fake estate sale ads.

[jeff of pa]

Haha, yeah. I see people at almost every auction around here now paying $2 each for common date indian heads, $2 each for common buffalo nickels, etc. I want to just go tap their shoulder and tell them to go to the local coin shop and buy the stuff for half the price.

the strangest part is, if they look at them, at a Coin dealers stand, or coin Shop,
they will consider the same prices too much to pay
only reason they seem to bid, is because someone else is

 

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[leadnugget]

i must say, i am bit jealous of the knowledge that you guys have in your heads on such a large variety of items.
especially the glass items, my eyes just glaze over looking at tables full of Fancy glass.
i see lot of it out here in sun city and should start finding out more about it.
about the only glass i pick up is the fire king stuff.
there are usually about 8 to 10 estate sales a week here with 3 or 4 of those being private.
on Saturdays it's just garage sales and there is more than i can get to, i try to get to 20 to 40.
mostly I'm hunting gold and silver and do OK sometimes.
i started picking up other stuff to sell to help cover gas money.

 

[bazinga]

the strangest part is, if they look at them, at a Coin dealers stand, or coin Shop,
they will consider the same prices too much to pay
only reason they seem to bid, is because someone else is

Yup, that's exactly it. If they see that someone else wants it, then they have to have it.

 

[bazinga]

i must say, i am bit jealous of the knowledge that you guys have in your heads on such a large variety of items.
especially the glass items, my eyes just glaze over looking at tables full of Fancy glass.
i see lot of it out here in sun city and should start finding out more about it.
about the only glass i pick up is the fire king stuff.
there are usually about 8 to 10 estate sales a week here with 3 or 4 of those being private.
on Saturdays it's just garage sales and there is more than i can get to, i try to get to 20 to 40.
mostly I'm hunting gold and silver and do OK sometimes.
i started picking up other stuff to sell to help cover gas money.

Glassware does take a lot of time to learn, but over time you can get the general idea of it. The easiest way to start is when you see cheap older Identification / Price guides of specific types of older glass, pick them up. Then when you are in the bathroom with nothing else to read just start browsing through the pictures. The more books you browse and the more times you browse through them, the greater the chance you will have to be able to just randomly recognize a quality piece of glass amongst a table full of garbage.

Maybe just start with a couple of books similar in topics. Like grab some books covering Fenton, Westmoreland, and Imperial. Those three are probably going to be the stuff you see most frequently at yardsales.

 

[diggummup]

Glassware does take a lot of time to learn, but over time you can get the general idea of it. The easiest way to start is when you see cheap older Identification / Price guides of specific types of older glass, pick them up. Then when you are in the bathroom with nothing else to read just start browsing through the pictures. The more books you browse and the more times you browse through them, the greater the chance you will have to be able to just randomly recognize a quality piece of glass amongst a table full of garbage.

Maybe just start with a couple of books similar in topics. Like grab some books covering Fenton, Westmoreland, and Imperial. Those three are probably going to be the stuff you see most frequently at yardsales.

I agree with both points, time and reference books. Reference books are worth their weight in gold (almost lol). It also helps if you familiarize yourself by visiting antique shops and shows to actually view or handle the good stuff in person. Also be aware that there are many repros, fakes and fantasy pieces out there too, just waiting to be bought by someone who doesn't know any better. I still carry a milk crate full of reference books with me in the car when i'm out "hunting". Certain patterns are quite valuable or even particular pieces of a certain pattern can be rare and command a high price, so it's good to have a viable reference source on hand when a questionable piece presents itself. You can't find everything on the internet/smartphone.

 

[bazinga]

You can't find everything on the internet/smartphone.

So true. I've found items in the past that I knew were old, but all I could say when looking at them was that I had never seen it before and had no clue what it could be worth. They have been the kind of items where I've shown them to authors of that kind of glass and they were stumped. There's nothing like seeing the respected experts in a particular field baffled by a particular item.

I remember once I listed an old EAPG covered dish on ebay. It got GOBS of views and emails. Half of the emails were telling me that it was a repo and there was no way it was real. The other half were wondering how I acquired it. Then one person finally wrote me with an image of like an 1892 ad showing that piece. I think it sold for around $375. I bought it for $20 from an antique dealer who specialized in EAPG and that's what they did for a living. They told me it was a repo.

 

[Jon Phillips]

Wow!

Not a very high opinion on estate sale companies on here!

Since my family has run a "pro" estate sale business for 18 years, let me give a little insight into the business.

There are indeed some companies that overcharge, but they are easy enough to figure out after a few sales. As far as family run verses pro run sales, I can tell you that they HAVE gone through every drawer....because by the time we get into a house, the family, the lawyers, the real estate people, ALL the neighbors that have keys, and in a lot of cases, the home health care workers and handyman, have been through everything!

We sometimes hear of how "there was money everywhere" in a house from some of these people (mostly family), but we never see any...and the house is empty and ready for the new owners when we leave. We often have to pull sellable items from the trash after the family leaves, and we don't throw away anything of value like the family does. (you would be surprised what they throw away)

Think about what we do: We get into a house most times on a monday, work hard at cleaning, pricing, displaying, and prepping for the sale, that is most weeks on either thursday and friday, or friday and saturday if time allows for an extra day...that's 3-4 days to get a house ready...now do that at TWO houses at the same time, which we often do. Do you think we have enough time to research everything? No way! Then in a lot of cases, we have to have the house empty and all our stuff out that weekend! We are usually the last ones in the house before the closing with the owners.

When we have time to look on ebay for something it goes like this: If something has SOLD for $100, we'll put $50....and sometimes end up selling it for half of that...plenty of meat on the bones for ebay sellers and dealers. But what most people forget is that we aren't in the "dealer supply business". We work for the owners, so our job is to make as much money for them as possible, so we aren't going to sell a $100 item for $5 so that the dealers are happy.

We have the reputation of having the lowest prices in the area at our sales, and I know this to be true, because most other sales have a whole house full left over after the sale, and we are pretty much cleaned out every time...even having two sales at a time. Still....I'll hear someone saying how high our prices are...you can't please everyone!

We do have to deal with some rude people sometimes...someone complaining about having to pay tax on an item...Some guy recently threw a fit over having to pay 54 cents for a 50 cent item! He made a fool of himself and was ran off over 4 cents....

There are 4 companies doing sales in my area. One guy is notorious for having high prices, but he (alledgedly) does it on purpose...hoping to have the items left over so he can keep them, and claim he donated them (I guess he forges the paperwork or something). He then has a fake "storage unit sale" with the leftovers. It's starting to catch up to him and he will probably be in jail soon....common knowledge but no proof of course.

One of the other ones has the same "key words" in his ad every time, but the customers report that it is the same few items that he carrys around from sale to sale.

The third one has very nice sales, but not as often, but her prices seem to be more realistic most times.

We are in the business to sell....not collect.
Think about that...How much stuff would you keep, seeing it week after week? You wouldn't...I don't care how much it's worth! You would be "over" it, or have long since ran out of room.

If any of us do ever see something we want or something to sell on ebay one day...we only would take it after the sale...not before. You would understand if you were around it all the time.

One dealer bought a painting at one of our sales that he sold on ebay for like $35,000....I'm sure he paid less than $50 for it. I know it's true because he never mentioned it to us...but all the other dealers that watch his ebay account did!

So the point is....don't judge all professional estate sale companies by a few bad ones, and don't let generalization, and pre-concieved ideas keep you from having a good time, or finding some cool stuff at one.

The first 5 or 6 people in line every time are dealers....they must be finding some deals!

We can't know everything about every collectible or antique, we can only guess...and the people that work for the company might know even less...we see valuable stuff come across the registers way under-priced all the time....

 

[leadnugget]

thanks for commenting from the other side Jon.
there are about 10 or so pro estate sale companies here that i have been to and from what i have seen only 2 of them are worth going to.
the others are way over priced. they price the items to the point you could get much of it cheaper at the store.
one company in particular is running what i would call a scam.
whatever doesn't sell is purchased by the estate company, then it goes to a resale store that estate company owns.
seems like a conflict of interest to me.
there are a few other things that i have seen, like when i went to pay for some prepriced bagged jewelry scraps and the lady closely looked them over and pulled a few of the items out and put them in a cigar box and told me that must have been a mistake.
i asked to see the pieces she pulled out and how much for them.
she told me there not for sale.
what do you think happened to that cigar box at the end of the day?
ill never know if there was any gold or silver in that bag or not as i did not buy it. but i know ill never go to her sales again.

it's good that you are one of the good company's out there because in your business there are a lot of shady characters.

 

[Jon Phillips]

I know just what you mean...We have had customers come to us complaining about waking up at 5 in the morning to be first in line to buy something the second day at half price at another sale, only to be told "someone else had bought it" (one of the employees of the sale).

We strive to be fair and honest, and try to please as many as we can.

Contrary to most beliefs....about 90% of the estate sales in my area (and I suspect it's the same in most places) are done for the living owners of the estate, not relatives of the deceased. So alot of the time they take a lot of their most valuable items with them...either back to their home state, or to an assisted living complex, or into a smaller house or new husband or wifes' house.

That can also be the source of certain high prices.....If they can't get a certain price for something, they would rather keep it...I don't blame them, if it were my stuff I would feel the same way about items.

We keep our prices low because we only have two days, in most cases, to sell it! I would rather sell almost everything in the house for cheap, than have a buch of over priced stuff left over to donate like some of the others....

We don't keep anything for the next sale either...all new stuff each time....it doesn't take much to get a bad reputation in this business!

Every now and then someone will buy a book or something, and want it wrapped seperately, or want to hold it....and I know it was something special....like I said...we can't know everything about everything...BUT...we would never pull something at the register and claim it was not for sale!

 

[diggummup]

As I stated earlier in the thread there are literally only 2 companies that I will buy from. They are the ONLY ones that are realistic in their pricing of items. I have been at this a while, I have been to literally thousands of estate sales held by dozens of companies through the years, i'm not a newbie. The problem with down here is there are plenty of people willing to pay full retail (or higher) for items because they don't know any better. I have seen it time and time again and have yet to understand it. It's like they are buying it just so the next person doesn't get it. For the most part I despise "Estate sale companies" down here. The vast majority of them shouldn't even be in business. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country or even the state, I don't know.

I have been to many family member held sales where they have not touched a thing in the house. This is south Fl., many if not most retirees don't have local family, the family comes in from out of town has a quick 2 day sale, donates whats left, discards anything else in the trash, and then flies out Sun. afternoon. I think my area may be unique in this scenario, because of all the transplanted retirees down here who originally hail from other parts of the country. Of course there are those family members who do search high and low before selling anything (I would too).

I have no problem paying a decent price for something, especially if it's something I actually collect. Just because I have a knack for picking out stuff for $1 or $2 that I can sell for much more, I don't expect it to be the norm. Those finds are few and far between when it comes to estate sales. Yard sales are a different but that's another story.

The "estate sale companies" down here are unregulated, 1 out of 10 charge tax, and there are dozens of them around. I'd venture to say most of them are not even registered with the state as a legitimate business. They even put their little Ebay and Amazon print outs next to items, now how professional is that? I went to a sale a few weeks ago run by a company that's been in business for more than 20 years. I found a small handfull of 25 postcards (which I collect and have a good knowledge of value in),mixed in with some old family photos (which was kind of unusual also, usually these things go to the family), nothing special in the mix, in various forms of condition from linen to white border era and a couple portrait type rppc's, she wanted $50 for them. These were postcards I could buy on Ebay for literally $5-$10 tops for the lot. You tell me how someone like that stays in business for 20 years, because I can't figure it out. They don't even give 50% off on the last hour of the last day down here, and the house is still half full or more. I have searched through the dumpsters before at sales (when I say dumpster I'm talking 30 yarders) and saved many things from their demise in the past, from both companies and family. I could give you example after example of way overpriced items at the majority of the sales down here. You really have to experience some of this crap to believe it. South Florida is a different planet, believe me.

Yours sounds like a respectful and reputable company and one I wouldn't mind giving my business to, it's too bad your not in S.Fl.

 

[bazinga]

Jon.... Please answer this question for me.

Why would somebody have an estate sale instead of an auction? I honestly don't get it.

Sell your items for less money and have stuff left over at the end. OR, sell your items for more money and the entire house is cleaned out that night.

Having an estate sale seems like lose-lose for a seller.

You mentioned if you see an item sell for $100 on ebay, you would price it at $50 and probably sell it for $25. At auction, it would bring anywhere from $50-100 depending on the item. And depending on who is at the auction that day, it could go for $125.

Estate sales just make no sense to me. Especially if the seller has truly desirable items.

 

[billjustbill]

Here in North Central Texas, estate sales out number auctions 10 to 1...
Auctions are usually for huge estates with farm, ranch, or caretaker equipment.

The last auction was said to have over 900 lots to be bid on. It was cold and windy,
the thing lasted from morning to almost to "The Second Coming".....

Estate sales held when the heat or cold are at their extremes are so much easier to attend.
If it's professionally run, and they even charge sales tax, the first day is usually a waste to attend.
I like family run estate sales. Their prices are usually low, they "Don't want it, but don't want to give
it away, either." Ones like that are places where oddities and precious metal jewelry can be found: CHEAP
Plus, the last day of the sale, with most things marked Half Price, you can get alot for your money
if you can use what's left or what nobody took time to dig out... You can't always find those in a Public Auction.

Last Sunday afternoon, at a professional-but-no-tax type, I brought home over 24lbs of single run copper wire, 13lbs of copper tubing, and
just over 25lbs of new and old Brass water facuets. Along with that, I bought two shipping crates
from aluminum sheets that were rivieted on 2" centers with the same sheeting used inside to
form compartments. One is 24x36-18" deep, the other is 36"x 48"-30" deep. They appear
to be for shipping parts and may have come from a Bell Helicopter plant. Then, toss in some
greenhouse H.E. Anderson controls for mixing liquid fertilizer and water.
They look to be never used and sell for over $400...
All for $36.00

The thrill of the hunt and the joy of the buy keep me going to estate sales,
Bill

 

[SEANO]

Bit off topic, but interesting find story.

My wife has a friend who inherited a small rundown cape house in a crappy part of town some years back from a aunt ("ant" for some). He had no interest in cleaning it out, so got a couple of prices on clean-out and keeping anything found ect.., well for some reason he decided to do it himself anyways. Well, long story short, he ended-up finding $130K in cash, located in a box on the top self of a basement closet. Crazy.

 

[Jon Phillips]

Jon.... Please answer this question for me.

Why would somebody have an estate sale instead of an auction? I honestly don't get it.

Sell your items for less money and have stuff left over at the end. OR, sell your items for more money and the entire house is cleaned out that night.

Having an estate sale seems like lose-lose for a seller.

You mentioned if you see an item sell for $100 on ebay, you would price it at $50 and probably sell it for $25. At auction, it would bring anywhere from $50-100 depending on the item. And depending on who is at the auction that day, it could go for $125.

Estate sales just make no sense to me. Especially if the seller has truly desirable items.

Several reasons off hand.

First...In an auction, each item will have...what....one or two minutes max to have a chance to sell? I'm talking average estate auction. An estate sale gives it, on average, two days to sell. Think about a bedroom or dining room set at an auction. Most people don't go to auctions to buy stuff like that (unless it is a furniture auction), they are looking for antiques, collectibles, guns, jewelry, etc., so there isn't going to be too much interest in big items, and if the auction is held at the estate property, where most are, I don't think most average buyers will be prepared to haul off large items that far from there home.

At an estate sale, most of our customers are local, and might be looking for furniture as much as anything else, and are close enough to their home, to have it delivered, or pick it up themselves. Also...there is much more time to look things over, and make a decision. We have workers there to help them out, and in some cases, talk them into buying something.

At an auction, a lot of smaller items are lumped into box lots...that often times sell for cheap if nothing too spectacular is in the box. At an estate sale most things are priced individually, and will bring more in the long run when added together.

We have very little left over at our sales...and most times the owners are shocked at how much money they end up with after the sale. (especially the ones that got "quotes" for someone to buy out everything!)

I would think that most auctions that are at the property will sell most everything, but we all see some stuff come up with no interest, and the first $1 bid gets it and they move on. If the auction "house" hauls off the items for sale, they are probably only going to take the stuff they think they can sell....the owners are still stuck with leftover junk to get rid of.

When we do a house, we are given they key...we go in and clean, price, display, and sell almost everything, have the leftovers picked up by a charity, remove all of our tables, lamps, fans, supplies, tablecloths, etc., and vaccume the house, sweep the floors and garage, wipe down the surfaces, and in most cases, the house is ready for the walk through with the new buyers at the closing...saving the owners additional money and problems.

So in one week, in most cases, the house went from full, to empty and clean, and what didn't sell, was donated for a tax right off (at full price) for the owners, and they never had to do anything past signing a contract and handing over the keys. That seems like a win-win for them.

No auction will be able to do that in a week...even if they haul most everything off in one day....it will take a lot longer to unpack, sort, put a number on it, enter it into their database, maybe put it in a catalog, advertise it for a few weeks to get buyers to show up, then have the sale, sort out everything, and finally take a much larger cut, and send off a check....It just doesn't have that fast of a turnaround with a legitimate estate auction.

I've been to several estate auctions here in Florida....some done really well (Higgenbotham is awesome), and some where they cost the owner thousands of dollars. One in particular would shut the bidding off of something and move to the next item while three or more bidders were still trying to bid! People would have to yell them down, and we had to get the owner to talk to the auctioneer several times to slow down and take all the bids....Then...he had his elderly aunt taking the money, and she was WAY undercharging everyone when they cashed out. The owner had people coming up to him after the sale and paying the extra amount they owed straight to him! There are bad apples in every business.

That item we list for $50 might sell for $50...or $25...or not at all...same goes for an auction, and although it might sell for $125 at an auction...it might also sell for $5-$10 at an auction, with a larger percentage taken out.....

I've bought antique guns at auction for $80 that were worth $1,000.....and one for $500 that was worth $2,500....Anytime we have guns at an estate sale...we can get 100% full retail for it...it's just one of those things....people will argue over who was first in line to be able to pay full retail for a gun they could get anywhere....it's just one of those things.

I've been outbid at an auction by an internet bidder for a gun I could see was a reproduction, but they thought was original...I imagine they weren't happy when they got it! There is good and bad in estate sales and auctions.

If a seller has truly desirable items....they will sell. We can put current, retail, prices on something, and if a collector wants it, they will buy it, if not, it will go for a little less on bid, or half price they second day, bought by a collector or reseller, or be a tax right off after the sale...but it will be gone at the end, one way or another.

 

[Jon Phillips]

As I stated earlier in the thread there are literally only 2 companies that I will buy from. They are the ONLY ones that are realistic in their pricing of items. I have been at this a while, I have been to literally thousands of estate sales held by dozens of companies through the years, i'm not a newbie. The problem with down here is there are plenty of people willing to pay full retail (or higher) for items because they don't know any better. I have seen it time and time again and have yet to understand it. It's like they are buying it just so the next person doesn't get it. For the most part I despise "Estate sale companies" down here. The vast majority of them shouldn't even be in business. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country or even the state, I don't know.

I have been to many family member held sales where they have not touched a thing in the house. This is south Fl., many if not most retirees don't have local family, the family comes in from out of town has a quick 2 day sale, donates whats left, discards anything else in the trash, and then flies out Sun. afternoon. I think my area may be unique in this scenario, because of all the transplanted retirees down here who originally hail from other parts of the country. Of course there are those family members who do search high and low before selling anything (I would too).

I have no problem paying a decent price for something, especially if it's something I actually collect. Just because I have a knack for picking out stuff for $1 or $2 that I can sell for much more, I don't expect it to be the norm. Those finds are few and far between when it comes to estate sales. Yard sales are a different but that's another story.

The "estate sale companies" down here are unregulated, 1 out of 10 charge tax, and there are dozens of them around. I'd venture to say most of them are not even registered with the state as a legitimate business. They even put their little Ebay and Amazon print outs next to items, now how professional is that? I went to a sale a few weeks ago run by a company that's been in business for more than 20 years. I found a small handfull of 25 postcards (which I collect and have a good knowledge of value in),mixed in with some old family photos (which was kind of unusual also, usually these things go to the family), nothing special in the mix, in various forms of condition from linen to white border era and a couple portrait type rppc's, she wanted $50 for them. These were postcards I could buy on Ebay for literally $5-$10 tops for the lot. You tell me how someone like that stays in business for 20 years, because I can't figure it out. They don't even give 50% off on the last hour of the last day down here, and the house is still half full or more. I have searched through the dumpsters before at sales (when I say dumpster I'm talking 30 yarders) and saved many things from their demise in the past, from both companies and family. I could give you example after example of way overpriced items at the majority of the sales down here. You really have to experience some of this crap to believe it. South Florida is a different planet, believe me.

Yours sounds like a respectful and reputable company and one I wouldn't mind giving my business to, it's too bad your not in S.Fl.

I hear ya Diggummup, south Florida is like another planet! I've spent a lot of time there in the past....LOTS of things aren't regulated!

We do 99.9% of our sales in Sun City, which is a very large retirement community here in central Florida, and most of those people don't have local family either, but it is very rare for a family to have their own sales around here...the ones that do, end up having more of a series of garage sales more than anything.

There have been times we would show someone a print out of a same item that sold on ebay, but it is more for the description of what it is...the one that comes to mind was some kind of wierd musical instrument from the 1920's that had sold for like $250....we had $80 on it, and it sold to the first dealer through the door. The printout was brought to us by a relative of one of the workers....we don't print out stuff to justify high prices....or we would be stuck with that stuff like the other guys!

There is always someone that will say "You can buy it brand new at Wal Mart for that!" at every sale. They always think they are the first ones to ever think of that! When it doesn't get someone rushing over to mark it down so they can buy it, they put it down....and 9 times out of 10....we sell it while they are still walking around complaining about it!

One guy had his "Blue Book of Gun Values" out trying to explain to me that an adjustable choke, pump 12-gauge, Mossberg shotgun was only worth "$60 at the most". I told him no un-fired shotgun in the world was worth only $60, right about the time we sold it for $200 to the next guy in line.....

We have some great customers though....and they love coming to our sales, and many are like family, and bring us cookies, and cakes, and such! For every abusive one, there are 20 awesome ones!

 

[trdhrdr007]

I buy & sell for a living. Part of that means I network with anyone that sells in my area so I know the owners of all the estate sale companies. I also help one of the companies on a part time basis.

The thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that a GOOD estate sale company has 2 goals. The first is to maximize the amount of money realized & the second is to sell everything in a set time period. There's a delicate balance between those two.

A good company has a large database of people that buy on a regular basis. Lots of those buyers are collectors & they will pay more than someone who resells. There are also lost of "dealers" who have no idea what they are doing who also pay higher prices.

Most companies in my area run a sale over 2 to 3 days. Items are priced as high as the local market allows & dropped to half price on the final day....with some wheeling & dealing going on at the very end of the last day.

 

[diggummup]

I hear ya Diggummup, south Florida is like another planet! I've spent a lot of time there in the past....LOTS of things aren't regulated!

Finally, someone who can relate! I'm planning a move upstate somewhere in the next year or so, god willing.

 

[Jon Phillips]

A lot of good areas around central Florida....and it's not 24/7 construction on the roads and gas stations where no one understands english!

......And.....a few good estate sale companies!!!........a couple anyway.....

 

[Shambler]

I've never seen an estate sale make more than an auction that was properly advertised and marketed. Estate sale is code for still owning half the items you started with.

 

[Jon Phillips]

I can't speak for what your experiences are. Maybe you have insider knowledge of what the family receives from all the auctions and estate sales in your area.

I can't see how you could make an accurate assesment on that situation. I would think you would have to have near identical items in two different estates, then have an auction and an estate sale at the same time, and then compare what the property owners recieved after the two sales.

I have been going to auctions (estate, bankruptcy, and consignment), and estate sales, and garage and yard sales for all my life (40 yrs), and have first hand knowledge of estate and garage sales, but only know of what I observe with auctions. I know the ones I have knowledge of charge a higher percentage (they have WAY more overhead), and only have the items for sale for seconds, up to a few minutes if there is hot bidding. I also know it takes longer for the entire, estate auction process than the five days that we can do an estate sale, in most cases.

You can make anything of it you will. If the auction is "properly advertised and marketed" and the estate sale isn't......the auction should make more money (with less percentage going to the owners). If the estate sale is "properly advertised and marketed" and the auction isn't...the estate sale should make more money (with a higher percentage going to the owners). That's considering the same items at both sales with the same customer base.

Maybe a lot of you guys just have some bad estate sale companies in your areas....We have some too. If a family has the misfortune of going with a certain company in my area without asking around and checking with the chamber of commerce...they are going to be disappointed, and by what I've heard in a couple of cases recently, have to confront the company over discrepencies in their pay and what an item actually sold for or what happened to it after the sale.

I can assure you that at our sales, there is nothing left over for the owners to deal with unless they request it back....otherwise it is sold and the leftovers officialy donated to charity with a tax paper in their name.

There seems to be a lot of hate for estate sales on here....If the auctions are better deals for you in your area....set there all day or for three days or whatever it takes for the items you are interested to pop up, then hope a bidding war doesn't push it up higher than it's worth. If the estate sales are better in your area....go to five of them, and eight garage sales, then go have breakfast and enjoy your weekend!

If you are selling....roll the dice and pick whichever you think will put the most money in your pocket at the end....After all....you will never know if you would have gotten more at the other or not....unless you have a time machine!

I'm just trying to give some of you guys an inside look at what goes on...if that's not your experience in your area...it won't matter to you anyway. I've seen good auctions and very bad ones (for bidders and clients), and good estate sales and very bad ones (for buyers and clients). Your mileage may vary......