Centre Daily Times Logo

Art & Antiques: Expert tips for becoming yard-sale savvy | Centre Daily Times

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Archives
    • Contact Us
    • Plus
    • eEdition
    • Newsletters
    • Subscribe
    • About Us
    • Local
    • Penn State
    • Sandusky Scandal
    • Communities
    • Crime
    • Business
    • Education
    • Politics
    • Public Records
    • State
    • Nation/World
    • Weird News
    • Sports
    • College
    • Golf
    • High School
    • MLB
    • Motorsports
    • NFL
    • NHL
    • Outdoors
    • Penn State
    • State College Spikes
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • PSU Sports
    • PSU Football
    • PSU Basketball
    • PSU Baseball
    • PSU Hockey
    • PSU Soccer
    • PSU Volleyball
    • PSU Wrestling
    • Nittany Lines Blog
  • Penn State Football
    • Living
    • Announcements
    • Family Pages
    • Eat, Play, Live
    • Home & Garden
    • Entertainment
    • Weekender
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Celebrities
    • Horoscopes
    • Movie News & Reviews
    • Music
    • TV
    • Opinion
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Submit a Letter
  • Obituaries

  • Classifieds
  • Jobs
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Place An Ad
  • Mobile & Apps

Good Life

Art & Antiques: Expert tips for becoming yard-sale savvy

By Lori Vanderame

    ORDER REPRINT →

June 07, 2015 12:09 AM

I have been advising people about yard sales for decades.

Here are my top tips for those of you who love yard sales — as buyers and as sellers.

Many of us have spent a weekend driving around our favorite neighborhoods to shop on other people’s lawns. Typically you end up buying a few things that you really don’t need, but you just can’t leave a neighbor’s lawn without a watering can, vintage poster and bunch of napkins. You spend $17 and call it a day.

As a well-seasoned art, antiques and collectibles appraiser, there are many things that people don’t know about yard sales. The first thing is that it is big business.

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Centre Daily Times

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

You think it is just small-time stuff with neighbors cleaning out the basement of old junk, but in reality, yard sales are the source of objects that command six-figure price tags in other markets — markets far away from the front yard. That’s right, the high-priced auction and Internet markets for art, antiques and collectibles use yard sales as a major source for inventory. And many of the major auction houses and smaller estate auction houses regularly send out people known as pickers to get some of their auction inventory from yard sales.

These people are sent to neighborhoods where the homes have reached the 50-year mark, assuming that their original owners are ready to move on to assisted-living facilities or downsized residences.

Most unknowing yard sale hosts just think you are offering your items to naïve shoppers and fellow neighbors. Well, be warned. You are competing with the pros out there. These buyers know what you’ve got, what it is really worth and where to sell it for top dollar, and they are not in the game to tell you that you just made a big mistake putting out that Eastlake table or vintage Guerlain perfume bottle on the front lawn.

Your price is all wrong too. These guys are going to get you down on the asking price and take away something very valuable that was once in your house and was once a treasured family heirloom. Know what you have before you schlep it out to the front lawn.

At my mobile website, www.DrLoriV.com, you can send a photo of an object from a yard sale and I will tell you its value before you buy it. This is how technology will help you cash in.

Here is an example that will have you thinking twice before you have that yard sale. Recently, a $425,000 floral still-life painting that now hangs in the Houston Art Museum was originally sold at a California yard sale for $18. Yep, the original owner’s family didn’t know that they had a piece of fine art, so they unknowingly sold it at a yard sale for $20. The picker working for the auction house got them down to $18 and the auction house later sold it to the Texas museum for a whopping $425,000. That could happen to you. Find out first.

Tips for buyers

OK, so you get my point but you aren’t hosting a yard sale. You want to know about buying at yard sales. Here are my tips for buyers.

Take cash; it will help your negotiating power.

• Establish a budget and stick to it.



• Be polite but always negotiate. This isn’t friendship, this is business.



• Celebrity items bring big value.



• If it is in poor condition, leave it on the lawn.



• If there is a box of old jewelry that looks like junk, there is probably something overlooked in that box, like a piece of 14-karat gold or sterling silver.



• Take a magnifying glass, loupe or at least your reading glasses.



• Ask the yard sale seller about the item’s background. Even if they don’t know a lot about the item, they still probably know more than you do about it.



  Comments  

Videos

Juana’s brings authentic Venezuelan cuisine to State College

Ever wonder why we make New Year’s resolutions?

View More Video

Trending Stories

‘Ready and willing’: Why Penn State is confident it can replace OL Bates, McGovern

February 18, 2019 04:48 PM

Penn State wrestling mailbag: Can Iowa or Ohio State test the Nittany Lions at Big Tens?

February 18, 2019 05:08 PM

Guard alligator ‘El Chompo’ protected drugs for Pennsylvania dealers, prosecutors say

February 18, 2019 01:35 PM

Vanishing volunteers, rising costs: Evolving pressures put squeeze on Pa. fire departments

February 19, 2019 09:06 AM

They love the job and their ‘firehouse family.’ What makes volunteer firefighters stay?

February 19, 2019 09:06 AM

things to do

Read Next

Family

Ex-etiquette: Father texts daughter too much

By JANN BLACKSTONE Tribune News Service

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM

Q: I have been divorced for 8 years and we have a 15 year old daughter. My daughter is supposed to see her father every other weekend, but she is very busy with volleyball and Leadership and has no free time. Her father is the bus driver on the bus she uses to get to school – he texts her during the ride, texts her after school, texts her before his weekend to check in to see if she would like to visit. My daughter is a polite child and so she talks to him, but it's just too much. How do you handle when a parent texts their child too much? What's good ex-etiquette?

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Centre Daily Times

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE GOOD LIFE

Good Life

Are teens getting high on social media? The surprising study seeking the pot-Instagram link

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM

Family

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Politicians scramble to explain bad behavior in old yearbooks, while I reminisce about the resiliency to improve my life

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM

Family

Lori Borgman: We said, –I do,– – they said we didn’t

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM
Living with Children: Common parenting mistakes

Family

Living with Children: Common parenting mistakes

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM

Family

Ask Mr. Dad: We all have emotions – men and women just express them differently

February 19, 2019 03:00 AM

Good Life

Hermitage Club puts you in center of private ski resort

February 18, 2019 03:00 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Centre Daily Times App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Photo Store
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Information
  • Place a Classified
  • Local Deals
  • Place an Obituary
  • Today's Circulars
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story