Dear Lee,

Declutter. That’s the word of the year. After collecting since I was 5 years old, I’ve decided to “prune” my collections. The job is ideal—visit and write about shops, shows, auctions, garage sales, collector club events, and even discarded “old stuff” in front of a house on trash day. My over-stuffed house is the result of 1) going to so many places with collectibles; 2) never moving and emptying the house; and 3) still collecting more than I can give away to family, museums, and charities. So I promised daughter Kim and son Lee (who want about 10 things each) that I would think about when I have to move. Eight years ago, after husband Ralph’s death, I had to empty a business warehouse and offices that included furniture, inventory, and stored parts of our collections. Then came the hard part, deciding what to do with his clothes, cuff links, “drive to work” car, collector’s classic auto, bike, and hundreds of ties. It’s all in our leaflet, Kovels’ A Diary: How to Settle a Collector’s Estate. But this is different—no rules. So I started the project with our country store collection of advertising and packaging that fills our basement.

Auctions have changed in eight years. And changes make it harder to sell collections. Auctions specialize. There are sales of only bottles, toys, Southern pottery, Heisey glass, guns, Asian art, comics, sports memorabilia, silver, decoys, dolls, folk art, contemporary glass sculpture or pottery and Midcentury Modern and often price limits. There are sometimes lower limits for specialty sales. A mechanical bank or advertising sale may only accept items worth over $500, while oil paintings and sculptures must be worth twice that much. Condition must be excellent or perhaps good if the item is rare. And transportation, catalog if any, reserve prices, and commission rates are negotiated.

I hired a nearby auction gallery I have known for years, because of the size and number of things to move. It is getting good prices for online art and poster auctions, and many advertising signs are really posters. The online sale is “from the country store collection of Ralph and Terry Kovel,” and includes items seen in our HGTV series, Flea Market Finds with the Kovels. The auction is September 17, 2016 (see RachelDavisFineArts.com). It includes most of our non-food items like tobacciana, petroliana, bottles, political, war posters, medical, cosmetic, calendars, sewing giveaways, advertising dolls, labels, scales, display cases and shelves, full size grocery store displays, even a huge Buster Brown head and an electric 3-D Poll Parrot shoe display with a bobbing parrot. Many of the items were featured in our TV shows, books, or newspaper columns.

PS: Look for a full report of the sales’ surprises, disappointments, interesting events, prices, etc. in a few months.