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’.
