In 2018, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s estate sale brought in $900,000. The sale took place at her mansion in Bel Air that was previously owned by Elvis Presley. Between diamond-nameplate necklaces reading “Dah-ling,” sketches she drew while on trial for slapping a cop, her passport, costumes, and other memorabilia, her estate sale was extremely well-run and extremely lucrative.
But Gabor’s wasn’t the only celebrity estate sale to bring in big bucks. Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s sister, Lee Radziwill, brought in $1.23 million in her 2019 estate sale—that was three times the amount it was estimated to earn. Celebrity chef and travel author Anthony Bourdain’s estate sold 202 items, earning a whopping $2 million a year following his death.
Indeed, celebrity estate sales are notoriously lucrative productions. One of the reasons is that these sales are well organized and run by professional estate liquidators. At Judy’s Jewelry & Antiques in Fort Myers, FL, owner Sal has been running highly profitable estate sales for clients for years. Over the next few articles, he’ll be giving you some background on estate sales to help you make the decision whether or not it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
What is an estate sale?
An estate sale is as a sale or auction that is held to liquidate the physical assets, and possessions of a person who is recently deceased, or a person who must dispose of their assets to facilitate a move, a divorce, or downsizing. In other words, an estate sale is a way to sell everything that you or a loved one owns. An estate sale is a much larger endeavor than a simple garage sale. A garage sale is perfect for unloading a few of your belongings, but if you are looking to liquidate everything, you want to have an estate sale.
Estate sales can consist of homes, artwork, furniture, jewelry, rugs, china, crystal, cutlery, vases, statuary, chachkas and much more. Most estate sales are held at the estate, aka “on-site,” and are open to the public. A garage sale may be held for one day, but an estate sale is often held over an entire weekend to give the sellers time to get rid of everything.
Sal, the owner of Judy’s Jewelry & Antiques in Fort Myers, FL has been an estate sale professional for years and has helped run a large number of estate sales here in Southwest Florida. One of the important things Sal can do, that you most likely cannot, is properly appraise and price the items you want to put up for sale. You are unlikely to understand the value of many of the items you are selling, but our appraisers have years of experience doing it and can make sure you make the money you deserve on your valuables. While selling the items, he can also speak about the items in a way that lets buyers know the true value of what they are looking to buy.
Sal and his team also know the best way to arrange and display each sale item for maximum sales, and they will help manage the sale on the days it takes place. Proper appraising and pricing the items is one of the main differences in having an estate sale instead of a garage sale.
