Service 03
Estates & whole collections
Sometimes the question is not what one object is worth but what to do with all of it — including the part that is worth nothing and the part nobody has looked at since 1961.
The first visit
Two specialists come to the house, walk every room including the attic and the garage, and produce a written schedule: what is saleable at auction, what would sell better privately, what should be given away, and what should be thrown out. That schedule is the useful document, and most families have never had one.
We are candid about the last two categories. A great deal of what people expect to be valuable is not, and a certain amount of what they were about to skip is.
Dispersal
A collection of real coherence is usually best sold as a single-owner sale, which draws a room of its own and carries a premium for provenance and freshness. A mixed house is better distributed across the departments where each thing belongs, over two or three seasons.
We will tell you which yours is. A single-owner sale is more work for us and better for you when it is warranted; when it is not, it produces a thin catalogue and a disappointing afternoon.
Practicalities
We arrange packing, specialist transport and insurance, and we can work alongside executors, attorneys and shipping agents. Where a property must be cleared to a deadline we will say at the first visit whether the deadline is achievable, rather than discovering it is not in week six.