Yorkshire Auction House- collections

Elless

I appreciate that some people have a lot of items and also they may be unable to move it themselves but I would take the things I wanted to sell rather than have them come and collect it. No need to have a go - I just think the charges are to much (my opinion again, which I am entitled to).

Elless No one is having a go at you, just explaining why auction houses charge the rates they do.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but you also have you also have to accept that othe people will challenge your opinions if they think differently. That is what discussion is all about.

Each person stating their view and no one responding, just stating their view would make exceedingly dull reading and would probably kill GN in a month.

I don’t begrudge the auction house here their fee - currently 21% for both buying and selling - but I do think that it is quite a whack as it is taken from the same item twice over. And then there’s VAT sometimes too of course. The hammer price is not what arrives in the bank, that’s for sure!

I do enjoy going along every now and then just to keep an interest in the ups and downs of particular areas. I very rarely buy anything.

cabbie as you say, one person’s junk is another’s hobby and it’s always good to give things a second chance.

I have had so much to clear out. DH seemed to want to fill every spare inch of the house. He left instructions in his will about his special collections, but as for the rest, we could have filled four or more skips. But I didn’t want stuff to go to landfill and one man’s junk is another man’s hobby. Instead, BHF collected some good furniture, another charity collected some more items which they then refurbished ( training and rehabilitating ex-addicts) and sold on; the rest, including some good stuff, was collected by the auction house. It was sold, over several months, for around £5k. That’s money which would have been impossible to raise by selling on ebay or locally. So I don’t begrudge the costs at all.

We used to both collect books, mainly first editions. These are now almost all worthless where they were worth a fair bit of money when we bought them. I'm slowly offloading mine but I think MrA will have to be comatose before I can get rid of his.

Many were books I once enjoyed reading, like Anya Seton, but I've found I don't enjoy them anymore and have no interest in reading them again. I'll be quite happy to clear some shelves and get rid of them.

Elless I certainly wasn't 'having a go' at you, just putting my point of view. As I mentioned, I've realised, from watching the programme, just how much cost is involved to set up an auction. I also can understand how overwhelmed people feel when faced with clearing rooms full of collections. We faced this when a relative died and we had to use an auction house.

Elless

I appreciate that some people have a lot of items and also they may be unable to move it themselves but I would take the things I wanted to sell rather than have them come and collect it. No need to have a go - I just think the charges are to much (my opinion again, which I am entitled to).

No-one is 'having a go', but we exhausted every other avenue open to us before taking the items to the auction house. I know they do charge - but as I say, it was either that or take them to the skip.

I appreciate that some people have a lot of items and also they may be unable to move it themselves but I would take the things I wanted to sell rather than have them come and collect it. No need to have a go - I just think the charges are to much (my opinion again, which I am entitled to).

Neither of us collect anything and books once read are passed on, or are returned to the library.

Grandmabatty what a very sad story. I did cry when I thought of those poor little ones, especially your uncle.
Elless it's hardly surprising that auction house charges are high when there is so much work involved and so many staff to be paid. I think the Yorkshire Auction House programme provides an insight into the huge amount of detailed, time consuming effort involved before items actually come to be auctioned.

The only thing we seem to collect is books. Dh is always ordering yet another, though he’s a slow reader (but retains far more than I do) - virtually all fairly heavy non fiction. He has a tottering TBR pile! (To be read.)

Some of our bookshelves are double-stacked, too.

I buy a few from charity shops but most of mine are on my Kindle - I’m a very fast reader, so Amazon’s regular 99p offerings suit me very well.

Elless

We do have one two very large boxes of items that have been handed down. We recently moved house and had to put them in my Son's loft and I said he may as well keep them because he will get them anyway 😂.
What I find hard to understand is why these people go to auction houses - have you seen the charges The Yorkshire Auction House apply 😲

How else do you get rid of stuff? We tried selling various things on the likes of EBay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and so on - we even resorted to advertising stuff for free, and no-one wanted it. So in our case, it was either take it to the local auction house or to the skip, which in my view would have been a real shame.

The charges for all auction houses are pretty standard, but look at the work that goes into the pre-auction research and cataloguin. They will also do a lot of targetted marketing to special interest groups, the number of staff they employ plus the cost of buying/leasing the premises, insurance, energy specialist equipment etc, doesn't come cheap.

That Elless is why they charge what they charge.

I cannot understand people collecting when most of the collection has to be kept packed away in lofts, garages and outhouses. I have a small collection of Doulton 'Skaterware' a particular type of pottery.

My collection contains 12 pieces and I have given strict instructions that nobody is to give me anymore. I am not going to say I will never acquire anymore, that would be tempting fate but all 12 pieces are on display and I can see them every day. DH has a number of ships models and maritime pictures, but gain not so many that they cannot be displayed without overwhlming us.

We do have one two very large boxes of items that have been handed down. We recently moved house and had to put them in my Son's loft and I said he may as well keep them because he will get them anyway 😂.
What I find hard to understand is why these people go to auction houses - have you seen the charges The Yorkshire Auction House apply 😲

Thank you HelterSkelter1. When he died, my dad, brother and son went to London to sort out the flat. My dad was horrified at the state of it but uncle had been unwell for a while. He contacted various organisations to offer the contents to them, ie the Imperial War Museum, Philately Society etc. They descended on the flat like locusts! They were very grateful for the opportunity. However it was a much bigger job than dad could deal with alone.

That is so sad Grandmabatty. I could cry for that littke boy.

When my grandmother died she left me the contents of her house and some ot it was extremely valuable. Organizing the clearance taught me a lot about the antique world and how dealers and auction houses operate. It also got me into dealing in a serious way as a "side hustle".

My grandmother was not an obsessive collector but being in her 90s she did have a lot of "stuff" and of course some of it had no intrinsic value. I have been a lifelong collector myself and that was part of the reason I began dealing. Most antique dealers begin as collectores

People begin selling excess items to inprove their own collections or to fill up what they see as gaps. I have now begun to sell more and more of my personal collections. As my grandmother sed to say "you cant take it with you".

True horders cannot bear to part with anything and will experience severe distress if anyone tries to force them to do so.

My father , his sister and older brother were orphaned just before the Second World War started. They were 4,6 and 8. The family divided the children between them, although ultimately a childless neighbour took dad in. My uncle was the oldest at 8 and was separated from his siblings. In addition, his small collection of tin soldiers were taken from him and given to cousins. You can imagine the effect on him. As an adult, he was a prolific collector of art, war memorabilia, stamps, books etc. He threw nothing out. I always felt he was trying to reconnect with that little boy who lost everything.

I have accumulated a nice collection of Biba cosmetics and a few of the clothes. I also have a collection of Julip model horses, if anyone remembers them, some of them are really nice vintage ones. I am now planning to sell them as I know my children don't know enough about either collection to find the best places to sell them,
Meanwhile I have boxes of stuff that belonged to my father in law, which I couldn't get rid of while my mother in law was still alive. Now she is gone I also have boxes of her stuff! I've been getting rid of bits and pieces, but it's a long process.

Lixy it is on Really every day( repeats). Sometimes there is a Scottish one, and now a new Derbyshire one. But they more or less follow the same format.

Neither of us collects ‘things’ though we did have a lot of books to rehome when we did our last house move.

Clearing my MiL’s china collections was a huge task. The joy of collecting for her seemed to be in the buying. Most of her collection was still in the original boxes in cupboards, very little on display. It took us weeks to sort and then bring everything to the auction house here, and I learned a lot about china.

My BiL was a stereotypical hoarder, stuff everywhere and he was totally unable to clear even the smallest space. He had ill health, both physical and mental. His motivation for keeping things seemed to be a paranoia; he felt that if everywhere was cluttered then no one would be able to get in.

Now our house is ornament free and we quite deliberately have just what we use and need. Ironically the only person who gives us ornaments is our daughter!

I haven’t seen the auction programme - I’ll keep an eye open for it.

I think you’ve a point Cabbie21 in that downsizing often points to a good clear out.
I think some people probably expand their collections to fill the spaces available and often, it does have a monetary value and so, they believe they are leaving a legacy. Often it has, but just as often it doesn’t. I’ve a few ‘treasures’ in which my DDs have no interest and could well end up in a skip, so I’m actually going to dispose of them in a local auction house, that is if they’ll accept them!

My DH did in fact get rid of a huge amount of stuff when we downsized here some ten years ago, but I never heard the last of it. It didn’t make much of a dent in his stuff, however.

I quite like that programme Cabbie21. Angus seems a decent chap, at least for the camera. It’s amazing what he unearths in some houses?
What’s the difference between accruing a collection to enjoy and hoarding? (Not the kind of dirty/random hoarding that fills a tv programme). I expect the answer will be different from one person to another. What I used to call a mess always prompted DH to say ‘lived in’.
I don’t collect anything, but I think I’d find it interesting to go around trying to source whatever. It would have filled in time and possibly been an education visiting different towns and cities.
Unfortunately, we have no idea when we are going to ‘pop our clogs’ though to start and offload stuff? DH was so looking forward to salmon fishing, but died before the next season started. Most of his beloved equipment, acquired over 60 years, was shared out between the ghillie and his syndicate members.

We both collected things for many years but now mostly sold off.

My husband collected and restored old clocks. I started collecting Studio pottery many years ago and paid very little for it. I had boxes of it in the loft and in more recent years have sold it making excellent profits. Still got a few very favourite pieces left which I will sell if and when I need the money. My adult kids are not interested.

Neither of us collect anything, but we've recently had to clear my inlaws' home - and they had masses of stuff too. We've actually just taken two carloads of items to the local auction house this week, but we honestly don't think they'll make much at all. The 'haul' included a collection of miniature clocks and my MiL's much-loved Lladro ornaments.