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Fine Art & Antiques by Dr. Lori
Losing $100,000 at a Yard Sale
Spring cleaning means yards sales.
Across the country and locally, too,
people are cleaning out the house in
preparation to do business on the front
lawn by hosting a yard sale. After losing
money in your 401K and in your home’s
equity, you can’t afford to lose any more
money on your front lawn this spring!
With today’s economy such as it is, you
can’t afford to make a mistake by selling
something valuable at your yard sale
for $1.
A Good Start to 2009. At my “Hate
Antiques?” comedy events just this year,
a man I met at the Ft. Wayne Home &
Garden Show
in Ft. Wayne,
Indiana, was
going to
sell his old
19th Century
mantle clock
with a reverseglass
painted
panel at his
upcoming yard
sale on the
Indiana/Ohio
border for $25.
Well, that was
before I told
him that it was worth $8,000. That’s right, he attended
one of my antiques appraisal events and
from the information I provided to him,
I saved him from losing $7,975 at that
yard sale. He nearly lost a small fortune.
Most people don’t make nearly
$8,000 profit at their weekend yard
sale, but many people lose that much
when hosting a yard sale. You need to
realize that the valuable stuff you are
schlepping out to the front lawn needs
to stay right where it belongs, inside
the house.
Native New England. A married couple
from northern New England wanted to
know how well they did on a $25 yard
sale investment they made in a small
coiled basket. The piece they bought near Boston was made by the
Native American people of
the Haida tribe of Alaska’s
Inside Passage in the late 19th
Century. While their yard
sale object made its way from
Alaska to Massachusetts, the
piece was no worse for the
wear.
The basket was worth
$7,500 based on actual sales
records where similar pieces
sold on the secondary market.
This is not a price, a hope, or
a dream. This is the value that
somebody actually paid for a
basket like theirs.
They were very happy,
ecstatic even. However, I
bet you anything that if they
asked how the yard sale host
near Boston who sold it to
them felt about the basket’s
sale, he wouldn’t have the
same reaction. Don’t let it go
until you know what it is and
what it is worth.
Am I Blue? I met a woman
from Michigan who bought
a piece of pottery for $5 at a yard sale. She carefully
wrapped the piece and
brought it to my antiques
appraisal event and was
very surprised to learn that
the Arts & Crafts Era piece
that she purchased—mainly
because it was blue and she
liked the color blue—had an
appraised value of $3,500.
She wasn’t blue after I gave
her that news.
Cruise Buddies. There
was a group of friends from
Connecticut who told me
that they didn’t have a good
reason to purchase the pen/
ink drawing from a local yard
sale, but they did have a good
reason to bring the artwork
to my “Hate Antiques?”
comedy appraisal event at
the Connecticut Home Show.
They wanted to see if they
made enough money on the
“oddball drawing” to sell it
online and take my antiquesthemed
Bermuda cruise this
October.
I often joke at my
appraisal events that, “Ugly
should be your first clue
to value,” and that is often
the case. Sometimes, those
items that you deem ugly
are worth big money. This
group of friends from my
home state of Connecticut
said that they thought the
“oddball drawing” was just
weird enough to be valuable.
I reviewed the piece and told
them that they had purchased
a Maurice Sendak illustration
in the manner of “Where
the Wild Things Are” for
a couple of bucks that was
worth $1,200.
I told them, “Grab your
bathing suits because you are
going on a cruise!”
Hidden Treasure. I met
a couple from the greater
Houston area. The man
brought a work of art to one of my antiques appraisal events
this January. He told me as I
examined his work of art that
he bought an old upholstered
chair at a yard sale some
time ago. He was going to
try his hand at reupholstering
furniture. Since he had little
experience as an upholsterer,
he bought an old chair for his
first project for $12.50 at a
yard sale.
Of course, his new hobby
didn’t take priority over his
job and family commitments
so the chair sat in his garage.
After the chair had cluttered
up the family’s garage for
about a year, his wife strongly requested that he either start
this new hobby or get rid
of the old chair. Finally, he
started to pull the upholstery
off of the chair’s frame. As
he did that, he discovered a
piece of cardboard inside the
chair supporting the stuffing.
When he turned the cardboard
over, he found a work of art
attached to the cardboard.
I told the couple that
works of art like the one
he purchased at the yard
sale for $12.50 along with
the old chair typically sell
for between $50,000 and
$150,000. He shed a tear,
and his wife smiled broadly. Imagine if you were the yard
sale host who lost six figures
at your yard sale!
Don’t Host a Yard Sale™.
I want to save you from
making big money mistakes
at yard sales, and my new
book, will show you how.
Yard sales are not venues
where much money has
historically been exchanged,
so why would you expect to
make any real money that
way? I know some of you
might think you made money
at your yard sale, but from my
experiences, I know you lost
much more than you made.
In fact, I would advise
you to NEVER host a yard
sale. The odds are against
your making as much money
as you stand to lose when you
unknowingly sell off valuable
objects on the front lawn.
How do I know? I’ve met
the litany of p people who
are kicking themselves now
that a valuable piece is gone.
 Ph.D. antiques appraiser and awardwinning
TV personality and TV talk
show host, Dr. Lori presents antiques
appraisal events nationwide. Join her
on her next vacation cruise focusing
on antiques this October. Watch Dr.
Lori across the country on the Fine
Living Network’s Worth Every Penny
and on Daytime which airs on Atlanta’s
ABC 2 WSB-DT at 9 am, Tampa’s
NBC 8 at 10 am, Jacksonville’s CW
17 at 6 am, and others. Visit www.DrLoriV.com
or call 888-431-1010.
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