Book Review - Sell, Keep or Toss?
Harry L. Rinker's Helpful Tips for Settling Estates and Downsizing
Rinker's latest book "Sell, Keep or Toss?" is a useful guide for anyone faced with liquidating personal property.
Many of us will be faced with disposing the lifetime accumulations of our own or those of others. The goal is to maximize profits and minimize leftovers. Sell, Keep or Toss? offers helpful tips and hard truths for making that happen.
Keep, Sell or Toss
Whether you’re the executor of an estate or an empty nester moving to smaller quarters, Sell Keep or Toss? is a handy reference for anyone faced with liquidating a residence full of personal property. This well-organized book is a quick read, and full of practical advice as well as Rinker’s own strong opinions, which he offers based on years of experience in the world of antiques and collectibles.
Rinker’s Definitions: Antiques, Collectibles, Desirables, & Reusables
Although not the standard definition which states that antiques are 100 years old or older, for the purpose of selling household goods, Rinker defines as antique anything made earlier than 1963. Collectible items are those things manufactured between 1963 and 1980, and Desirable items are objects made from 1980 to the present.
Reusables, he defines as any item, antique or otherwise, whose value rests primarily in its ability to be reused. In all but a few cases, the bulk of the proceeds realized will be from the sale of reusables, and he urges his readers to accept and understand that while the goal in all cases is to maximize profits, an equally important goal is getting rid of things.
Auction, Estate Sale, eBay or What?
There are any number of ways to dispose of personal property including auctions, estate sales, garage sales, private sales, and eBay. Mr. Rinker describes them all, including how to find professionals, how to choose the method that right for you, and what to expect in terms of workload, timing, and costs. His event timelines are sure to be helpful tools, especially for executors. He also addresses the financial benefits of donating over tossing.
Harry Rinker’s Hard Yet Helpful Truths
Keep Sell or Toss? is sprinkled liberally with Rinker’s home truths. These may not be popular with sellers, but are no less true for all of that. Here are some of the best:
- Regardless of what Great Aunt Sadie saw in a collector book or heard from a dealer, any object is worth only what someone will pay you for it at the very moment you want to sell it.
- Family Value is primarily a sentimental, not financial value, and that value is recorded in the telling of the stories that relate to the item and its previous owner. Your children or grandchildren will have no emotional attachment to an object unless it or its stories are part of their memories.
- You are under no obligation to treat your heirs equally. Feel free to reward the ones that have been good to you, or that you know will cherish your heirlooms.
- That which you think is rare, rarely is. The on-line market place probably has dozens just like it!
- Condition is probably the most important factor affecting the value of antiques and collectibles. Only the most hard-to-find items will have high values if their condition is poor.
Sell, Keep or Toss by Harry L. Rinker
House of Collectibles, 2007
ISBN 978-0-375-72240-0
$16.95US
