One of the most emotional decisions of our entire downsizing project has been putting our Czech Republic furniture up for sale. Back in 1998 we bought eight or nine very old pieces of furniture when we lived in our castle down near the Austrian border.
We’d gone from five years of living in eight-hundred-square-foot apartments to suddenly living in a three-thousand-square-foot section of a thousand-year-old castle. We had plenty of room to spare. We happily visited the Brno antique/vintage shops, and over a few visits, picked out some favorite pieces.
Each piece filled a special need, and each piece was much appreciated and much used in our daily lives, from the mirror stand in the bathroom that held our towels and spare toilet paper, the oversized wood hutch that held all our collections, the dressing table and nightstands in Chelsea’s room, the hutch in the living room that held our newly acquired collection of very old Bohemia crystal, the beautiful European oak writing table in my room, to the capacious sideboard in our kitchen that held all our dishes, silverware, glassware, and pots and pans.
We loved them so much that we made arrangements to bring them back to the US when we relocated to Florida. Exporting furniture was not allowed – the only reason we were able to bring them over here to the US was because we had lived in the Czech Republic so long that the pieces of furniture were considered household goods.
Fast forward to present day… We still have the furniture, and we still love it, but we are going to be storing whatever we keep for at least ten years. Is it worth the cost for the increase in storage costs to keep these pieces? Will we still want the dark European style furniture in ten years? Would we benefit more from selling it now, raising some much needed cash and reducing our storage costs?
After literally months of seesawing back and forth, we finally came to the decision to sell. As if making the decision wasn’t bad enough, now we had to figure out how to price each piece and see if we could get an appraisal. We had to empty all the pieces (we use them heavily) and create new systems to deal with the contents.
Emptying the contents, cleaning them up, taking the photos, measuring them carefully and noting their current condition in detail, then writing the ad including the history, took absolutely forever. It was hours of time. That didn’t include researching prices.
Since no furniture was allowed to be exported, there are no comparable items. I spent hours online looking for anything, anything at all. I finally simply picked a price based on what the piece of furniture would sell for without its age and history, and added a premium for the antique value. I’m definitely not an antiques specialist, so I didn’t really know if I was right, and I couldn’t even give the provenance for any but two of the pieces.
We finally posted the pieces on Craigslist, with a link to an online photo album, and I got busy writing a letter on the pieces to as many local antique/consignment shops as I could find. The answers came back no in every case. Either they weren’t high-end enough, or they were too high-end.
Remember our final garage sale? In preparation for it, we moved all the clean and empty furniture into our living room, turning it into a temporary antique showroom. We then posted a big sign on our ‘for sale’ sign in front, “Ask about our antique furniture”. Early in the day we discovered that one of the garage sale regulars is an antiques appraiser.
He came by a few days later and graciously gave us his best estimate of the age and selling price. Chelsea and I were fascinated watching him. What a professional! He could eyeball a piece and estimate its age. He knew what dings and cracks made a difference and what did not. He even had a nifty little gadget with which he could look into the locks on the pieces and give a closer estimate of age.
We came away from the session with a much better understanding of the provenance and current value of our furniture. In most cases I had been amazingly accurate, though a bit high. He also gave us a reliable lead for a local auction house.
Sigh… it would appear that the economy is so bad that there is no market for our furniture. Very, very high-end items are selling, but the medium range is not selling, especially in the heavier and darker European style, and especially here in South Florida.
We did sell a set of nightstands, the infamous crystal cabinet, and Chelsea’s dressing table set. The buyers in each sale were thrilled. Meanwhile we still have our antiques showroom in the living room, with no idea what to do. Do we store them for a year or two and hope the market improves and come back somehow to try to sell them? Do we try to move them at absolutely dismal prices?
We have no idea. While we await inspiration, we are concentrating on finishing off the scanning and on writing the books that need writing. Who knows, maybe someone will find them on Craigslist and fall in love. We’ve also thought about posting them on eBay, but that brings its own whole set of challenges, and we aren’t ready for that yet.
We’re open for ideas!