Downsizing the Family Home by Marni Jameson

Author:Marni Jameson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling

INSIDE TIP: “It’s unethical for the person representing your items for sale or appraising them to also buy them.”

—Dewey Smith

Before this sale, Dewey already had sold Lucy’s grand piano (for $20,000 or so) and some fine artwork.

An Iranian man and his blond wife zeroed in on a $900 Lavar Kerman rug. Where I saw a worn-out rug that I’d apologize for, they saw value. The man explained that the nine- by twelve-foot wool rug came from Lavar, an Iranian town, making the eighty-year-old item rare. He and Dewey settled on $600; the man then anxiously rolled up the rug so that shoppers wouldn’t wear it down more, as if after eight decades, one more hour would matter. The couple sells old rugs online. They’ll get $2,000 for this one as is, the wife estimated.

Though I was learning every minute, I hadn’t learned what I’d hoped to after hanging out for a day with Dewey at an estate sale: how to spot a valuable piece amid a bunch of junk. “That takes a trained eye,” said Dewey. And, I suppose, as with the finely aged rug, time. But I did learn that there are people out there, dealers and collectors, who have a black belt in shopping.

Here’s what they know that the rest of us don’t:

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