Tag Archives: estate sales

you will want to check out this sale – which won’t be repeated!

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Tonight I went to my friend’s studio for a prop house sale. And another friend facilitated the sale. I realized tonight how long it had been since we all just had fun. Like pre-COVID fun.

We were invited to the sale preview, and it was amazing. The space is fabulous and there were nibbles and laughter….and a giant space full of new, vintage, antiques, and everything in between. China, crystal, glassware, pottery, fabric, mirrors, linens, furniture, art, rugs, Dansk Kobenstyle Dutch ovens, and more!

Even better? It was this amazing well lit space that was filled with light and had high ceilings. Maybe it’s just me because I always love to see how loft spaces are interpreted.

The regular open days of the Maximalist Studios Prop House Sale are tomorrow and Saturday, March 25 and 26 10 AM to 2 PM each day. 501 W. Washington Street in Norristown. You can find out more information on the Sales By Helen website.

provenance

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When you buy an antique or vintage or collectible item, people often speak of the “provenance” of the item. Provenance (from the French provenir, “to come from”), is the chronology of the ownership of an object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of things and fields.

I like to know the provenance of things I buy, even if it isn’t an antique or true collectible. These things all have a story, and sometimes the back story or journey is more wonderful than the item.

Today, I had that happen.

I went to an estate sale in Malvern, but in Charlestown Township.  It was magical.

I drove up this beautiful little road that was deeply wooded, and so quiet save for the early morning song birds. I parked and walked down the driveway. It was a pretty house. Modest in size, it was lovely in its surroundings in the woods.

I greeted the estate sale people whom I like a great deal and have dealt with several times before – Caring Transitions of Chester County. When they run a sale or an auction they are so wonderful to deal with. They research what they are selling, price fairly if they are doing an estate sale, and the sales are neat and organized and easy to navigate with items priced clearly. They have staff in the majority of the rooms and it is always just a pleasure to deal with them. 

And they are legitimately estate sales when they hold them, as not all sales that call themselves that are. And while some estate sale companies seem to create states of chaos where people are just grabbing and often stealing things while nearly destroying the homes, Caring Transitions doesn’t operate in that manner. They are nice, knowledgable professionals.  They run a nice, tight ship.

I walked into the house and the first thing I noticed was how happy the house felt if that makes any sense. It was spotlessly clean, but just had a nice vibe. I had come for nutcrackers and Christmas ornaments I had seen advertised but found other things.

The woman who had lived there had been an amazing embroidery and needlepoint and petit point artist. The needlework took my breath away. An estate sale professional in an upstairs room told me the lady of the house had been German. I asked her if she had been a war bride. “How did you know?” said the employee. I pointed to some of the World War II uniforms hanging in a closet.

I have been to estate sales where old military uniforms were sort of tossed in piles in corners. Not these. Lovingly hung in closets, and neatly folded in opened footlockers or trucks. These uniforms meant something. Looking at them was like a history lesson.

I wandered into what had been the master bedroom and saw this completely lovely framed sampler, just lying displayed on the bed. I love vintage samplers. To me they are the ultimate in folk art. I have several little ones scattered around my house. 

I bought the sampler. 

I drove home thinking how warm and happy the house had felt.  When I got home I hung up the sampler. The woman who made it in 1988 had stitched her name in it. Annaliese Nagel.

I decided to Google her obituary to learn more about this needlework magician to give my sampler more of a provenance. I found it and learned more about Annaliese Nagel:

ANNELIESE NAGEL OF CHARLESTOWN Anneliese Nagel, 89, of Charlestown, was taken by her Lord on Friday, September 7, 2012. She was the wife of Harry W. Nagel, with whom she shared 66 years of marriage. Born in Heddesheim Germany, she was the youngest child of the late Katharine and Johannes Scherb. She moved with her family to Westtown where she lived for 17 years before moving to Charlestown. She attended schools in the Heidelberg area of Germany and later took courses at the Technical University in

Hannover, Germany where her husband was studying under a Fulbright grant.

She was a homemaker in the fullest sense of the word, an expert cook, baker and a gracious hostess who truly enjoyed people. She was also expert in many forms of needlework, through which her memory will live on in many of the homes of friends and family .

Now I wanted to know about her husband. So I Googled again. I found her beloved husband,  Harry Nagel. I hope his family is not upset, but I am sharing a big chunk of his obituary. He wrote it himself, and he was part of the Greatest Generation and theirs was such a love story, and what a life he lived!

 

Obituary for Harry W. Nagel

Hi everyone! It’s me, Harry. I’ve decided to create my obit myself prior to the actual event. I thought this might make for more interesting reading. The two photos illustrate the toll time takes on all of us. One was Harry at 20, the other is Harry at 82. 

I had hoped to survive until stem cell technology or some other medical procedure might enable once vital organs to be reproduced, therefore, extending life. However, should dementia or Alzheimer’s intervene, life extension would be a questionable goal.

I was born in Union City, NJ on 21 January 1925, the first child of Anne Elise Christine Nagel (nee Von Spreckelsen) and Harry Conrad Nagel. I grew up during the ‘Great Depression” in, strangely named, West New York , NJ . Upon graduation from Memorial High School in 1942, I was accepted at Columbia College (Columbia University), class of 1946. However, December 7, 19 41 changed America’s and my destiny. As most of my former classmates were already in the armed forces, I volunteered for the Army on my 18th birthday.

After training in lesser known vacation destinations in Alabama and Louisiana and having been introduced to such denizens as coral snakes, armadillos, wild boar, chiggers, heat rash and fellow Americans who could neither read nor write, we embarked for England on the army transport, George Washington, in the midst of a 100+ ship convoy.

While in England, we engaged in the same type of exciting training which we had done in Louisiana, substituting cool rain for heat and humidity. Then, that mysterious hand of fate loaded us onto ships, and, the next we knew, we were stepping off of LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry) into the mud and wreckage of Omaha Beach , France. The beach landing was required as all of the French ports were still incapable of accepting ships.

Life as a PFC (Private First Class), rifleman, infantry, was about as grim as it got. During WWI we were called ‘Cannon Fodder!’ Our division was employed in combat in Holland , Belgium and Germany . The Battle of the Bulge began on 16 Dec. 1944 . We were there on 17 December. It was there I earned my first Purple Heart medal (first of two). This got me out of the snow and a happy stay at a huge hospital in LeMans, France. There I was patched up and returned to my rifle company as ‘fit for duty’.

After crossing the Rhine we fought our way across Germany (Purple Heart #2) to link up with our Soviet comrades on the Elbe River . Shortly thereafter, as the territory we had bled for was to become the Soviet Zone of Occupation (later East Germany ), we were moved to the Heidelberg area. It was there I was to meet my future wife, Anneliese. As Americans were prohibited from marrying Germans at the time, I was returned to the US in November 1945 and discharged from the army in December 1945.

Resolved to return to Anneliese, I joined the Merchant Marines, signing on the George Washington (the ship which took me to England as an infantryman) as an engine room oiler. The ship was being used to return German soldiers who had been US prisoners of war to Europe. On one voyage to LeHavre , France , I jumped ship and, disguised as a German POW, made my way into the city of LeHavre , dressed as a seaman. From there I traveled by train to Strasburg via Paris. There, disguised as a French soldier, I was able to cross the Rhine back into Germany and back to Anneliese.

After a couple romantic months, with me disguised as a German civilian with a German ID card, I decided to turn myself in to the US authorities and try a legally approved approach to remain in Germany. This approach saw me incarcerated in the 19th century Bermen City prison. After my trial I was permitted to re-enlist in the US Army. I was assigned to third Army Hq. (General Patton) in the intelligence section in Heidelberg . Anneliese could not believe our good luck! As I was fluent in German, one of my more interesting assignments was to interrogate ex-SS personnel and war crimes suspects at the former concentration camp, Dachau . While there I also sat in on the trial of Ilsa Koch who had been the wife of the commandant of the concentration camp, Buchenwald. Ilsa, known as ‘The Bitch of Buchenwald ,” was accused of having inmates with interesting tattoos killed and skinned. She allegedly then made lamp shades of these skins.

In December 1948, Anneliese, our two children and I left Bremen on a tramp steamer bound for Mobile AL , and then on to Leonia, NJ to stay with my dad and two younger brothers. From there I commuted daily to Columbia where I had been re-admitted. Motivated by my family I earned three degrees in five years, receiving an AB, BS and MS in Chemical Engineering, topped off by a Fulbright Grant to do post-graduate work at the West German Petroleum Institute in Hanover , West Germany . While there Anneliese and I traveled widely and the children stayed with relatives and went to German schools. Upon returning to the US, I resumed work at Sunoco where I had already worked summers while at Columbia, retiring in 1983.

My second career! While at Columbia, the Cold War with the Soviet Union was intensifying. Having been an NCO (Non-commissioned Officer) in the Infantry, I was convinced, should war break out, I’d be right back at my old WWII job. As a result, I took advantage of an existing law and applied for a direct commission as a second lieutenant as I knew my family would be better off if something happened to me. At this time I had no further interest in the Army. Fate intervened! I met a fellow officer at Columbia who convinced me to attend an Army Reserve meeting with a group of ex-WWII infantrymen. I was hooked! 

At this writing I am a retired colonel, having completed the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Army War College at Carlisle, PA , with over 36 years of combined active and reserve service.


What a life they had! What quite literally,  a love story.  My sampler has its provenance. And I learned the happy house I visited today had as part of it’s history, it’s provenance, and amazing love story. 

Thank you Annaliese for my sampler. I will treasure it and remember your story.

yard sale etiquette

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It’s summertime and who doesn’t like a really fun yard sale, right? Well there are rules. You are basically a guest on someone else’s property, so try to remember that. 

Are there rules? Maybe they aren’t written down or codified in our unspoken but yes, there are rules.

When you go to yard sale, you are in essence a guest at someone else’s house/property. So try to behave – just the way you would expect your children to (or one would hope.)

Respect the property you are visiting. 

Don’t let your kids just run all over if you bring them with you and please don’t let them just manhandle the goods. 

Leave your dogs at home. Even if the garage sale or yard sale you are going to has animals, it doesn’t mean they want yours there. 

Do not go trampling through their gardens and flowerbeds. 

Do not take yourself on an uninvited tour of the property or specific areas that they have said are off-limits. If the sale is at the head of the driveway, that’s where you stay – you don’t wander onto the porch or into the garage or God forbid into the basement or house.

Do not block their driveway or the neighbors’ driveways. If you are so unwell that you can’t walk a couple extra feet parking on the street, stay home. Also don’t speed on the street you are visiting for a yard or garage sale, their stuff will be there if you do the speed limit.

Don’t be an early bird. If the sign or ad says it starts at 9 AM or whatever the time is, respect that. Give people the time to set up without hawking over them. And those people who do the night before drive-bys and then stop with a flashlight to see if they can see things? Come on now, would you want that if it was YOUR home?

Haggling. If you are given a price on something and you want to counter politely, that’s fine. But aggressive haggling or lowballing to the point of being insulting? That’s just not nice, and it makes people not want to have garage and yard sales.

 People throwing garage and yard sales also don’t want those who believe in the power of the five finger discount. Stealing is morally reprehensible…and it’s also against the law.

Try not to get loud. Being loud and obnoxious at a garage or yard sale in order to get what you want makes it uncomfortable for everyone. Also try to go to the bathroom before you come to a garage or yard sale, because I’m sorry people do not want strangers in their homes or relieving themselves in  flowerbeds.

After the transaction is completed and the price is agreed-upon on larger items if you have to come and pick something up later, pay for it first. These people are not running a store. There is no staff to put something back into inventory and there is no inventory or warehouse. And when it comes to transactions, come to the sale with change and small bills like you would if you were going to a fleamarket for example.

Again, you are a guest at someone else’s home. Maybe they don’t have their yard or garage sale set up the way you would want it, but it’s their sale and you are a guest. So you either play by the house rules or you pick up your toys and go home.

And today we don’t just have real live garage and yard sales, we have the virtual kind that live the social media platforms Facebook. There are yard sale groups for all sorts of things. 

All yard sale groups have rules of some kind or another so try to follow them.  Not all yard sale groups sell or allow the same things, so read the rules or ask a yard sale group admin if something is OK or not if you are unsure even after reading the group rules.

Virtual yard sale groups have lingo. Common terminology includes but is not limited to the following:

Bump – Posted in the comments section of a sale listing BY the seller so that the item is placed back at the top of the feed. Most limit the amount of times you can bump an item.

PPU – pending pick up – that means seller and the buyer have come to terms and the seller is waiting for the buyer to come pick up the item and is not entertaining any other current offers at present.

Porch pickup –  porch pick up is fairly self-explanatory. It means you are picking up the item from the sellers home and a lot of times they will meet you on their front porch, or they will leave the item on the front porch and tell you where to leave the money. If somebody says porch pick up only you don’t ask them to meet in a supermarket parking lot. If you’re doing a porch pick up do it during daylight hours, if you’re doing a meet which is a mutually agreed-upon spot out in the public view, I also suggest doing that during daylight hours.

Meet up– A meet up is when you are meeting someone at a mutually agreed place to complete a transaction – if a person doesn’t have the comfort level of anyone coming to their home they might say I will meet you in the XYZ supermarket parking lot. If you do a public meet, use common sense. Meet in a visible location during daylight hours. Tell the other party what your car looks like and what time you will be there and stick to it. Exchange cell phone numbers in case someone runs into traffic.

Cross-posted or xp or OOS – cross posted (also known as XP) or OOS literally means an item is cross posted on other sites. That means the seller has the same item on multiple sites to maximize their exposure and chance of a sale.

ISO –  This means ‘in search of.’ People post these things when they are hunting an item they don’t see listed on a particular yard sale group at the time. These posts are not for sale posts however, they are just regular posts.  So don’t create such a post in the sale post form and put some made up number in the price line –  you aren’t selling something you are looking for something. It is also super annoying when you see people post in search of posts and the yard sale group has 10 of that item. So do a quick search of your group for what you are looking for before you post in search of.

PM – Private Message – this is what buyers and sellers should do to work out the kinks and details of the pick up and to answer questions. However if you are a buyer try not to message incessantly. If you are a seller try to answer your messages as promptly as possible. And remember if buyers and  sellers are not connected in anyway on Facebook you will have to look in Facebook’s dreaded “other” folder or in “message requests” if you use messenger,

Next – Next is what you say when you are literally the next person in line and you have interest in the item. Person A says “I’m interested I will private message you for pick up”. Person B says if they are interested “next”. And if the seller says sold pending pick up, people really should stop saying “next”.

NWT – This was something I didn’t know what it meant for the longest time. It means new with tags. If you then see NWOT that means new without tags.

Do virtual yard sale groups have etiquette in addition to the rules that are posted? Generally speaking yes but it all usually comes in the form of posted rules. Because the groups are virtual most will have codified rules that people should follow. It just makes it easier. If you don’t like the rules find a yard sale group you’re more comfortable with.

But as far as actual etiquette, it’s following the golden rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Be polite. Respond as promptly as possible. When you are arranging a pick up on either side of the deal, choose a time and stick to it. Everyone’s time is valuable. Delays like traffic jams happen. So do unforeseen circumstances like not having childcare suddenly, or getting stuck at work. Just communicate with each other as the buyer and seller. But if on either side of the transaction you have more than one instance where pick up or meet is canceled or you inexplicably get blown off, go to your group admin and see if it’s OK with them for you to move on to the next interested person because of that or if you are the buyer to just walk away altogether.

When you are a seller you should make your for sale post as clear as possible. A full description , your terms , your availability, price and PHOTOS . Put your photos in the body of your post. No one wants to chase photos in the comment section, and in most groups if you post something for sale and say there is no photo to post you will get deleted. After all you are on a social media site called Facebook which is driven by photos and it is not rocket science to add them.

When you are a seller don’t accept strange terms. Don’t let someone mail you a check , for example. I had that happened to a friend and it ended up the check was counterfeit. If you tell someone cash only and they show up with a check, you don’t have to accept that check.

Buyers when you were going to pick something up try to bring exact change. You are NOT going to a store you’re going to an individual. And buyers  when you say you are interested in something and you want to buy it don’t leave the seller hanging. 

What prompted this post on this blog? Observations at  a couple of yard sales this summer and a recent experience that is nothing short of frustrating as hell when trying to sell something on a local yard sale group.

We will start with a local and real yard sale/garage sale I went to recently. I went at the start time of the signs I saw. When I got there there were people who had shown up almost an hour early. That is so impolite. This homeowner is nicer than I would’ve been, because I actually have no problem telling people to leave and come back when we’re open for business.

At this real yard sale I also saw people going into places the homeowner specifically asked people not to be. This is something that truly bothers me because years ago I had a couple of neighbors who wanted to have a yard sale. They had people show up working as a team where one person distracted the yard sale throwers and the other person slipped inside their home and robbed them.  

At other  yard sales in the past, I have also seen people take things that weren’t  for sale and walk up to the homeowners and asked to buy them. In other words, they went where they weren’t supposed to be took items from wherever and walked up to the homeowners and said “I’d like to buy this.” The homeowners naturally responded “oh we’re sorry, that wasn’t in a public area and isn’t for sale.” And I watched one time where this person at a sale pitched a fit, end it was like watching a train wreck – you couldn’t look away. There was this person making a scene and it wasn’t something that was for sale. They basically trust past where they were NOT supposed to be and expected the homeowner to just say  “OK fine it’s five dollars.”

At a recent yard sale I watched in amazement as the homeowner try to work with someone wishing to purchase multiple items. That is what you call a bundle and a lot of times people will work with you and give you a slight discount if you’re buying a bunch of things together versus just one. I watched this man haggle over a very fair bundle price and basically lowballed to the point where the homeowner smiled graciously and said “no I am sorry I just can’t do that.”  The homeowner was so incredibly gracious. What a nice person.

At a recent real yard sale I also was somewhat amazed by the people that just showed up with dogs at someone else’s property without so much as even asking if it’s OK. Generally speaking, people don’t want to be rude about it, but you are indeed being rude by taking your animals onto someone else’s property that you do not know. Even if you know the person, they’re having a yard sale and they don’t want to have to keep an eye on someone else’s pets, nor do they want to deal with the inevitable which is someone else will be at the sale who is allergic or scared of dogs. Or the dog or dogs of the folks visiting the sale will want to get in a fight with the homeowners dogs if they are out.  Maybe nothing will happen, but that’s not the point.  It’s not a love me love my dogs situations. You bring your pets places where you have asked in advance if it’s OK or not.

Now most people expect people to show up to yard sales in the summertime with kids in tow. However the kids need to know the ground rules when they get out of the car from the parents. It’s not the job of the people throwing the garage or yard sale to babysit your children. And it is your responsibility as a parent, especially if your children are small to keep an eye on them and to not let them handle everything, especially breakables. Which brings me to another topic.

Why is it yard sales always seem to end up with the proverbial bull in the china shop? Accidents happen and it’s easy to knock over a glass for example and not do it intentionally. But what I’m talking about are the people that push everyone out of the way to get that item on the table and they don’t care if they knock stuff over and break other things to get to it. And these are the people that don’t say “oh I’m sorry let me pay for that”, they look at the people hosting the garage and yard sale like it’s their fault.

And let’s go to the inspiration or impetus of why I also wrote about virtual yard sale groups in this post. It’s a two-pronged approach: it’s my experience as a buyer and a seller, and as an admin.

I am an admin of one of the millions of yard sale group pages on Facebook. I share the duty with several other people. There are days when we just have a gabfest in messenger because we can’t believe the items we are having to delete, and the way some people behave.

This of course means when I am a buyer or a seller on a virtual yard sale group page I try harder then probably a lot of people to make my transactions go smoothly. Because I sit in the catbird seat of observing as an admin of one page, I really try to follow the rules of whichever group I am in, and  try extra hard to be nice and accommodating. 

Well right now, I am in a transaction that has been going on for a week. I picked the brain of one of the group admins yesterday, and this morning I wrote to them that  want to message the buyer politely  to let the buyer  out of the transaction if need be. Now I’m going to tell all of you why.

I have this nice area rug. I decided it didn’t go with the decor in a room any longer. So I decided to pull it off the floor. When I did that, I didn’t just toss it in the attic, I sent it out to be professionally cleaned and mothproofed.

When the rug came back I lived with it for a few weeks all rolled up in the attic until I decided it was taking up too much space and I wanted to sell it. All I want out of it is close to what I paid to have it cleaned and mothproofed.

Now this rug is not some antique prized Persian carpet, but it is nice. So it’s not going to be $10 on a yard sale group. I dragged it out of the attic, unwrapped it and inspected it to make sure the people I had paid to clean it did their job. 

After I ascertained  that they had done what I paid them to do, I measured the rug and I took lots of photos and I posted it with a complete description on a couple of yard sale group pages. I had varying indications of interest, and a couple of people who measured or asked their spouses and came back and said no I’m sorry I have to pass. I have no problems with that. 

Shortly before the Fourth of July weekend was about to begin – as in last Thursday someone came along who wanted to buy my rug. They asked for my indulgence when I got back to them because they were out of town. I agreed although I didn’t have to because the general rule of thumb is if you agree to purchase something, you pick it up within a couple of days. If you aren’t going to be home or are out of town, you arrange for someone to pick it up and pay for it on your behalf and you clear that with the seller first. But I thought I don’t want to be a hard ass about it, I will give this person the benefit of the doubt. My prospective  buyer said they would connect at the end of fourth of July weekend.

So Tuesday rolls around and I still haven’t heard from my prospective buyer. So I do what you’re supposed to do which is to tag them on the sale post and say that you’re trying to connect and send them a private message. My prospective buyer leaves a comment back on the sale post that she is private messaging me. Actually she was at that point responding to my private message but I’m not going to split hairs.

This person then proceeds to ask me a bunch of questions about the item that were somewhat redundant, but in an effort to keep the sale moving forward I answered them to the best of my of my ability. I will admit I was at somewhat of a loss how to answer question would her employee have an allergic reaction to the rug because I have pets.

Huh? 

So basically I say once again that I had paid to have rug  professionally and mothproofed. I explained again that I had to unroll the rug in my clean house to photograph it for the yard sale sites, and then I rolled it back up again with dryer sheets in it to make sure it stayed as fresh smelling as it was when I unrolled it back from the rug cleaners. I pushed away any feelings that I was insulted because I have a clean home. I told them if they were worried about their employee then they should have it cleaned again. (I mean, what else could I say?)

My buyer said that  it was OK and could I do a pick up with her sometime later this week because they were trying to give their employees a break before they got busy again.  I wasn’t sure what that has to do with me exactly but what I said was that was fine. But then I also said I would like her to give me the day that she would like to pick up. I also gave her some hours where it wouldn’t work for me as the seller.

 OK now it is later in the week.  And she has not told me when she is picking it up. I have now held onto this item for this prospective buyer for a week. Normally people don’t do that because people take advantage.  I think I’ve been accommodating enough. 

Yes, it’s a bigger item so it won’t necessarily sell as quickly as something smaller. I don’t have to sell this item, I am choosing to sell this item. I have worked with this prospective buyer for a week now. Just to make sure I am following all the rules correctly, I am running it up the flagpole with the admins of this group to make sure they are OK with it. Maybe, this will all work out because the buyer is just having tough week. I hope so. But if not, what time is valuable to and if I have to move on to the next buyer I would like to do it sooner rather than later.

We live in a ever evolving world, which means even our garage and yard sales are changing. We have them still seasonally in real time, and virtually year round. But we are all grown-ups, or sre supposed to be, so we should try to be considerate regardless of if it is a real actual yard sale or garage sale or a virtual one on Facebook.

Am I Emily Post? No. But I think good manners should never go out of style even with the humble garage sale , virtual or real.

Thanks for stopping by.

add some kitsch to your kitchen!

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  Everyone knows I love vintage linens. And one of my favorite things to have in my kitchen are vintage kitchen or tea towels. They just brighten up the kitchen. And yes some are pure kitsch!

The nice thing about vintage tea and kitchen towels are there also made of much better fabric and then you find and a lot of kitchen towels and tea towels today. The ones I look for are either a heavy linen or cotton. You will find some cute ones embroidered on what was feed sack material. 

For the most part I hand wash them and line dry them, especially if they are embroidered. Sometimes I iron them before I put them out, or as was the case yesterday I just put them out.

You can find these towels in lots of places. Usually anywhere from $6 to $10 a towel. And those prices are pretty good considering a lot of them are all hand embroidered. And yes you can use them every day even with the hand embroidery! After all, they were meant to be used!

define estate sale

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chester springs houseWhen I lived on the Main Line once upon a time there were genuine estate sales.  My favorites were those run by antiques dealer Susan Vitale. Why? Simple, they were legitimate. They were sales run to satisfy estates.

At a Susan Vitale Estate Sale, things were fairly priced and priced to sell.   The items originated in the home she was running the sale in, they weren’t bought in to pad a sale with.  Susan’s staff as well as herself were incredibly knowledgeable – Susan was also an antiques dealer.

Susan made a terrific business out of her sales because she was honest and fair. Things were what they were.

As Susan’s reputation grew, others seemed to begin “estate sale” businesses.  Some people were utterly inept, others successful. Some people staged sales that were a bit fake – they brought in goods from the outside to sell at the “estate sales” they were holding.

One woman, named Helen, has moved up the estate sale ladder quite remarkably.  her business is called Sales by Helen. I have only bought at one of her sales, although I have been to quite a few.  She does Main Line and Delco mostly.  I know to get to sales like this early and when I go to hers half the time I don’t even see what she advertised as being in the sale.  Her prices are not that good, and I wonder, is a fair portion being done on a pre-sell basis?  I bought a couple things at one sale about five years ago, and I paid way too much for what it was, but it happened to be something I wanted.

So anyway, Sales By Helen announced a sale in Chester Springs of all places.  To me that seemed a little too far afield for a gal from Havertown.  It starts today at 8 Ivy Lane Chester Springs, PA 19425.

chester springs sale notice1

Do all the items match the house? Hard to say but possible as this is a pretty basic developers special.  But what got me really curious were my friends out in that neck of the woods who told me the people purportedly selling the house seem to be professional house flippers.  Amusingly enough the wife of this married couple team needs to tout her lineage as well:

….is a triple blood line DAR (Daughter of the American Revolution) which means three out of four of her ancestral blood lines fought in the revolution. Her family has lived on the same land since 1751.

The funny thing about the DAR or FFV of it all is the people I have known with lineage like this (a) never use it as a selling point (b) don’t have to talk about it. So I don’t know, maybe that is a weird  selling point in house flipping 101.

8 Ivy Lane is either for sale or has a sale pending.  And there is a company x 3 registered to it:

chester springs house 2chester springs house 3chester springs house 4

Mind you I have no problem with people flipping houses even if I will note that the economy over the past few years has left terrific opportunity for those buying up foreclosures and short sales.

My feelings on predatory lending and banks that lead to such a surge in this kind of real estate availability is a topic for another day.  Suffice it to say those I hope there is a special place in hell for banks and others who profit off the misery of others. I also of course marvel at how many major banks let so many people purchase way beyond their earning power and safety nets and are still in business.  But again, another topic for another day.

This company which has it’s corporate address at this estate sale location by their own description:

LointerHOME, LLC,  a real estate company committed to restoring blighted foreclosed  properties in emerging neighborhoods and ensuring that the homes they bring to market are strong, reliable, and self-sustaining.

This company has rehabbed and flipped in Pottstown and West Chester.

But back to the estate sale of it all.  Are people really so disposable that they are divesting themselves of EVERYTHING now when they move or is it something else? And how can you call these house content sales estate sales if no one has died?

I guess that is at the heart of my questions: is it legitimately an ESTATE sale if no one has died? Are some of these sales now not estates but maybe staged homes that once under contract need the staging items sold? Or the other thing is if it is a foreclosure and the house is left full of stuff is that and estate sale?

Anyway, given that this Chester Springs “estate sale” may be in the glorious hamlet of West Vincent, here is hoping they get their piece of the estate sale pie to satisfy their taxpayers, right?