BEST PLACE TO SELL HOUSE CONTENTS?!

P0123

I hope this is the correct thread/category for this post, but I would appreciate all the helpful, genuine and non-judgmental advice available, and thank you in advance:
I have the unenviable task of clearing my Dad's home, in order to make it "presentable" for selling, following his death at the end of 2019.  I need to find "the right places" to SELL various things, because I have every respect for my Dad's possessions and don't believe a bunch of house clearers should just come in, box it up (or shove it in bags like it's junk), whilst charging a fortune and selling what they can at the same time.  (Also, it goes without saying, the Solicitors' fees are extremely high, along with other costs we are due to face.  Whilst there will be inheritance, I think that is besides the point, because for many items, they were/are precious and should be sold for a good price.  (I also believe that my frugal Dad would prefer it this way.)
Certain furniture that he has is "sought-after", from the early seventies or Art Deco, or possibly an antique rocking chair even.  Whilst various items are vintage or maybe even the odd antique, there are a few collectable pieces (ornamental, crockery, etc), that are saleable, plus even more precious are items of memorabilia from the Wars, and then the basic "run-of-the-mill" items of furniture and household contents.
Firstly, I do want to go through it, to save any personal or sentimental items that may be amongst the clutter, but then I would like to sell the more "sought-after" items and collectables to the best place to get what they are worth (ie, as opposed to a dealer that may fleece me - as has happened before with my own jewellery!).  
I have already donated many items to a Charity sale, a few Charity shops and to a couple of the Homeless Charities/Shelters.  I also anticipate letting one of the Charities collect the "run-of-the-mill" items, from furniture to tea-sets, which they will carry out free-of-charge (IF it is saleable for them).
I have already found a couple of sites/dealer that may well purchase the old vinyl records and the like.
Bearing in mind that I don't have any transport, nor do I live in the same city, it is not easy to transport anything.
I have tried advertising on some sites, including Preloved, Gumtree, Shpock and Facebook (but have avoided eBay for now, since not always the best value).  
The problem is, who or where is best to sell the "better items", and how?  I'd like to get the best prices, if possible, but if not, I would like to get something at least, to respect Dad's possessions and their worth, sentimentally and money-wise.
It is hard dealing with all of this, going into the house again, (where I also lived for many years, and cared for Dad), and so emotionally, it is not always easy to see a way through this all.
Please can anyone help?
THANK YOU, (and apologies for the epilogue, but it's hard to put everything into words right now).

Tom99

Do some searches on eBay for the type of furniture you have as that's the sort of place people who like that type of furniture will be looking out for it.

Local auction for the china maybe. Also maybe for some of the furniture, but look through the auctioneer's recent sale to see it's the type of stuff that auctioneer deals in.

Flugelhorn

A lot comes down to time - to get the very best price would mean using a range of places and outlets, variable fees would be involved and you may have extra costs of transport and if it was say and auction, there is the risk that the items won't sell.  You also have to factor in the value of your own time into this and the longer it takes, the more emotional energy it takes.
I would be tempted to identify the key items, get a large auction house in and see what they say. Then offer the rest to the charities. 

Owain_Moneysaver

War Memorabilia might be of interest to a local museum, or the relevant Regiment or Service museum - you don't get any money for them, but they will be going somewhere they will be appreciated in future. 
Gumtree is free, and if your dad lived in a reasonably large town/city there should be a reasonable market of potential buyers - get stuff listed from about a month in advance, making it clear that viewing/collection will be on a specific weekend. If you want anyone else to do the work of selling/collecting for you ie a dealer, they will take a significant cut. Or there might be a neighbour you'd trust to let potential buyers in, show them stuff and collect cash when you're not there?

JGB1955

Ask a local auction house to come and evaluate the contents. Sadly, you may need to steel yourself for disappointment. After 25% had been taken off in fees we ended up with less than £400 for a lifetime of my parents collection.....then had to spend another £800 on having the house cleared. Take away anything of sentimental value and just be pleased that someone else may gain enjoyment from owning the rest. 

Dox

There's no point saying 'try to keep the emotion out of it' - of course you can't, especially as your father's death is so recent. What you may need to come to terms with is the possibility that 'sought after' items may not be quite as readily saleable as you had hoped. 'Precious' is not always the same thing as 'valuable'. Probably your best bet is to get a local auctioneer in to advise, or a reputable local antiques dealer. Alternatively, box up the 'good' items and have them delivered to the nearest auction house and see what they sell for.

War memorabilia is another matter. Various museums may well be interested - they don't have to be local, provided you can get the stuff to them one way or another. The Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge has a wonderful visitor centre: http://battleofbritainbunker.co.uk/ as does Bentley Priory: https://bentleypriorymuseum.org.uk/

katiepoppycat

I sent a box to vintage cash cow and was very pleased with their service.  They do some roadshows too.  https://www.vintagecashcow.co.uk/

Savvy_Sue

What we did was get the local auction house in to identify what might have value. However they were not prepared to auction everything to which they assigned a value. Some of what they were not prepared to auction, we could probably have put on Ebay or sent to a different auction house, but we were starting to feel that there was going to be so much to deal with, we wanted to move on. 

The auction house recommended a house clearance company, and I have to say they were superb. If the house you're clearing is in the Reading area let me know. The HCC were committed to re-use / re-sale / re-cycle as much as possible, so there was a lot of sorting to be done, and they were absolutely fine with us continuing to wander in and out disposing of things: for example, there were LARGE quantities of craft materials which we managed to re-distribute to various 'projects' and between ourselves. The HCC had identified some possible beneficiaries of these, but it wasn't the kind of thing they were used to dealing with every day. 

The HCC did an initial clearance and major clean, then 'staged' the house for sale: you'd barely recognise it! There was a tense few days when they said to me "we can do the final clear this week, or not at all for six weeks", and at that stage we had an offer on the house, but no date for exchange. We went for the final clear, which was just as well because we then exchanged and completed the following day. 

Since you don't have transport, and don't live locally, I think you will struggle to do the final clearance yourself. We did do some tip runs, but they were exhausting (which I reminded my co-executor of when he briefly wondered if we should finish the clearance ourselves!) and NOW most local authorities seem to check your ID and where you live before you can access the tip. SOME charities will take the lot, but they will want to check how much of it is saleable, and it's likely to be less than you think, because they will have to pay for disposal of anything they can't sell. 

Also remember that you need to keep the house insured and maintained, which can be difficult when it is standing empty and the insurance cover will be limited. We were glad to keep paying the gardener to keep the garden looking tidy, and to keep an eye on things. 

-taff

My sister and I are in the same boat. We have taken many trips to the dump, involved charities to fetch furiture and dropped off various items to them. At some point we'll have an auction house visit, but that will still leave enormous amounts of stuff to get rid of. If you want to get the best price for everything you're going to spend a lot of time running about and probably, like me at the moment, at some point, you'll get overwhelmed and frustrated by what little appears to have been done against what has to be done and say, sod it, chuck it all.

If you don't want to get to that stage, go through what you have to see what you want to keep.

Get chairties to fetch anything you don't want furniture wise.

Auction house for anything you think is worth selling there [and they say they'll take]

Tools/equipemt you can try a local mens shed.

SKip what cant be given away.

War stuff - try a museum.

The rest, house clearance.

Trust me, I'm overwhelmed and I've only been doing it on and off for a few days at a time because I also don't live there, but unluckily for us, our parents were awful for justins, so we have piles of stuff to sort through and organise.

If I were you, and on your own doing it, I'd do it as simply as possible and get a ouse clearance firm in after you've decided what you want to keep. Even if the house clearance firm sell stuff on, then you know at least whoever buys it, will really want it.

wizzywilc

Sorry, I meant to reply earlier. Good advice from other posters.
It is a hard task you have. Very often older people think that items are worth more than they really are, leaving a conscientious executor searching for ways to sell items to achieve the best price. A friend still has her house cluttered with parental possessions a few years on because her father was convinced they all had a high financial value. Another way of looking at it is that respecting someone else's possessions means finding someone else who will appreciate and use them. As well as offering items to charity shops, Freecycle / Freegle can be useful or you could offer things to friends and neighbours.  

JGB1955

It was only when I called the local auction house in to value my parents possessions, that I realised quite how awful they (the possessions were).  I wouldn't want them, so why would anyone else?  Anyone want a collection of 50 shaving mugs?  15 brass oil lamps.  No... I thought not!  It was a wake up call.  The items were special to my parents... but not to me.  Hopefully they will bring joy to someone else.  Time to move on.  And, in the meantime, I'm de cluttering my own house!