Most of what gets lost is lost in the first week
Families almost always start before anybody else arrives. Somebody takes a weekend, fills bags, and by the time a person with a reason to look walks through the house, a proportion of what was in it has already gone to the curb.
That is understandable, and it is the one mistake in this process that cannot be corrected. Sorting can be redone. A sale can be rescheduled. A decision about the furniture can be reversed by not making it again. Things already in a dumpster cannot be got back.
What follows is not a list of valuable things. It is a list of the categories where an item can be worth money for a reason that is not visible from across the room, which is a narrower and more useful thing.
The same first week does the same damage in a move. Downsizing your home covers sorting against a moving date rather than a sale.
Being old is not the same as being worth something
This is worth settling first, because the opposite belief is what makes the subject confusing. Age contributes very little on its own. A great deal of Victorian furniture sells for less than a used sofa, and a fair number of things made in the last thirty years sell for more than anything else in the house.
- Demand. Somebody has to want it now. A category with collectors twenty years ago may have none today, and large dark furniture is the clearest example.
- Material. Gold, silver and platinum have a floor that owes nothing to taste.
- Maker. A named maker with a following turns a generic object into one people search for.
- Condition, and for many categories, originality. Refinished, repaired and polished frequently means worth less rather than more.
- Completeness. The box, the case, the manual, the missing piece, the second speaker.
- Scarcity that somebody is looking for. A thing can be genuinely uncommon and still have no buyers, which is not the same as rare.
Anything that gets weighed
Precious metal is the one category whose value does not depend on style, condition or anybody’s taste. It is also the category most often lost, because broken jewelry looks exactly like broken jewelry.
Set all of this aside regardless of what it looks like:
- Gold and silver jewelry, including single earrings, snapped chains, bent rings and settings with stones missing. Damage affects what a piece is worth as jewelry. It does not affect what the metal is.
- Costume jewelry, which is a separate question with the same answer. Some of it has real demand by maker, and it is mixed through the same boxes, so sorting it by eye is not worth the risk.
- Sterling silver, usually marked sterling or 925. Flatware, serving pieces, bowls, picture frames, baby cups and dresser sets.
- Silverplate, marked EPNS or A1, or carrying a maker’s name and no standard mark. It is worth far less than sterling, which is precisely why the two should be separated by somebody who can tell rather than guessed at.
- Coins and paper currency. United States dimes, quarters and half dollars dated 1964 and earlier were struck in ninety percent silver, and half dollars carried a reduced silver content for several years after that. Also foreign coins from travel, old banknotes, and anything kept in a folder, album or tube, because being kept that way is itself information.
- Dental gold, gold-filled and gold-plated items, class rings and pocket watch cases.
Watches, running or not
A watch that does not run is still a watch. Mechanical movements are serviced rather than replaced, the case may be gold, and for several makers the movement is worth more than the case around it.
Quartz watches from the 1970s and 1980s are collected as well, which surprises people who assume anything with a battery is disposable.
Keep the box, the papers, the spare links and any receipt that turns up. In this category more than most, the paperwork changes what a piece can be sold as.
Things a specialist buys by model number
There is a group of items whose value is not visible at all, because it sits in a model number on a label. The buyer for these does not browse. They search for one specific model and buy it from wherever it happens to be.
Photographing the label or the maker’s mark takes a few seconds and is what anybody you ask will want to see.
- Cameras and lenses, film cameras included, and the lenses especially. Light meters, tripods and darkroom equipment sell alongside them.
- Audio equipment. Receivers, amplifiers, turntables, tape decks and speakers from the 1960s through the early 1980s, working or not, because these are repaired.
- Musical instruments, amplifiers and effects pedals. The case is part of the instrument.
- Sewing machines, typewriters, fountain pens, slide rules, telescopes and microscopes.
- Computers, games consoles and software from before roughly 1995, with their boxes and manuals.
The garage, the workshop and the shed
These get treated as the disposal end of the house and they are often the opposite. A workshop that was used is a room full of things somebody bought because they worked.
Hand planes, chisels, wrench sets, machinist’s tools, welding equipment, lawn and garden machinery, ladders, and the fasteners and fittings in coffee cans. Bulk hardware sells in lots even when no single piece matters.
Fishing tackle, camping equipment, hunting gear other than firearms, and bicycles or bicycle parts belong in the same category.
Paper, which goes into the recycling first
Paper is the first thing anybody clears, because it is easy to move and it reads as clutter. Two different categories are lost that way.
The first is paper that sells on its own. Photographs, postcards, maps, letters, trade catalogs, advertising signs and tins, sheet music, comics, magazines with intact covers, matchbooks, stock and bond certificates, posters and pamphlets. Local material does better than general material, which is one of the few places where an Oakland or Berkeley address helps.
The second is paper that is worth nothing itself but establishes what something else is. Receipts and bills of sale, appraisals, certificates, warranty cards, gallery labels, exhibition tags, letters that mention an object, and the original box. An item with its documentation is sold as what it is. The same item without it is sold as what it resembles, and that gap is real money.
Estate paperwork is a third thing again and matters more than either. What to do with a house full of belongings after someone dies covers what to find before anything moves.
Records, books and the rest of the shelf
Records are worth going through, and going through them is quick. Value sits in particular pressings and in condition, both of the vinyl and of the sleeve, and it concentrates in jazz, blues, soul, early rock, reggae, punk and some classical. A hundred common records and one uncommon one look identical stacked on a shelf.
Most books are not worth much, and the exceptions are consistent enough to check for: first editions with the dust jacket present, signed copies, illustrated and plate books, technical and trade manuals, regional and local history, cookbooks, and children’s books in good condition.
The dust jacket is not packaging. On a collectible book it is a large part of the value, so the worn paper cover that looks removable should stay on the book.
Art, frames, and what is written on the back
Signature, medium and the back of the piece matter, in roughly that order. An original painting, a limited edition print and a decorative reproduction can look similar on a wall and are three different things with three different markets.
The back carries gallery labels, exhibition stickers, framer’s marks and inscriptions, and that is frequently the only surviving record of where a piece came from. Do not take anything out of its frame, and do not clean a canvas or a work on paper. Both reduce value and neither can be undone.
Frames sell in their own right, including empty ones.
Clothing, textiles and accessories
Most clothing in a house is not saleable and a narrow band of it is. Roughly: anything from before about 1980, workwear and denim, leather jackets, military clothing, concert and event shirts, hand knitwear, and anything carrying a couture or designer label.
Handbags with a maker’s name, along with the dust bag and the box. Scarves. Belts and buckles. Fine and costume jewelry are usually in the same drawer as all of it.
Textiles are their own category: quilts, hand knotted rugs, embroidered linens, lace and tablecloths. Condition governs, and so does whether anything has been cut, hemmed or altered.
Furs sell slowly and unevenly, and a small number involve protected species, so they are worth a question rather than an assumption in either direction.
Toys, holiday decorations and anything still in its box
Completeness is the rule in this category. A toy with its box, its inserts and all its pieces is a different item from the same toy loose in a bin, and the difference is larger than it sounds.
Die cast vehicles, model kits whether built or unbuilt, action figures, dolls, board games with all their parts, train sets, construction sets, and anything bought and never opened.
Christmas and holiday decorations belong here too. Older glass ornaments, ceramic trees and figural light sets have steady demand and are usually stored in the boxes that make them saleable.
Military items, and one safety note
Medals, insignia, uniforms, patches, flags, field gear, photographs, discharge papers and letters home. Documentation matters unusually much here, because a group of items from one identified person is worth considerably more than the same items separated from each other.
The safety note is not a formality. Souvenirs sometimes include ordnance, and old ammunition turns up in houses regularly. If something looks like a shell, a grenade or a fuse, do not move it, do not put it in a vehicle, and call your local police department’s non-emergency line.
Firearms are a separate process in California and do not belong in a general sale. Emptying an inherited house in California covers where that starts.
Ordinary household things that sell in lots
The most commonly discarded thing that would have sold is not rare at all. It is quantity. An auction sells in lots, and a lot is what turns forty unremarkable objects into a sale. What is an online estate auction explains why lotting is most of the skill.
- Cast iron pans, enamelware, marked glass and Pyrex, mixing bowls, crocks and canning jars.
- Kitchen tools, bakeware, working small appliances, and complete sets of dishes or glassware.
- Craft and hobby supplies. Fabric, yarn, beads, model supplies, art materials.
- Garden tools, planters, pots and outdoor furniture.
- Office and stationery stock, picture frames, baskets, luggage and hardware.
- Linens, towels and unopened household consumables.
Do not clean, polish, refinish or repair anything first
The instinct before a sale is to make things presentable. In several categories that reduces what they are worth, and none of it can be undone.
- Do not clean coins. This is closer to a rule than a tendency.
- Do not polish bronze, copper or anything with an aged surface. The patina is part of the object.
- Do not refinish or repaint furniture. An original finish, even a tired one, is normally preferred to a new one.
- Do not wash or dry clean vintage textiles before anybody has looked at them.
- Do not discard a scuffed case, a worn box or a torn dust jacket. Those are part of the item.
- Do not take a painting out of its frame, or peel a label off the back of anything.
Things that should not be thrown away and cannot be sold either
Two categories get run together. Not everything worth keeping out of the dumpster is something that can go into a sale.
Set these aside separately and handle them on their own track:
- Firearms and ammunition, which go through a licensed dealer rather than a sale.
- Elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn. California prohibits selling them, with narrow exceptions, and the material turns up in ordinary houses as carvings, jewelry, knife handles and piano keys. California Fish and Game Code section 2022 sets out the prohibition and the antique exception, and the exception is narrower than most people expect.
- Household hazardous waste. Paint, solvents, propane, pool chemicals, pesticides and automotive fluids, which go to a county facility rather than the trash.
- Medication, which goes to a take-back program rather than into the bin or the drain.
What is usually safe to clear out now
Waiting on everything is not realistic, and part of most houses genuinely is disposal. The honest version of this list is about probability rather than certainty: if you are unsure about something, setting it aside for a week costs nothing, and being wrong costs the item.
One caution before the list. Paperwork gets thrown out with junk mail, and statements, policies, titles and deeds are in that same pile by the door.
- Perishable and opened food, and anything past its date.
- Used toiletries, opened cosmetics and part-used cleaning products.
- Obvious refuse, empty packaging and broken plastic goods.
- Stained or damaged bedding and towels, and mattresses, which have no resale market and which most charities refuse.
- Newspapers kept for a headline. These were printed in enormous numbers and reprinted afterwards, and they are one of the few things people save specifically because they expect them to be worth something.
- Recent mass market paperbacks, magazines without covers, and manuals for appliances that are no longer in the house.
Before you clear the house, have somebody look at it
A walkthrough takes about an hour, and it is the step that keeps everything after it reversible. The purpose is not to commit to anything. It is to establish what is in the house while the decisions can still be changed.
It is worth doing even if you intend to clear the property yourself, and it is worth doing before the dumpster is ordered rather than after the first load. Whether the contents justify a sale at all is a separate question, and is there enough value in a house for an estate sale works through it.
This is also not the same thing as an appraisal. If you need a written valuation for probate, insurance or a tax return, that is a separate engagement with a qualified appraiser, and it is worth being clear with yourself about which of the two you are asking for.
Before the walk-through:
- Photograph every room before anything moves.
- Pick one room, or one corner, that nothing leaves from. Anything you are unsure about goes there.
- Sort by category rather than by room, because category is how things are valued and sold.
- Leave sealed boxes sealed until somebody opens them deliberately.
- Check pockets, drawers, tins, books and the freezer. Cash, jewelry and documents are found in all five, routinely.
Doing it yourself
The research is public and it is not difficult. Photograph the item, find the maker’s mark or the model number, and search completed and sold listings rather than asking prices. Asking prices tell you what somebody hopes for. Completed sales tell you what happened.
Work the categories in order of density rather than size. The jewelry drawer, the coin folders, the tool bench, the record shelf and the paperwork will take an afternoon between them and cover most of the risk. Furniture and general household goods can wait, because they are the things least likely to be worth more than they look.
What happens to items that don’t sell covers the other end of the process, which is where the remainder goes.