally forgot about it.
Most of the stuff is dumpster, which is specifically why I now have two households where there is a full sized dumpster there for my use...those dumpsters are way more useful than a $1200 fancy upright washing machine, hands down.
Come to think of it...I was remodeling my house 30 yrs ago, rented a huge dumpster, parked in my driveway. That resulted in my first big throw-out event. I could pitch stuff right out the kitchen window. Worked like a charm.
What I am hearing from a lot of posters is a lot of unrealistic value expectations. In my experience, there is practically no market for art or collectables, or china. I know, because we have a lot of original art and antiques that we paid thousands for that no galleries want. At auction, they will bring pennies in the dollar. We had two auctions before and after we moved, and the auction fees were 40%.
It is frequently better to find a dealer who will give you a lump sum to haul away a household, or else haul it yourself to Goodwill and declare a fair value. At least you will get the write off on your taxes.
I learned some of this stuff in a different area: Antiques, when I was around 41 years old, emptying my aunt and uncle's house to get it ready to sell. My aunt and uncle were nearly twice my age, passed away within two years of each other and made me the trustee. But I knew nothing of antiques. My goal was to quickly sell off the estate to divide among the beneficiaries. I did not want to see any family squabbles.
The problem is I did not know how to value antiques. I knew some things my aunt and uncle bought were those cheap "collectibles" you would buy by reading an ad in the back of the old TV Guide magazine and sending a couple bucks for the memento that is "surely to gain value." But mostly worthless dust collectors. And some of the stuff was valuable. I probably lost the estate $10,000 or $20,000 by selling hastily, but I had my own career and my girlfriend and I had a relationship we maintained. So I just sold, whatever someone was willing to pay me.
The lesson I learned was not to buy dust collectors - anything that would be debatable by the value. Imagine selling a 1998 one ounce gold American Eagle for the metal value or trying to sell a collector doll that was the rage in 1998 - at a pawn shop. Well you don't take the gold American eagle to the pawn shop. You take it to a coin shop. It's so much easier.
Therefore I knew that my beneficiaries would have a very easy time to liquidate my assets if I buy things that can hold the value versus the Dollar and be easy to sell.
"Anybody need an almost never used table saw with I think, 3 or 4 brand new blades (those blades are like, $30+ a piece)?"
Thought I might offer a suggestion in case you wanted to donate things like this. I had a couple of tools to get rid of (actually a table saw was one of them) and I donated them to Habitat for Humanity. They can either use the tools to help remodel homes or they can sell them in their ReStores to make money to help pay for the remodeling.
They also accept household goods, appliances and other things to sell in their stores. I believe some of the stores are willing to come and pick up the stuff if you call them.
I don't know if you have any ReStores near you but I thought I would pass the information along.
I learned some of this stuff in a different area: Antiques, when I was around 41 years old, emptying my aunt and uncle's house to get it ready to sell. My aunt and uncle were nearly twice my age, passed away within two years of each other and made me the trustee. But I knew nothing of antiques. My goal was to quickly sell off the estate to divide among the beneficiaries. I did not want to see any family squabbles.
The problem is I did not know how to value antiques. I knew some things my aunt and uncle bought were those cheap "collectibles" you would buy by reading an ad in the back of the old TV Guide magazine and sending a couple bucks for the memento that is "surely to gain value." But mostly worthless dust collectors. And some of the stuff was valuable. I probably lost the estate $10,000 or $20,000 by selling hastily, but I had my own career and my girlfriend and I had a relationship we maintained. So I just sold, whatever someone was willing to pay me.
The lesson I learned was not to buy dust collectors - anything that would be debatable by the value. Imagine selling a 1998 one ounce gold American Eagle for the metal value or trying to sell a collector doll that was the rage in 1998 - at a pawn shop. Well you don't take the gold American eagle to the pawn shop. You take it to a coin shop. It's so much easier.
Therefore I knew that my beneficiaries would have a very easy time to liquidate my assets if I buy things that can hold the value versus the Dollar and be easy to sell.
I don't do art. I don't do antiques.
When we kids were clearing out my parent's house, we knew they had a lot of antiques, some of which we took, and then a dealer came in and offered us $2000. (in the 1980s) to take everything else. She probably saw one or two items that she knew she'd get her money back for, and then the rest would be gravy. Did we lose money? Sure, but we didn't have a lot of time and energy to pick over everything.
I don't buy furniture or art for investment. I buy them because I can use them (furniture) or like looking at them (art).
Anyway-finished my last box of books. Now going through those on the shelves again. I'm not moving, just getting rid of stuff so I don't have to clean it.
Someone swooped in late and bought all four of the vases I had on ebay, Amen!
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