United States | Good stuff

Why online marketplaces have not killed the estate sale

Is it easier to get people to buy old junk in person?

Two women look at objects at an estate sale held at a home in Massachusetts.
Everything must goPhotograph: Getty Images
|Arlington Heights

In a house on a cul-de-sac in Arlington Heights, a nondescript suburb of modest 1950s homes north-west of Chicago, Deborah Fossett is counting hundred-dollar bills. Holding each one up to the light, she examines nine in total. Satisfied, she writes out a receipt, and hands it to the customer, who picks up his purchase—an antique set of silver Tiffany cutlery. Similar sets online sell for thousands of dollars, she tells him. But this one is missing several pieces, and in any case, everything in the house must go, and it is past two o’clock, so $900 is enough. He eyes his bargain again and quickly leaves.

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From the May 11th 2024 edition

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