The Crow's Nest 3-8

3-8

            We; my business partner and I, arrived five minutes early and parked our truck under the old horse chestnut tree at the outer edge of the driveway.  This left clear access to the whole yard.  We got out of the truck and stood before it viewing the building complex.  I talked about what I knew about the inside, the rooms where I’d been and the contents.  It was a one sided information only time killer.  Mr. Lawyer was late.

            He arrived twenty minutes later with two women paralegals (?).  We were not introduced and I did not ask.  One of the women drove.  They parked in by the shed door.  Mr. Lawyer seemed a little flustered but that may have been “a little hurried” as he said.  I introduced my partner without explanation.  One of the women, with a key drawn from a manila envelope, walked to the shed door and unlocked it.  We all followed her.  She opened the door and we all walked through the dim light of the shed and summer kitchen into the main house’s kitchen through its unlocked door.  The kitchen was brightly lighted by daylight from the front and back windows.  We gathered at the kitchen table.  Mr. Lawyer gave me a grave look and was about to speak when I pre-empted him.

            “We need to see the whole estate; all of the house and building contents.  We can do this as a walk through.  I will make notes as we go and can make a purchase offer a few minutes after we finish.  This will not take very long”.

            Mr. Lawyer, looking relieved to hear such defined direction said “Fine”.  Both women adjusted the yellow legal pads they carried in their hands and said nothing.

            “We’ll start right here with the kitchen, go through the whole house then go outside to the shed and barn.” I continued.  I took a small folded card of blank paper and a pen out of my pocket, gave a nod to my partner and turned toward the kitchen table and chairs before the front window.  Beyond these in the room corner was a BROKEN 1840’s shelf clock on a … clock shelf and a low quality country Empire looking glass with a reverse painting on glass at its top.  My partner turned from all of us and started opening the kitchen cupboard doors rapidly.  He looked at the contents of each cupboard as he opened them but said nothing.  I, also saying nothing, made a few very small pencil slashes at the top of the folded paper card, turned toward the cast iron kitchen cook stove, made another tiny pencil mark, turned from that to the first door of the open kitchen cupboards, looked at that cupboard’s contents, moved on to the next cupboard, continued down the line to each, looked at my partner who was looking up at the top shelf of a cupboard at the end of the row, looked up to see that HE was viewing a gathering of old wooden “pantry boxes” pushed back to the wall so in the dark on the top shelf.  I made a few more pencil marks while turning away from the cupboards.  My partner closed all the cupboard doors.  Mr. Lawyer and the two women with the legal pads watched all of this.  Saying nothing, I stepped out of the kitchen and into the dining room.  My partner followed.  Mr. Lawyer and the women followed him.

            My partner opened and closed all but one of the doors and drawers on a… sideboard matching the whole rooms furnishings… a 1930’s dining room set… while I made a few more pencil marks that included the old china cabinet against the far wall that had no door and one of the curved glass panels missing.  The auctioneer, as was becoming obvious to my eye, had been very selective in what he took.  Probably a … “little hurried” too.  The house was still full of “household goods”.  My partner left one sideboard door open and I glanced in noting, as he had, a damaged dark blue Staffordshire coffee pot.  He picked up the lid from behind a box of tissues then quickly set it back down allowing my eye the second of time it needed to evaluate it… being there.  We then moved to the living room.  After looking at the fireplace and its jumble of … rubbish… before it, I stood in front of it and made more tiny pencil marks as I scanned the room.  My partner opened a built-in cupboard door to show me a full view of all the shelves.  After my eye quickly glanced at that he closed the door again.  We were ready to move into the front part of the home; the front hall and the parlor so familiar to me but also including a set of three small rooms (including a bathroom) at the upper end.

            Briskly my partner and I treated ALL these spaces and rooms as we had been doing.  We were truly rolling right along with Mr. Lawyer and company following, saying nothing and ...struggling to keep up.  The pace was enhanced by the front parlor and front hall being nearly empty of … things… but having a considerable amount of … rubbish… piled and dumped… all over.  I paid very little attention to this feature and Mr. Lawyer seemed satisfied with this action.  Up the front stairs we went to the landing and bedrooms.  We open each door and reviewed each space.  “Rubbish”, in modest piles was our bedroom discovery.  One door was different.

            This door, identical to the others, opened upon a stairs leading up to the attic.  UP WE WENT with Mr. Lawyer and team SLOWLY following.  We were ahead of them and had noted the abundance of …rubbish… before they crested the stair head.  We had ALSO noted that this rubbish had been “ground hogged”.  This is an antiquarian dealer’s term for how and …how inefficiently… a region of piled household rubbish… very often as this attic contents showed… IS SORTED THROUGH by… someone… in a hurry… trying to find “anything good” they “can sell”… or by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing.  Burrowing forward into the mound all goods are inspected, un-boxed, un-wrapped and… put right back down (all of it including the packaging)… just like a ground hog digs its hole… right behind where the forward effort is taking place creating a terminal moraine of discombobulated and disordered rubbish that is actually a WORSE MESS than the original rubbish mound.  This procedure is common, easy for me to spot and is well understood to mean… by antiques dealers like me… “they missed a lot”.  The correct procedure is to TAKE EVERYTHING …. EVERY THING… OUT OF THE SPACE so that the space is COMPLETELY EMPTY, MOVE IT TO A WAREHOUSE AND SORT IT LATER VERY CAREFULLY AND SLOWLY.