The auction house will give an estimate of what items should bring. In most cases, they're fairly accurate, "a little more or a little less," he said.
Antiques buff Kathleen Cassedy has haunted estate sales for years, so when her aunt decided to trade her three-bedroom townhouse in Alexandria for a Florida condo, she figured she could save her the fees.
Anne Wohllenban of Falls Church examines a piece on the showroom floor at Adam A. Weschler and Sons.
(Michael Temchine For The Washington Post)
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Her seventysomething aunt was up for the adventure. "You need a certain personality" to do something like this, Cassedy said. "My aunt has a booming voice and comes across like she knows more than she does. And she's a large person with a dominating manner." That's all helpful when you're dealing with folks fighting over the lawn furniture.
"The most important thing for people doing it on their own is to know the prices," she said. "Sometimes they think [things are] more valuable than they are, and sometimes they undervalue what they have." But leave some bargaining room: "Mark up a little so you can negotiate down."
Cassedy advertised the sale, and her aunt had nice things, so there was a line waiting the first morning of the two-day sale. Shoppers were admitted in a dribble to keep things manageable. Three friends and her brother kept an eye on the goods while her aunt handled the money.
Just about everything sold, including her aunt's still-life paintings, a pleasant surprise. The amateur painter had never tried to sell her work before, "but people seemed to want them. We put a couple of hundred dollars on them and they sold quite well."
In retrospect, Cassedy said, "there were some things that should have gone into an antique or consignment shop, but she didn't want to mess with it. And she did so well with the other stuff that it balanced out. She was pleased that she made over $15,000."
Estate sales are Peggy Burds's bread and butter.
"I tell people I went into this because I thought I would sell tea and antiques, and I sell more lawn mowers than antiques," she quipped. The president of Emerald Estate Sales said her Virginia-based company sold the contents of 44 homes in the metropolitan area last year. That's everything down to the tinfoil, "which makes a lot of sense when you think about it," she said.
Like most such companies, Burds charges between 25 percent and 30 percent of the gross -- generally the higher the expected proceeds, the lower the percentage.
First, she said, the sellers remove whatever belongings they wish to keep. "Then we come and set up. We bring tables to display everything, have the silver polished and the glasses washed. Then we price everything. We literally set up a small store." She even offers delivery for those who can't squeeze an armoire into the Mini Cooper.
It takes two to three days to set up for a two-day sale. Not infrequently, treasures turn up in odd corners.
A few months ago Burds discovered a couple of pieces of Roseville Pottery in the laundry of a home, "one holding old soap and the other had clothespins in it," she said. Roseville, which stopped being made in the 1950s, is "very, very, very collectible in this country. Even a tiny piece begins at $50. It's our job to go in and retrieve those things, clean them up, and price them accordingly."
Burds hesitates to give estimates of what a sale might bring, though she will give a possible range. Bad weather, for instance, can slow business. "On the other hand, we have days when we expect $8,000 and do $12,000 to $13,000," she said.
