Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred

Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred are not married to each other. Heck, they aren't even brother and sister. Aunt Mary is your mother's sister and Uncle Fred is your father's brother.

That means every year you get two Christmas presents instead of one. Every year you get two birthday presents instead of one. That's good news. That means there are more items sitting around the house, in the basement or the attic, that you can probably turn into cash.

Don't get the wrong impression. I'm really not cold-hearted or an ingrate. I don't lack appreciation for what others do for me or bestow upon me. When someone showers me with attention and goes out of his or her way to buy me a present, I get a little teary-eyed, a tad choked-up and I thank them profusely.

So, why am I so rude, you ask? That's easy. I, too, have an Aunt Mary and an Uncle Fred.

Somewhere in your attic is a cast iron rooster doorstop that Aunt Mary gave you when you were going through your "Country Living" phase. You could use it as a weapon should someone break into the house in the middle of the night, but the burglar probably won't wait for you to go to the attic to get it. Start a pile - use the rooster to get it going.

Your husband is Irish so Aunt Mary gave him a resin figural Leprechaun statue with a clock in its stomach for Christmas five years ago. Is that in the attic or the basement? Go get it. Add it to the pile. Be careful. Don't trip over all of the old toys, rocking horses and games on your way to find the Leprechaun. As a matter of fact, add them to the pile, too. HOLD IT! Look on that shelf over there. Are those chip and dip sets that you got as housewarming gifts 15 years ago still in their original boxes?

Now that you've got the general idea - finish going through the attic and the basement. It also wouldn't hurt to ask your husband if he has any old tools he doesn't want anymore.

Don't forget all the drawers in the house. If you are anything like me, you probably have a couple of drawers that haven't been opened in years. Open them up if you dare and see what jumps out at you. There is a good chance that you will end up with some additional drawer space once you are done sorting through everything.

Has Aunt Mary or Uncle Fred passed away? I ask this so that you will not confuse the items that they bought for you as gifts with those items that they may have left to you in their wills. There could be a major difference between the two.

I know what you're thinking. No, I'm not that bad. I do understand that Aunt Mary or Uncle Fred may have left you one or two things that are of great sentimental value to you. By all means you should keep them and then pass them down to your children as family heirlooms. However the items that hold the most memories may not be the items that have the greatest monetary value.

Should you decide that you are not emotionally attached to some of the things that have been bequeathed to you, and should you decide you want to sell them, then you should make a separate pile. Those items could be in a completely different category from the chip and dip sets, the Leprechaun clock and the rooster doorstop.

The more common items that you know have no intrinsic value, because they have been hanging around the house for years collecting dust, can be sold for money. There are several ways of doing this. These days the most popular way seems to be a yard sale. If this is your choice, you can either have your own yard sale or you could rally some of your neighbors and have a joint yard sale.

One of the important things about a yard sale is making sure you have enough merchandise to attract the passersby. The merchandise sitting out front in the yard or on the sidewalk is the main advertising vehicle for attracting the customers. If you don't have a lot of items, many people will think that everything has already been picked over so they just might keep on going and not stop.

Another way to dispose of all this merchandise is to take it to an auction. Setting up a yard sale requires some work as well as some expense. There is expense in using an auction house but there is almost no work involved. With a yard sale, you want to draw more people than just those who happen to be driving by so you need to run a classified ad in your local newspaper. You also need to make a lot of signs and post them all around your neighborhood.

You also need to decide how much you want to charge for each of the items you are putting out for sale. Also, a brief prayer to the sun god wouldn't hurt either. Getting rained out is the last thing you want to see happen because then you have to start the process all over again.

With the auction, you pack up the car and drop it off. You will have to pay on average somewhere between a 20% - 35% commission of the total sale price of the merchandise. Whatever you do, don't let that put you off. Remember that merchandise wasn't worth anything when you were tripping over it in the basement, not to mention the fact that you now have your basement back.

I will warn you that since most of the items you are taking to the auction do not have much value, especially when you look at each item individually, the auction will probably group some of it together and sell it for one money. However there is a good chance that you will still realize at least as much money this way as you would have at a yard sale.

At the auction, there are flea market dealers who are interested in purchasing these kinds of lots. These are the same people who would have come to your yard sale and paid you next to nothing for some of those items individually. You then would have been stuck with everything that was left over. At the auction, it is all going to go away.

Since you are probably not sure what each item you are going to sell is worth in today's market, it would be difficult for you to capitalize on its value. However at auction, the buyers know what it is worth and they have to bid against each other to get it. So even though you are on the hook for the commission to the auction house, you could still come out ahead of the game.

When it comes to those items that Aunt Mary or Uncle Fred left you, some due diligence is called for. A set of china, a lamp, figurines, and other such treasures could in fact be just that, treasures.

There are many choices available to you when it comes to selling more valuable items. Again, an auction house is a viable choice. If enough people are interested in your items, they could bring more money in this venue than in any other. Antique malls, private sales, eBay, a consignment shop or a pawnshop are also options, although a pawnshop is the least attractive alternative.

The next least attractive might be the consignment shop. At a consignment shop, if the items don't sell within a certain timeframe, you could find yourself dragging them back home again. Next to an auction house, either eBay or a private sale could net you the most money. If you have never sold on eBay before and if these are the only items you plan on selling in the near future, eBay is a lot of work and has a learning curve attached to it. It may not be practical for such a temporary enterprise.

However eBay can be a great tool to research the items you have. You can search completed items to find out what items similar to yours are currently selling for in the marketplace today. You will have to be careful when doing this research. Many types of collectibles are being reproduced today. You do not want to confuse a reproduction with the real thing.

I included private sales as an option but it is not one I would recommend. To sell items privately you could either run an ad in the newspaper or use an advertising vehicle like Craig's List. Either way, it means having complete strangers coming to your home to evaluate what you have for sale. This is not a good idea. As a matter of fact, it is a really lousy idea.

There are people out there who will answer your ad under the guise that they are interested in what you have to offer when, in reality, they are only there to case you house. It's a sad state of affairs but it's something you have to consider.

Hopefully you have learned that in the world of auctions, antiques and collectibles, there is money in everything; there is even money in that stuff you are always shoving out of your way. If you need a new radiator for the car, a small TV for the kitchen or extra money for the kids, you can go to the "bank" in the basement or the "bank" in the attic and make a "withdrawal".

Oh yeah, here's to all the wonderful times we have all shared over the years with our very own Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred!

Written by Anne Benedetto, Auction House Talk
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