Literal Gold Diggers

When I think of a gold digger, my mind conjures up two images: 1) an 1800′s scruffy old man panning for gold, and 2) The Housewives of Beverly Hills, Atlanta, or wherever.  In the old days, a gold digger was someone who ransacked the graveyards stealing gold from the deceased.  In my world of estates, I see a different kind of gold digger; one that you won’t know exists until a loved one dies or takes seriously ill.

We see estates literally ransacked, like a bunch of coyotes rummaged through the place.  Boxes that once sat neatly in the attic and closets are ripped open and left in a jumbled mess, opened with contents spilling out.  Closets are left with clothes not on hangers, but in a huge heap on the floor!  Kitchen cupboards are askew and I guarantee the silver is long gone.  It would appear they left no stone unturned.  Were they looking for gold, silver, or cold, hard cash?

What is this incessant need for people to take stuff and help themselves?

I call them Mr. Pilfer and Miss Pickpocket.  They come in, often under cover of the darkness, and things disappear, never to be found again.  Is it greed, the entitlement mentality, or just a lack of care and consideration for the memory of the loved one?

I have come to the conclusion, after talking with dozens of executors, that one of the problems is there are too many keys floating around.  One of the first things I recommend is changing the locks to protect the contents until they are inventoried and/or valuated.  Another thorn in the executor’s paw is that sometimes they will tell the family and extended members that “Uncle Joe was known for his cash stashes, guns, gold coins, etc.”

This just happened in the estate I was working in.  The executor, thinking he was being honest and open with everyone, told the family there was cash in the house.  You know what happened next?  Ransack city.

Sometimes, the executor won’t even know there are valuables or cash, but other family members suspect there is money in the estate.  It is the executor’s responsibility to protect what is in the estate!  No one should go in until all is established and ready to be divided according to the will (if there is one).  Hopefully, the executor is honest!

Moral of the story:  Loose talk makes valuables walk.

© 2012 Julie Hall

Beware of Snowballing Family Lore

I would be a rich woman if I had a dollar for every time I heard a family member tell the story of an heirloom in which the story gets bigger and better with every telling.  It’s like the old parable, “The fish that got away was THIS big …” and every time the story is told, the fish miraculously gets bigger.

So too is the challenge we professionals have with discussing and valuating family heirlooms.  I visit clients in their homes and enjoy each of them and listening to their stories.  However, I know what the values really are, regardless of the verbal family stories.  The hard part for me, and for the client, is providing proof that the following really took place: “Did you know Abraham Lincoln sat in that chair?”  “This belt buckle belonged to Robert E. Lee.”  “Our grandmother told us Teddy Roosevelt took a picture with daddy, but we don’t know where that picture went.”  We know what these items are worth on a monetary level, but you can’t place a value on sentimentality.  Sentimentality is priceless and in the mind of the beholder.

Could some of these family stories actually be true?  Perhaps they are, but without provenance, or history of the piece (proof of some kind, like a photo of Abraham Lincoln really sitting in that chair), it leaves a question mark and is difficult to valuate.  Without proof, we can only appraise what we see based on its’ characteristics.

I look back into my experiences with all kinds of families and wonder why most people seem to exaggerate about old possessions.  Here’s what I came up with:

• It’s their version of the truth as they see it.
• For attention. (I have something special.)
• To accentuate the positive.
• To make the mundane more exciting.

Maybe Abraham Lincoln did sit in that chair.  Or maybe he sat in one just like it and that’s how the story got convoluted.  Someone heard what they wanted to hear, and generations of tongues did the rest.

I don’t want you to be disappointed when you go to sell these items and the prices brought don’t match the stories behind the piece.  If your items mean that much to you, hold on to them and do your best to research the history of that piece for generations to come.

© 2012 Julie Hall

The Odyssey of Junk

Has your junk been more places than you?

It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been in the estate business, I still wonder why we hold on to so much “junk” and why we have such difficulty letting go of it.  Oh sure, we may have it in neat piles, boxed in a spare room, crammed in closets, or out of sight, but make no bones about it — it is THERE, lurking in the darkness of our drawers, attics, and closets faithfully reproducing while we go about our busy lives.  How on earth do we amass so much?

I have a theory.  Somewhere back in our long-ago DNA when ancestors were primitive, I think we developed a “switch” in our brains that told us to gather and collect.  Humans were, after all, hunters and gatherers, and I believe we still are on some level.  Back then, we had to collect wood for fire, food to eat, etc. Our survival depended on it.  If you didn’t collect these items, you and your family would perish.

Today, we do it on a grand, 21st century scale.  We buy, buy, buy, and don’t really understand why.  We have far more than we need and far more than we will ever use.  Did you know we actually use only 20% of what we own?  Think about it — we wear the same, favorite clothes, shoes, use the same kitchen items, toiletries, etc.  So what happens to the other 80%?  It sits there, not being put to use, often until a loved one dies and then it has to be dealt with.  By then, it is too late and much of it is usually discarded.

We not only hold on to, but also keep moving stuff from one home to another: our college stuff, our kids’ stuff, even stuff for grandkids who aren’t walking yet, but we think they may want these items one day.

When we are in estates cleaning them out, or if clients ask us to clean out their attics, we find boxes with original moving company stickers from the 60s and 70s, and those boxes are STILL taped shut.  No one ever opened them after the move 40+ years ago.  The message that sends to me is these items weren’t important enough for me to open this box, so why do we still have them?

Our elders, God bless them, saved everything including broken appliances and parts (because you might need them one day), tons of catalogs and magazines (because those old National Geographics might be worth something).  The entire kitchen is cluttered with mayonnaise jars, Cool Whip containers, pie tins, etc.  The truth is, they are never used, because we find decades of dust on them.

Sometimes families move the entire household of a deceased relative to another state, only to clutter up their own homes.  This cycle is long, tiresome, and laborious, and the pattern needs to be stopped, or at least interrupted, so we can analyze why we do these things.  No wonder we’re all so tired, buying stuff, finding places for it, and then at some point, being forced to deal with it.  It will eventually become the proverbial monkey on our backs or our children’s backs.

Logic would dictate that we need to be free of it, in order to make our lives simple again.  It’s APRIL and the perfect time for SPRING CLEANING.  I’ll deal with my piles if you deal with yours!

© 2012 Julie Hall

What We Find Left Behind

It’s always an eye-opening experience working in estates after the children have taken what they want and allow us to handle the remainder.  You just never know what you will find left behind.

Sometimes, we just find what you would expect, the items that should have been discarded 40 years ago – broken items from the attic, old appliances, clothing that needs to be donated, etc.  Other times, we find items that have value and we arrange to have them sold for the family.  And on occasion, we find items that leave us scratching our heads, or items that we can never speak of and promise to take that information to our graves.

We see it all: the love, the fights, the estrangements, the addictions, the sorrows, the secrets – all of which are carried through our lifetimes.

It is difficult to put into words when you find war medals of courage and valor left on the floor for disposal, or antique photos of people in the family that have been left in a pile for us to discard.  But we understand that every person has a story and we are not privy to their upbringing or lives, and therefore do not understand why they made the decisions they did.

Recently we found letters dating from the Civil War period, of a soldier who wrote home to his sister.  He wrote of the horrible conditions, how most of his comrades had died from dysentery, and that there wasn’t enough food to keep the soldiers strong.  He spoke of having no warmth through the winter months, but described it in such a way that he was not complaining.  It was fascinating to hear of life so long ago from a person who lived during those times, but the family took no interest.

Other things we find are scrapbooks, war letters between mom and dad, family Bibles with genealogy information inside the front cover, diaries, estate jewelry, guns, etc.

I guess it’s true what they say.  Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, and one cannot predict what is in a person’s heart during such difficult times.

© 2012 Julie Hall

Condition, Condition, Condition

When it comes to the worth of heirlooms, there is one characteristic of value that I want everyone to understand: Original Condition.

We all know what the word original means: initial, first, earliest, the real thing.  It means the condition of an item that has been left intact, that way the artist or creator intended it to be.  No stripping, refinishing, repairs, paint, drilled holes, polishing and lacquering, etc.  To a collector wanting to buy a fine item, original shows that the piece is true to the period and proves its’ age by leaving it alone over the course of time.

But everyone out there seems to believe that if mother’s tables are antique, they are definitely valuable.  This is NOT the case; please forward this to anyone who is of this mindset.  There are many characteristics of value, and age is only one of them.  Condition is at the top of the list.  Here is where it gets cloudy …

I’m called to an estate to see lovely antiques, but they are in less than stellar condition.  They are covered in years of nicotine or mold/mildew, or have been exposed to years of humidity or heat.  All the owner understands is that these items are old and should put considerable cash in their pocket.

What an appraiser sees is that they were not taken care of for whatever reason.  The original condition has been altered and getting it back to a “sellable” condition will take a small miracle, not to mention more money than the piece is actually worth.  They can still be sold and a fixer-upper buyer will want them, but at a fraction of the price people have in their heads.  Then people get upset because their pieces are not selling well, or feel jilted because what they “perceived” they would sell for didn’t transpire.  I know … it’s a lot to take in!

Even antiques or semi-antiques in fine condition are not necessarily valuable.  Times are changing.  The economy has changed the market drastically.  The statistics of how many boomers and elderly we have in this country is mind-blowing.  So if you are considering selling your heirlooms, look at them like an appraiser and consider all flaws before setting expectations sky-high.

© 2011 Julie Hall

She Just Didn’t “Get It”

Though my efforts were admirable, my client simply did not want to hear the values I placed on her “heirlooms.”  I was there in her lovely, traditional home getting paid handsomely for a couple of hours of my time to offer her an opinion of value, but I am not certain she heard what I had to say.  As with all of my clients, I have a way of being succinct and direct, yet kind and compassionate.  I offer guidance they can trust and direction based on the market and where it is headed.  It is not always an easy combination to attain.

In her home, all things were phenomenally valuable according to her.  She had, after all, done her research.  Her figurines were worth far more than ever recorded, and simple ceramics or collectibles were off the charts.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know these figures just aren’t applicable, especially now.  I tried to bring her down to a realistic place and questioned where she got these “values.”  Some came from research a dozen years ago when the market was strong, and others were on very high retail sites.  These are not viable sales comps.

This is the new reality.  It is worth what someone is willing to give you for it, and in this economy if the offer is fair, take it.  Just know what you have first.

When researching prices on the internet, compare apples to apples and not just asking prices on retail sites.  Find out what the items are actually selling for.

A rude awakening, perhaps, but gone are the days of spending wildly — at least for the next few years.

© 2011 Julie Hall

Make Extra Income Doing This …

People have been collecting, sorting, and selling “scrap metal” for eons.  But I have recently read articles that claim that full-time scrappers make anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000 annually.  That’s pretty impressive money.

Take it from one who knows — there is a good deal of scrap metal in our own homes, on the street being trashed, and thrown in dumpsters from coast to coast.  To me and people like me, that’s like throwing away money!  Think twice before you push your trash bin to the curb.  Do you have any copper, brass, steel, aluminum, bronze, etc?  Forget the condition; it matters not if you find a pipe here or an old teapot there.  Here are some tips for you:

MAXIMIZE YOUR SCRAP METAL RECYCLING:

Go to www.metalprices.com and get familiar with what the different metals are selling for.

• Sort various metals into different piles.  Steel should go into one pile and copper should go into another.  You will get more if you segregate the lands of scrap.
• Deal only with reputable scrap metal brokers or scrap yards.
• Keep all garbage out of your scrap metal piles … metal only.
• Always carry a magnet.  You can use a magnet to quickly tell if the material is ferrous or non-ferrous, and then separate your metals accordingly.

© 2011, The Estate Lady

Why can’t I determine value on the internet?

Q:  You make it sound complicated to establish value of my heirlooms.  Why can’t I just look at the internet and find the value myself?  Surely there’s plenty of stuff for sale on Ebay that I can find a similar item and see what they are asking for that item.

A:  The arrival of the 21st century has enabled us to find 90% of what we are searching for on the internet.  What a great tool — but with greatness also comes weakness.  What a double-edged sword.  If used correctly, you can find the answers.  If used incorrectly, it can truly mislead you, or cause permanent damage to one’s reputation. 

I read numerous articles, newsletters, and blogs; I see so many wanting to research what their possessions are worth. 

There are multiple factors involved in assigning a value to a particular item, not limited to the following:  marketability, condition, collectability, age, rarity, provenance, materials used, handmade vs. factory made, etc.  Age alone is not the only important characteristic, for all that is old is not necessarily valuable.  Original condition is a very important factor, as is rarity. 

One problem is everyone seems to believe they have something hard-to-find or rare, based on family stories told over years.  Families are often disappointed to learn that the old bench great-grandfather made in 1857 is just an old bench and has more sentimental value than monetary value.

People have a tendency to jump onto Ebay, which is not always a good thing.  While Ebay is a huge site with a broad variety of items, the market is currently down and often cyclical.  There are better times of year than others to sell on Ebay.  It’s also important to compare apples with other apples, and not an item that just looks like grandma’s old figurine.  You must first have an accurate description of the item, then you can begin your search.

Remember too, the cardinal rule: If you go searching on the internet, make sure you accurately find the price the item sold for, and not just the asking price.  Many times people say, “Julie, you only appraised this item for $200 and I see it on the internet for $675.  Why is your appraisal so different?”  My research in comparables accurately depicts what it sold for.  Anyone can ask any price they wish.  Go on Ebay and you will see some pretty ridiculous asking prices!  But note, the items have not sold for these prices.

It is important to also remember to search multiple search engines, as well as different values: not just Ebay, but online auctions, in-person auctions, estate sales, etc.  Find the fairest comparables you can.  Keep in mind that professional appraisers have extensive training and knowledge in research, writing, and databases, which the average person does not have.  When in doubt, please hire a professional appraiser to offer you the knowledge you need to make good, sound decisions about your personal property.

© 2011, The Estate Lady

What is Value?

Let’s start by addressing what it is not.  Value is not a price you see on the internet or in a store.  That is only a numerical figure someone conjured up, very often based on their personal sentiment towards the item, or a price they once saw in a book.  The economy pretty much tossed that out the window.  It’s not the story the family handed down for generations that a particular piece is “very valuable.”  Maybe it is, but most likely, it’s not.  Sure it’s old, but that alone doesn’t guarantee value.  It may just be old.

Value is a very personal thing.  People want to believe what they have (or what grandma has) is valuable.  Price is determined by supply and demand, as well as the collector market.  As I have often said, there must be a demand for what you have.  You might have an antique china set from grandma — so does everyone else.  The supply is bountiful, but the demand simply isn’t there and this means the price is not going to meet your expectations, regardless of what they paid for it.  Those days are long gone.

If you have something rare (and most people think they do), you will need a professional personal property appraiser to confirm that, and also recommend where it should be sold.  For the record, “rare” means extraordinary, like a flawless diamond, and most of us do not have that.  What we have, and what we inherited, is a lot of stuff that is good and useable, but not necessarily valuable.

When in doubt, bring in someone like myself so that you can move forward and make good, solid decisions for your personal property.  Set your expectations accordingly so you will not be disappointed, and may, in fact, be pleasantly surprised.

© 2011, The Estate Lady

From Clutter to Cash, Part 3

Here are the final 4 options for turning the clutter stored in your home and garage into cash.  Please pay special attention to Option #7 before you get rid of anything that might have value. 

6.  Do-It-Yourself – You can try Ebay, Craigslist, local advertising in your newspaper. These are time-consuming and often frustrating if you don’t know the proper way to describe the items, people never show up at the appointed times, money can be wasted in fees (especially Ebay’s, which are not cheap, but at times are worth it). For antiques, collectibles, jewelry, vehicles, larger collections: If you are determined to save the percentage you would ordinarily pay a professional, that’s ok. But keep in mind that professionals have the knowledge and skills to sell these items for the highest amount they can. If you are paying them a commission, they want it to sell for as much as possible too.

7.  BEFORE you sell or give away anything you perceive has value, make sure a professional appraiser takes a look at it. A professional who is paid for an opinion of value and not one that will offer to buy it, which to many is a conflict of interest, but you be the best judge. I have uncovered items worth tens of thousands of dollars that were slated for donation. The fee my client paid me was well worth having me come over, because my experience and skills uncovered what they thought was give-away junk. For example, they were very happy when I discovered in their basement a vase that was sold for $57,500.

8.  To sell or donate? – Should it just be donated, or can I try to sell it first? If it doesn’t sell, I’ll pack it up for donation. Whichever you prefer. If it is banged up and in horrible condition, recycle it or throw it away. If you would feel better giving your items to those less fortunate – there are many who are these days – please find a worthwhile charity or organization. By all means, give, give, give. You will receive a donation receipt you can use for this year’s taxes.

9.  Scrap it – If it’s metal and you don’t want it, or it’s broken or bent, don’t throw it away; scrap it! Find out the location of your local scrap yard and haul it there to get cash. It is not unusual for a truck load to be $100-$150 depending on the type of metals you have. They are looking for insulated copper wire, copper tubing, auto radiators, air conditioning coils, brass, aluminum, bronze, cast iron, stainless steel, and other high temperature alloys.

Please leave a comment at the end of this article and let me know how this has helped you.  What have you cleared out and how did you turn it into cash?

©The Estate Lady, 2011