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©1999-2000
DigsMagazine.com.
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more
secrets
of a
SECONDHAND
shopper:
estate sales | 1
2 3 4
continued from page
1
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Generally, the entire contents
of the deceased’s home are offered for sale, and when you show up at
the house, you’ll be allowed to wander around from room to room to
peruse the goods. An estate sale isn’t an auction – you’ll find a
price sticker (or sign) on everything that’s for sale, although you
should feel free to try politely bargaining those prices down, if
you’re so inclined to do that sort of thing. Sometimes the family of
the deceased will run the estate sales themselves, but the best ones,
I’ve found, are organized by professional estate sale companies, who
generally only agree to take on an estate if they believe the goods are
plentiful enough, and of high enough quality, that a weekend sale will
generate them a heap of moolah.
How
to find an estate sale
Estate
sale listings can be found in the classified section of the newspaper,
generally under “Yard sales/Garage Sales,” or, as is the case with
my city’s paper, under a separate section specifically devoted to
estate sales. Look in the Friday and Saturday editions of your local
newspapers to find the weekend’s offerings. Or save yourself the
quarters and peruse the classifieds online.
When
to go
If you’re looking for something specific, especially a larger item
like a dining table, sofa or the like, it’s best to show up as early
as possible, since these are the sort of items that tend to disappear
quicker than you can whine, “7 am is an ungodly hour of the morning to
have to wake up on a Saturday morning!” Which may be completely true,
but rest assured that if you decide to sleep in and catch up on just a
few more hours of your beauty rest, you’ll discover that everything
useful –
and
in good condition – will have a big fat “Sold” sticker slapped
across its price tag. If an estate sale ad says the sale starts at 8 am,
you should ideally get there at five minutes to 8 (anything earlier is,
frankly, just plain obnoxious), or more realistically and at the very
latest, by 9 o’clock. Wait any longer and that set of solid-hardwood
bookcases that you’ve been coveting for months now will almost
certainly have disappeared.
keep
on walking this way
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lounge . nourish .
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