Funny Things Happen at Holiday Season Estate Sales

Funny Things Happen

At Holiday Season

Estate Sales

            In the annual; the year... of estate contents ‘liquidation’ (‘disperse’) (‘distribute’) commonly titled ‘sale’

            Of the object contents of an

            Estate

            By ‘private treaty’ (‘cash on a hand’):

            In this annual...

            The holiday season (Halloween eve to Mr. King’s day with the high spots of “THANKSGIVING” and “CHRISTMAS” “DAY(S)”) I find...

            A funny things (note plural) happen

            That for the amateur antiquarian sleuth; a bargain hunting grabber of ‘good things’ that are ‘valuable’ beyond ‘of themselves’ and “HOPEFULLY” touch the golden rainbow end pot of ‘art’... “I FOUND IT” ...are.

            I am not referring to the inner estate contents trading of heirs, lawyers, appraisers, dealers and such ‘no access’ starting points.  I am referring to one of the solutions from that realm of ‘what is to be done’ “with all that stuff” ‘left’ “In there”.

            “Oh.”

            “Yes:  That stuff”.  “THEY”; the selected they with heirloom photo ID (‘good blood; good genes’) ‘are done’.  “SHE”; the woman who “RAN” the “ESTATE SALE”;

            “You remember; it was three days in July ‘after the fourth’.”

            “SHE” is called up again... without provocation... by the attorney-executor privilege and been ‘spoken to’ that “Look:  We want to put the property on the market the first of January so we need to have it cleaned out.  By then.  No matter what.  Got it?  Can you do that?  I don’t care how you do that.  No it doesn’t matter how much the stuff sells for just as long as

            The property is cleaned out by January first.”

            “Whatever you decide to do is fine send the bill to the estate just as before”

            “Melinda will give you the keys stop by to pick them up.”

            “A three day sale is fine”

            “Some of the heirs are around for the holidays but they are all done in there”.

            What does that mean; that last:  The ‘all done in there’.  Specifically it means that those ‘they’ “THE HEIRS” have... ‘taken’ ‘everything they want’ ‘out’ of the ‘the estate’.  This is the first point where... this (the remaining estate contents) ‘gets interesting’ for the amateur antiquarian sleuth.

            WHY?

            Well... in a distribution of “the stuff” in an “estate” ...usually... ‘the heirs’ may ‘choose’ (note that word) anything they want.  The word choose is not the word TAKE.  This “choose” are objects that have a cash value ‘determined’ and, once ‘appraised’ they then may be ...may... be... “TAKE”; taken by the choosing heir WITH that assigned cash value being deducted from the ‘their cash settlement (s) in the ‘distribution’ ‘of the estate’.  That means that the CHOOSE is not FREE.

            “Oh.  We didn’t know that.  Ah... well... we don’t want it... then... I guess.. ah...” often happens... then.  So a ‘choose’ is then ‘returned’ to the estate contents’.  Sometimes it is not returned (on paper) until ‘well after’ ‘the (estate contents) ‘sale’.

            “Oh.”

            So... this ‘choose’ ‘it’ is ‘still in there’ (part of the not distributed yet estate contents ‘then’.

            Now obviously I know how to keep my eye out for ‘stuff like that’.  My working practice is to... when I encounter a ‘good thing’ ‘being kept by the (heirs of the) estate’... is to

            “Blow it against the wall with a shotgun blast (of money) IF it is a ‘that good’.  I just lower my wallet and pull the trigger.  AFTER the ‘that’ passes through the estate / heir colon (s)... out it comes... in my truck.  But that is only for things that I... ‘encounter a good thing’.  ME – THAT – MONEY.  I leave (throw back) a... lot.

            “Oh.”

            “So...  ‘it’ ‘is still in there’.

            “Oh.”

            And the ‘end of the year’ with ‘the holidays’

            Is here...; ‘is still in there’ TOO.

            “Oh no.”

            “Oh yes.” and... ‘they’ have another estate sale ...during ‘the holidays’ where, unspoken... ‘everything must go’ ‘is priced’ ‘if not priced make offer’ ‘if priced make offer’ if... ‘the last day the stuff is free if you take it away NOW.”

            “Ok.”

            I... “Oh just STOP.  I didn’t have anything to do with this estate anyway and Karen’s ‘Seagull Estate Sales’ “did” the first sale and she’s there NOW doing this... yeah... I know EXACTLY what kind of sale this is.  And it’s the third day too.”

            “Come on Karen how much?”

            “The heirs wanted to keep that.”

            “They didn’t (keep it).  How much”

            “It was appraised for a lot of money.”

            “So what.”

            “Well I’ve already marked it down three times.”

            “So give it to me”.

            “Why don’t you buy some of this other stuff.”

            “How much.”

            “Pick something out”

            “No.  ALL of it.”

            “All of it?”

            “I’ll get it out of here.  You know I will.  Got to be cheap though.  You got like... EIGHT HOURS here of clean out.”

            “You won’t pay (enough).”

            “You’ll have eight hours and three storage units full”.

            “The estate pays for that.”

            “And won’t pay you a cent (for this three day sale).

            “Let me think about it.”

            “What do you have (in sale time left):  Like...three hours to think about it.”

“You know Mr. Delaney (the attorney) don’t you.”

            “Oh yes.  And he knows me.  If you want me it’s better on your watch”

            “We’re going to be cleaning up all day tomorrow”.

            “I start early”.

            “I know you do”.

            Meanwhile my wife had been ‘going around’ in the five room ‘sale’ suite on the first floor of the home (‘property’).  (“Who’s gonna buy this place?  It’s HUGE.”).  We are the only ‘customers’.  She was ‘poking around’ and came over ‘with something’.  It was a ‘basket’ ‘purse’... of some sort... that HERE IN MAINE we... unless this  HAPPENS to be in a three or four generation old coastal Maine “RICH PEOPLE” property ESTATE CONTENTS SALE... ‘don’t see stuff like that’.

            “Oh.”

            “WE” (my wife and eye) SEE STUFF LIKE THAT

            All the time.

            “WE” look for it” commonly phrased ‘can smell it’... going by the estate sale sign out by the road at thirty-five (typical Maine coastal property enclave speed limit) miles per hour.   So she’s already ‘bird dogged’ ‘it’ (the estate sale contents) AND ‘flushed the bird’ that this is the LAST GASP of the ‘this’ ‘that kind of estate’ ‘sale’.  I excuse myself

            After I ask out of the blue ‘is there more stuff left in the other rooms too?’.

            Karen looks at me and says “Yes... but some of it they’re keeping”.

            “But some of it’s gotta go?”

            “Yes.”

            So... the wife and I ‘wander around’ the sale and she keeps the basket purse but the rest of it... using the mentally configured gold scales of estate clean out justice merged with logic and probability... ‘suggest’ that an “I” ‘can get all of this’...crap... ‘for one (cheap) price’ “TOMORROW MORNING”  (“It better be cheap” is the mantra) (“It’s got some pretty good [rich coastal Maine estate] stuff in it [the whole lot]).

            That’s what it really comes down to?

            That’s what it really comes down to.

            Throw in the ‘choose’ that they ‘decided’ they ‘didn’t want’ still in the ‘other rooms’ and ...the ‘more of it out there too we’ll get it out’....:

            “Ok.  I know you guys (will do it and get it done)”.

            “It better dealing with us Karen.  One cleaned out check is easy for you to carry.  I mean:  Your done.”

            “I am done.”

            So we give her the ‘estate sale sticker price’ (left over from July) five bucks for the purse and “Yeah by noon I bet if we go at each other clean first thing in the morning.

            “Noon would be wonderful.”

            “Can do.”

            So we take the basket purse home and...  I mean... we don’t even have to look at this stuff to ‘know’ we ‘are good’ on the ‘this deal’.  I mean... the STUFF (lot) hasn’t even been determined and PRICE hasn’t even been determined but

            I’ll show you what I mean... with this basket purse ‘thing’

            OK so you look at it and it’s this stupid basket purse.  It is all real wood woven with a plywood ‘top’ ‘board’ and little hinges with a plywood bottom board and, like...

            All this stupid decoupage ‘glued on’ ‘applied’ cut paper mostly of words like “ROME” and “RIO” and... the bottom third of the outside basket is

            Hand painted all around the whole ...purse... with a village building scene with...

            I’ll get to that and

            The inside having the ...just touching ‘happening’ ‘sixties’ garish red do-dah fabric lined (‘totally’ still original-‘never used’ ‘clean’) with a “Oh, oh’ on the under side of the lid board signed in paint “Peck & Peck” (the New York department store ‘once a long, long time ago’).  AH...

            The painted buildings village scene has all the buildings having little names like ‘Ritz Carlton’, ‘Harry’s Bar’ and ‘Trader Vic’s’ painted signboard style on them so... like... soooo... oh... ‘late fifties’...?

            “NOT QUITE, RAMBO”.

            “Ok why?”

            On one side... end... the... there is one building there... has “oh” ‘Café au Go-Go’ above the door and that was LIKE

            Greenwich Village Cool Spot 1964 to, like, 1968 with, like... the (Linda Ronstadt) Stone Poneys ‘playing there a lot’.  “Oh....”

            So that dates that and that dates (‘yeah like’) Peck and Peck who came OUT of the fifties at full fashion throttle and ...got trashed... by the Wasp fashion turn to ‘Hippy’.  I mean.... is this purse ‘mod’ or ‘hip’ or ... ‘yikes’.  ONCE it would have been leopard skin pillbox but ‘let your hair down grove’... I feel... we got a ‘going on here’; a last gasp before Peck and Peck went on a New York department store... bad trip.

            Now there are a couple of cool things to notice too.  Wildest to my object sense eye is that the ‘black felt’ on the bottom is... ‘like’... beautifully worn from ‘actual usage and this carries back to the inside being ‘perfect’ ‘clean’ so... like... that’s cool; really used – never trashed.  (the ‘sensitive rich’).  And then...

            This is so stupid...

            On the OTHER END from ‘Café au Go-Go’ is... like... a single building with a single sign that read only “Antiques”.  No name brand; just the generic antiques...

            LIKE ME.

            “Yeah cool tip of the hat THERE for it is true... that at those dates that I ...in my antiquarian dealer dawn days touched too that... it (antiques) were ‘happening’ in the sixties style ‘discovery mode’ (did I say ‘Stone Poneys’?)

            Ok.

            “So what’s the point?”

            The point is that only estates like this one in Maine have ‘stuff’ ‘like that’.  I mean... that whole thing cost money all the way along ...all the way along to the stupid  holiday everything must go ‘sale’ including the ‘if they have THAT what else do they have I’ll take it ALL THANK YOU.

            And this carries to the ‘holiday season where ‘funny things happen’ in estates like the ‘they’ just ‘dump’ ‘what’s left’... from

            These properties are FULL of this ‘each thing is a thing’ stuff and one should

            Never drive by

            An estate sale

            During the holidays

            Even on the third day

            IF

            The ‘property (having the sale) looks like (a) ‘THAT KIND OF PLACE’.