Inherited furniture etc, auction question

[moveblues]

Hi all
I'm selling a load of furniture I've inherited via auction as it's a bit out of date and no space here!
The auctioneer mentioned they are wholesale auctioneers. Is this the best way? Most items are in good nick bar one military chest which needs repair.
There are paintings, a Welsh dresser, cut glass decanters, clocks, a royal Doulton dinner service, all sorts!
Just wondering if this is the best route to sell as I am clueless!

Choose a different auction house then - one that has regular dates for selling antiques and collectables as well as a weekly general auction.

You don't want the whole lot to go for peanuts.

@Justkeeppedaling

If anyone has any g-plan, I'll take it off your hands. In particular a sideboard or shelving unit.

I'm after a G plan sideboard too 😄

Ah @therighttime12 and @Justkeeppedaling - I do get your point - my mother had a sideboard and dining table and chairs when I was young which I reckon lots of people would like - tragically binned, but proper g plan mid century - such is life

The problem is that prices for this type of thing yoyo so much according to fashion. I thing the difference is that people are changing furniture more often so all it takes is something to become fashionable and the price soars but only until the next type becomes the one to gave.

Prices are definitely going up for dark furniture. The problem is a lot of it is 80s reproduction and so worth even less.

Most of my house is furnished with dark wood furniture from eBay and Facebook. A couple of years ago £100 would buy you a nice piece but people are asking three times that now. Still often good value for what it is, but no longer a massive bargain.

My house is all off white walls with dark parquet throughout. The dark wood furniture pieces suit it and add character.

You could try selling on one of the antiques sites if any of your pieces make the grade? The prices for some items seem astronomical to me but someone must be buying them!
e.g.
www.loveantiques.com/

Does your Welsh dresser look anything like this one? (;-)
www.loveantiques.com/items/listings/exception-mid-18th-century-oak-dresser-LA180436

All gone today. Feeling a bit sad but also know the furniture isn't practical!
Will let you know how it gets on - I'm fascinated as this is my first time!

Probably out of the question for most people but storage is the answer!! It will all come back in, if its well made then it will have its time again. Be it 10 or 50 years time

The problem is everyone remembers it as grannies furniture at the moment so it is a bit "uncool" and what happens is everyone who was buying it, older people are no longer buying and as sadly that generation passes it all comes onto the market at once.

That said very special pieces can still attracted ok money.

I was also given the low down by dm on how much things were worth, brought a tear to my eye bless her I didn't have the heart to tell her that all this stuff you'd pretty much have to pay to have it taken away. Heartbreaking as it means so much to her.

She was also telling me she's got a £10,000 saved up for us, I said look don't worry about that go and enjoy it we'll have all these nik naks :D

The trouble with ' storage ' is it would have to be heated , as putting it in a barn , big garage / shed will just make it damp and the wood will degrade in a few years .
Storage companies will be heated , but to store for potentially years will work out £££.

@Christmasbird & @RuthTopp (I agree with you ruth ) - you could spend more on storage than the furniture etc is worth.

@movebluesIt is sad to see parent's things which they have cherished go - I know that - I was the one who supervised the clearance people in my DPIL's house. But unless you have a huge country house where you can put everything - I think better to take a few things which are meaningful and let the rest go - whether that be auction or house clearance. Or as SIL did - once family had taken what they wanted she said to a friend ( who does car boot sales ) - take whatever you want and raise a glass to my mother for whatever you can get for it.

I was also given the low down by dm on how much things were worth, brought a tear to my eye bless her I didn't have the heart to tell her that all this stuff you'd pretty much have to pay to have it taken away. Heartbreaking as it means so much to her.
It's a sign of the times. Back in the back, things - physical items - cost a lot of money so they were cherished. Nowadays they are cheap as chips (we spend only £23* pw or 4% on furniture etc) and are treated as throwaway fashion. So much for us being green/eco.

• ONS family spending

A lot of old furniture was better made though. If you can pick it up cheaply, why not? You don't have to keep it varnished/ plain wood, it can always be painted/ stripped back.

Maybe just try not to be looking at is as a future heirloom, but as a well-made piece of furniture that you'd like to give a second life to? A lot of modern paints can be removed/ easily painted at a later date if required.

I thoroughly recommend doing this. It fits with the re-purposing we keep being told we must do rather than chuck things in landfill. We can still remember the person who left us the item fondly, but we're also getting use out of the item.

And, it gets people trying new diy skills- whether it's painting, french polishing, stencilling, woodworking, upholstery, whatever. Lots of these skills are dying out. If you can find the time (possibly the most tricky bit!), why not do a little workshop to build up confidence and then make it into something you're proud to display?

@Siouxtse1 I do agree with you - I have in the past picked up things and repainted etc - the trouble is ( in my case ) we simply didn't have the room to accommodate all their stuff - so it was sold apart from personally important pieces & some stuff went to auction & just did not sell . What do you do?

I did ask a woman who had a 2nd hand furniture shop and she "up cycled" things and told her she could take anything she wanted. She took 2 things. Our problem is we just did not have the space to do that.

I love vintage furniture and have a number of family pieces at home. I live in an old house and they work well, mixed with modern Italian furniture. I’m also fortunate to have to space to house them.

I’m sure that your furniture will find a good home and be well loved.

We had to clear my late parents' house over the new year and it absolutely broke my heart what we had to let go to the auction house - and I know it's going to rebreak my heart when I see what it doesn't make, so I won't be looking at the final total. I feel particularly bad about a big dark chest that had been in the family for about 150 years but which none of us have got room for. And while I love a bit of Victorian gothic furniture, my DH definitely doesn't, and it's not fair to make the entire place look like Charles Dickens' front room.

I took what fitted into my house (my DPs bought a lot of Ercol as newly weds - thanks, DPs!) and a few smaller pieces that remind me of them. What sort of helped me was thinking that the furniture had served its purpose over the years, and now it would end up, at worst, recycled to make new things. It's hard not to feel you're somehow rejecting your DGM by passing her china cabinet on, but people's souls aren't in their possessions.

Now, chucking out photograph albums full of people you don't even know but are clearly somehow related to you... that's a whole other head wrecker.

@senua

it's a bit out of date and no space here! The trouble is that a lot of other people are inheriting similar from their babyboomer parents. It's out of fashion and the market is awash with it.

You could try Chinasearch for the Doulton.
Pine is always popular, dark-wood not so much at the moment. I think that the upcycling trend seems to have died.
Don't forget to figure in the inconvenience and cost of getting things to the auctioneers, especially the large/heavy or breakable pieces. And the cost of retreiving it when it doesn't sell.

Id say it was the exact opposite! People love painting old furniture and RD will sell well on Ebay if you can be bothered with that. You could ask at an antiques or vintage shop if theyd be interested in buying or else an auction will give you estimates and charge a percentage of the sale price.

@BasiliskStare

I guess you just have to ask around and let people know that you won't be offended if they upcycle it into something unrecognisable from it's original state?

Not much help if you've been given a house clearance by a relative and don't have any spare outbuildings to work on / store items in.

For the moment, I think a lot more will end up in landfill still, than needs to. Some charity shops do have workshops. Maybe more people might do work placements if they got to experiment with upcycling items?

In this country, certainly when I was a school, they didn't really value handicrafts, design or technology subjects. Kids don't seem to get taught basic wood joints or how to make patterns for useful household items as a rule. Same with DIY stuff. If you don't pick up tips from your parents or a friendly contractor, what's going to happen when they all retire? A lot of the newer contractors don't do the fiddly, intricate or 'old fashioned' stuff as there's more profit in a quick job. If you think contractors are expensive now, just wait 15-20 years until you might have to throw stuff away because there's no-one left who knows how to fix it effectively!

I don't think there is a simple answer, unfortunately. We just have to try and do what we can (although valuing 'manual labour' jobs a bit more might encourage some back into it).

The problem is some gplan is desirable and other pieces arent.
Furniture used to be much more expensive, we cleared out my parents house last year and they still had the receipts for everything they ever bought the gplan wardrobes they bought in the mid 1970s and I'm pretty sure they were about £800. We couldn't even give them away - I think they went to the tip.
They also had a teak gplan dining table and chairs and im not sure what ended up happening to that, it might have gone to charity. We definitely didn't get any money for it. None of the royal doulton on online shops were interested in the 40 piece dinner set (barely used because it was for "special occasions only!)
There was someone locally offering "house clearance" listing China and furniture. I naively thought house clearance meant he would clear the house. He took a few bits of china and wasn't interested in the rest. He gave me £30 and I'm not convinced that was an appropriate price, but I had no idea whether the things were worth anything and am pretty shit at bartering. He said "are you sure that's OK? Would your DH be OK with that?"
In the end the main thing was just to get rid of stuff rather than make money but even getting rid was very time consuming!

It's just really sad isn't? I manage a charity shop and probably at least half of what we are donated is just unsaleable - beautiful China dinner services, cut glass, ornaments, vintage linens etc etc. so much family history and sentimental value ... but sadly very hard to sell. .

I'm often asked to go and help with house clearances after someone has died which is so difficult as I just know most of the stuff just won't sell but I have to be really tactful and take some of it ... and then work out how to dispose of it.

@Siouxtse1 I so much agree with your point abut "manual" labour but I just think if people can fix things - make them better so they are passed on - that I am of one accord with you - the problem was none of DPILs children ( well older than children - but you get my point ) had the space to store this stuff & I promise you I rang round including charities and tried to give things away - little interest - it is sad because some of those things could have done some one a turn as they were but some could have been made much nicer - but given DPILs lived a long way away - it just came to the point where it had to go. One dinner set was sold at a car boot sale , some books , some kitchen things I took some cooking things , but honestly honestly it was hard even to try to give things away . & I tried. The house clearance people took some things which I said - please take them if you can use them.

@Ragwort - I do know what you are saying. How lovely of you to be tactful - I did the house clearance for DPILs because I was one step removed & I knew DSIL would have been upset to see so much just go to the tip. It is so nice of you to treat people in a nice way when you know what the truth is

It’s ironic that such well made furniture is somehow considered less valuable due to fashion. We bought an old house including some of the furniture which had always been in the house. We’ve since bought more old furniture to match the style of the house for insanely small amounts eg large Edwardian wardrobe with drawers £30! Beautiful dresser with pink marble top for £70. We know this stuff will last unlike a lot of the cheaper stuff we’ve bought over the years eg chest of drawers where the back starts falling off after a few years, or the runners become knackered.
It would be great if people would recognise its worth again but I don’t see it happening any time soon (despite the environmental benefits of reusing old stuff somehow a lot of people just want new )

@Ghislainedefeligonde

We felt really guilty getting rid of older well made furniture but neither myself or my siblings could keep it all (we have kept a few pieces each). It would have been easy to put it all in a skip but we literally advertised for sale or free everywhere we could think of, had people round to view it etc and in the end some went in the skip or to the tip anyway! Some items were upcycled and they looked amazing.