House Clearance Auctions Advice Please

veravera123

Sadly, due to my Dads sudden death, I am having to empty the family home. There is a hugh amount of stuff but no antiques. Lots of china, ornaments, wedgwood, pictures & a few bits from my Nans house, such as an old mantle piece clock & EPNS silver plated teaset. I have got a local auctioneers coming to the property tomorrow. They say that they will put anything of value into the main auction & anything else into the general auction. They say I will have to pay a haulier if I cannot get the items to the auction rooms myself. Has anyone got experience of this sort of thing, I have sold a few things on Ebay but I have had a bad experience before with a house clearance auctioneers who basically were linked to a local market & threw everything in boxes together and sold huge boxes of china for about £2.00 a box !
I have got to pay for my Mums care home fees so I am anxious to go through the best channels. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

Errata

Look on ebay for similar pieces to get an idea of value and put a non-negotiable reserve price on them.

getmore4less

You need an auction that gets a lot of dealers and regular foke so better prices are paid.

If you have time check them out or ask around.

How long do you have got to be a bit more selective and box up some yourself if it looks like it may have some value above basic.

remember a lot of stuff that is not collectable is not worth much and some that you may not think is collectable will be, so google and ebay everything to get an idea.

I forgot to check one of my mums old vacuum cleaners which went to the tip but was worth quite a bit just for spares to a collector.

There is a market for retro stuff ...40,50,60...

madbadrob

Use one of the larger auction houses they have insurance and will pack the stuff carefully they will also give you genuine valuations as well
Rob

paddedjohn

Put in the auction and you will get buttons back for it all. Your best bet would be to do a bit of research on any decent items and then either list stuff on ebay, sell through the small ads,do your own boot sale or call round some second hand shops who do house clearances and get some prices of them.

veravera123

Thanks everyone for your advice. I have had an auctioneer call today & he was quite honest & said by the time I had paid haulage at around £50 an hour, lot fees & their 19% commission, there would be very little left. May give Ebay a go with a few job lots & collection only. Thanks guys.

getmore4less

One cheap way to offload if no one wants to pay for stuff is charity shops and freecycle(and varients like freegle)

Goldiegirl

Although I do quite a lot of eBaying, it's not a very quick way of selling things.

You also need to have quite a lot of time available for photographing the items, listing them, and in the case of collection only items, being around for when then buyers come to collect.

I had to clear my parents house in 2004, and at the time had too much on my plate to spend the necessary time that eBay would require.

What I did was go through the house, and took everything that I wanted to keep for sentimental reasons. Then I took some of the nicer pieces for eBaying at a later date.

We then took several bags of things to charity shops.

After that, I paid someone to take the rest of it away.

It's very sad to see someone's life being taken away like that, but the things that were left had no real monetary value.

It's a big undertaking to clear a whole house, so do what you can yourself, and then get help to take away the remainder

bylromarha

We're going through this process clearing mum's house, the house I grew up in and the house she lived in for 33 years. We've tipped and charity shopped the majority, but have put aside a box of 'worth anything?' to eBay when my brain is in a place to cope with it.

It's not a fun process at all OP, sorry for your loss.

Tuesday_Tenor

>>> no antiques. Lots of china, ornaments, wedgwood, pictures & a few bits from my Nans house, such as an old mantle piece clock & EPNS silver plated teaset.

Sounds like the sorts of things my parents had. Sister and I already have full houses, so only took things we really wanted, mostly for memories.

The vast majority were given away to a charity shop. With clothes etc, it was several car journeys worth!

But there were quite a few things which while not VERY valuable, had been valued by/special for my parents and it seemed sort of disrespectful to just 'chuck them out' to the charity shop.
I was fortunate to find a local auction happening at the right time, and put in about 15 lots; some individual items (EPNS animal figurines), some boxed-up job lots. Nothing big; only stuff I could get in the car. Altogether, after auctioneers commission, they brought about £200 into the Estate. I felt glad that I'd gone to the trouble of doing this; it would have felt wrong to let their 'treasured stuff' go for nothing.

A couple of decent items of furniture were sold/given to friends and neighbours. The residual furniture was pretty ropey and was cleared via the Estate Agent, at no extra cost (i.e. included in his fee).

Dad had had a lot of carpentry tools. We let friends and neighbours choose things from these, and gave the rest to 'Tools for Self Reliance'.

Yes, clearing a house is quite a task. I found all the different elements were important parts of the process, e.g. the carpentry tools were a chance to chat with the neighbours, it felt good to both clear some things in bulk (to charity shop) AND to pay more attention to some individual items (for the auction).

It's bringing back the memories (2 years ago) as I type. Best wishes for your own sad exercise.

dzug1

veravera123 wrote: »

& EPNS silver plated teaset.
Thank you

You'd be surprised how little that is worth - you'd be lucky to get £20 for it if you can shift it at all.

It may even be worth hiring a skip if there's a lot of junk furniture. That's what house clearance people will do with a lot of it

As others have said - sad but true