It's All About Convenience

Plan For Your Stuff

December 29, 2016

Convenience. It’s what American life is all about these days, right? We can buy our lunch, pay our mortgage, borrow library books, and fill a prescription without getting out of our wifi-enabled car. There is an entire category of stores based solely on “convenience.” Heck, Amazon will let you subscribe to your household staples so they show up each month without even ordering, and if you run short, you can push a button and a case of paper towels will come whizzing to your door.
Antiques have never been about convenience. Buying at auctions and at shows, spending days in the car traveling from shop to shop - we may give it a cute moniker like “antiquing,” but it’s still not convenient (but it is fun, right?). But for some, when it’s time to sell the collection, convenience is king. Come pick this stuff up, and send me a check when it’s sold. Easy and done.
There are lots of reasons to seek a convenient dispersal. Perhaps you are downsizing and moving to sunny Florida, and you simply don’t want the hassle of managing a sale process while you are trying to manage a move. Or perhaps you won’t be leaving your home until it’s “feet first,” but you want your kids to have an easy time unloading your collection. A plan for your stuff based on convenience is perfectly acceptable, but let me say this up front - it doesn’t excuse you from putting some time into planning.
For most collectors, a convenient dispersal involves one person or company coming in and, as I used to say in the auction business, “make it all go away.” Sure, you still want to pick a company that knows how to market and has a track record of honesty and good prices, and you still want to negotiate the best deal you can, but your top priority is to find that one entity that can do it all—that’s convenience.
Depending on the composition of your collection, finding a single buyer who would be willing to write you a check and pack it all up might be possible. This tends to be a viable option for specialty collections, such as stoneware, weathervanes, model trains, etc., and less so for broader and more diverse collections. If you find this method appealing, then your biggest challenge is to get a realistic idea of the value of your collection on today’s market (as I’ve said before, what you paid in 1983 or what is on your appraisal from 1998 have no bearing on the value today). If you are unsure, it might be worth the cost of an appraisal from a qualified appraiser who has some expertise in your collecting area.
Most convenience-minded collectors, however, simply choose one auction company to sell it all, possibly even on-site. Typically, after such auctions, all that is left in the house can be donated to a local charity or thrown out (or recycled). Then you collect your check and move on!
The critical component in a successful and convenient sale is to remember what I discussed a couple of months ago: picking the best auction company for your collection, and not just your perception of the “best” auction company. This is even more important here, because you want to find a single firm that can sell your very best pieces and also your box lots of contemporary decorative tinware. This may well be a smaller, regional auctioneer, maybe even one that doesn’t offer online bidding (believe it or not, getting good prices is still very possible without internet bidding). In such a sale, some of your best or rarest things might bring less than they would in a higher-profile auction, but they might also help draw a better crowd who will pay more for your other items. Of course, you may be okay with a bit less, because while convenience is easy, it’s not cheap.
Andrew Richmond

Andrew Richmond

Andrew Richmond holds degrees from Kenyon College, and the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. He has spent more than a decade in the world of antiques and fine art auctions.

Andrew is the owner of Wipiak Consulting & Appraisals in Ohio. He is a recognized expert in the antiques and art field, serving as a regular appraiser on WKET TV’s Kentucky Collectibles, and he’s conducted numerous appraisal events around Ohio and beyond.

Andrew regularly engages in academic research on American decorative arts, and has lectured widely, including venues as Colonial Williamsburg’s Antiques Forum and the Winterthur Museum’s Furniture Forum. He has published numerous articles, and has curated two landmark exhibitions on the decorative arts of his native Ohio. He serves on the boards of several museums and decorative arts organizations.

 Andrew lives in rural Ohio with his wife (and regular writing partner) Hollie Davis, their two children, and their cats.

 

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