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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

TREASURE HUNT


Jeremy Lenhartzen, a Spokane-area estate appraiser, is surrounded by items that were sold at estate sales. 
 (Kathryn Stevens / The Spokesman-Review)
Cheryl-anne Millsap Cheryl-Anne Millsap Cheryl-annem@spokesman.com

Having an estate sale is no picnic. First, it’s tough to comb through a lifetime of possessions to decide what is to be discarded, what should be kept and to whom it will go, and finally, what will be sold. There are a lot of questions: How much is an item worth? What can you expect it to sell for?

Staging a sale is also difficult. If the sale is held in a private home, there are security issues to consider. What about crowd control? Who will stay with the money? How do you protect yourself?

Several months ago a reader, Bobbie Corbin, contacted me to tell me the story of the estate sale she held to benefit her mother whose home of many years had been sold and was slated to be moved. Corbin said she wanted to tell others about what happened to her.

“I had been to a lot of estate sales,” she said. “So I was sure I could handle having one.”

Unfortunately, Corbin’s sale, although done with the best of intentions, turned into a train wreck.

Because it was held in a private home, there were still personal items in the house – in closets and boxes - that weren’t for sale. Then, the morning of the sale, Corbin was running a few minutes late and didn’t arrive until time for the sale to begin. As she hurried to start the sale, buyers were already asking to come in. Corbin slipped her purse into a closet and turned to deal with the impatient shoppers. That’s when things went from bad to worse.

While she was distracted, someone found Corbin’s purse and stole her checkbook. The thief then took the stolen checkbook down the street and used it to purchase items from a neighbor’s garage sale. The neighbors even helped the thief, a woman Corbin described as looking “grandmotherly” load furniture into her car. However, in her haste, the woman with the stolen checkbook left behind something she had purchased at the garage sale.

Using the name and address on the check, the neighbors – thinking they were calling the person who had been to their sale – called Corbin. That’s how Corbin discovered her checkbook had been stolen.

“I was still busy at my sale and if they hadn’t called I wouldn’t have known anything about it,” Corbin said.

Fortunately, proving they were good neighbors in the truest sense of the word, the people holding the garage sale forgave the debt, and even helped Corbin search for the woman who had stolen from both of them. Unfortunately, they didn’t find her.

Corbin’s bad experience didn’t end there. After the sale, she found evidence that papers had been stolen from the house and combed for identity information.

“I could see where they had dumped the boxes behind the house and gone through everything,” she said.

When it was all over, Corbin hadn’t made as much money as she would have liked, she had dealt with the police over a stolen checkbook and she had lost some of her faith in other people. Not a lot of fun.

Corbin called me because she wanted to warn others about the stresses and the actual dangers of dealing with an estate sale.

I’ve always pointed anyone who asked toward the estate professionals because, unless it’s something you do every day, setting up a sale is a difficult job. There’s a lot to consider.

Corbin’s story is important because it perfectly illustrates the hazards.

I spoke to a couple of professionals and shared Corbin’s story with them. Shaking their heads, Carol Worthington and nephew and business partner Jeremy Lenhartzen, both certified licensed appraisers, aren’t surprised by Corbin’s sad tale. “People don’t realize that there is so much more to it than just putting up a few signs and opening the doors,” Worthington said. “A professional will offer you help from the beginning of the process to the end of the sale.”

That help begins weeks, sometimes months before a sale. Using knowledge of antiques and collectibles, and aided by catalogs, online data and other sources, estate sale professionals sort through items and research the value of items that are to be sold. “We have access to sources that others can’t get to,” Worthington said. “We pay a small fortune, sometimes thousands of dollars for data bases with that information.”

Most estate sale professionals offer a complete package. They will come into a home, sort and price items and then hold the sale. Some take care of items left unsold by arranging for a buyer to purchase the lot, or like Lenhartzen and Worthington, place items that did not sell into other markets.

“We look at everything, and then try to determine where it will sell the best,” Lenhartzen said. “Some things that you just can’t sell around here will bring a small fortune online.”

Another invaluable service provided by estate sale professionals is security.

“That’s incredibly important,” Lenhartzen said. “We have an organized system and make sure all entrances and exits are covered, the money is handled by a professional and traffic runs smoothly.”

For Corbin, holding an estate sale to help her mother dispose of her things turned into a nightmare. “I thought I had a handle on things and that I was a pretty good judge of character,” she said. To tell you the truth, when it was all over, I was crushed.”