Downsizing and want to sell antique furniture. Need Advice

[HadEnuff]

BIL's wife has an estate liquidation business in San Antonio, Texas. She has pretty much closed up and only does certain sales. She has a leased warehouse busting at the seams with antiques and good furniture. She said this will be her last year in business as she has a hard time selling anything of value. Hurricane Harvey helped her business this last year as a lot of people were replacing damaged furniture.

Her home looks like a museum as it is full of antiques. Like others mentioned, no younger people want this stuff and us older folks (including yours truly) are stuck with our own load of it.

Indeed, we contacted two people we knew who had once had estate liquidation businesses and neither one of them is doing it anymore, because they couldn't get rid of any of the stuff.

 

[iloveyoga]

If you have had to go through the estate process, you learn how little value many "things" have. Even very nice things. It has really helped me to go through and clean out my own stuff and also not to buy more. I am just positive that someday our kids will not want most of what we have!

 

[iloveyoga]

And to pile on, I helped my brother when he moved and downsized. He had a beautiful dining room set, chairs, lighted buffet, the whole works. We could not sell it for even a low price. He ended up trading it to a friend with a large family for some construction work. Also, nice upright piano, that they paid $800 for, we did give that away, to a nice family where the young daughter was learning to play.

 

[Markola]

All of the above experiences jibe with us clearing out late DMIL’s house. On the bright side, we happen to need a good dresser so maybe we’ll go antique shopping and nab a deal!

 

[ABQ2015]

I have about 10 furniture pieces, a small blue and white china collection and other assorted china, some Staffordshire figurines, etc. - all pre-1850 antiques (i.e., pre-Victorian). My concern is moving the two large corner cupboards with glass panes when I relocate cross country. Assume these will need to be crated and it will be costly. I bought most of it years ago but maybe I'll start looking around for some more pieces if prices have actually fallen so much.

 

[Huston55]

I have about 10 furniture pieces, a small blue and white china collection and other assorted china, some Staffordshire figurines, etc. - all pre-1850 antiques (i.e., pre-Victorian). My concern is moving the two large corner cupboards with glass panes when I relocate cross country. Assume these will need to be crated and it will be costly. I bought most of it years ago but maybe I'll start looking around for some more pieces if prices have actually fallen so much.

That’s the other bit which should be factored into one’s keep/lose decision about their stuff. It’s expensive (unless an employer or someone else is paying) & cumbersome to move stuff so, we’ve found it’s better to bite the bullet and rid ourselves of stuff before the move versus after. That particularly applies to non-household stuff like papers, raw materials, etc.