What's the best way for a family to clean out a father's 60 year collection? The father Kenny Hampton passed last December. Some of y'all my know him from swap meets and stuff. The family is cleaning out his big garage full of parts and really don't want to scrap it all. I'm almost 5 hours away and offered to help. So I'm coming to y'all. The son's name is David. He's super nice. His number is 731 225 9736. The garage is in Milan TN. 38358. My name is Owen. I'm just trying to help from everything being scraped. I put a listing in the parts section. Any help on What's the best way to save it would be greatly appreciated. I have more pictures if you need them. Thanks again for your help.
I would say that a well advertised auction would be best . Maybe even an online auction. Any way you do it, its going to be a lot of work. But if you scrap stuff you could be just throwing away a lot of money.
Auction is the only way to do that. Or find a buyer for all of it. Give @titus a shout. Jeff buys complete collections
You could try to sell the whole lot by offering it to the highest bidder with a fixed date to sell and maybe even have them do a silent bid. Just looking at the pictures, it surely would get some bids anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
If not an auction, even a well advertised Mans garage sale would be better than scrap. You won't get retail price unless you sell it all piece by piece, too much work, and if you keep in mind scrap at 100 a ton equates to 5 cents a pound, so any offer from a garage sale will be better than 5 cents.
as an auction buyer and an old car parts seller, i agree with an auction. you will need a couple local car guys to help by separating parts into similar, same make /year piles, labeling what can be identified etc. an online sale will mean shipping, which could be the job of the auctioneer, or it'll be on the family. an onsite, live auction would be the best, but not all locations are suited for that. moving it all to an auction house/firehall will be a deduct from the sale total, but will ensure more buyers and a clean garage when you're done. good luck.
Just my opinion, but since he was a swapmeet seller, as say opposed to a fella with a bunch of parts for a few different models of vehicles, there might be anything in the boxes, garage, etc. So not knowing if the family wants top dollar, better than scrap, etc, someone has to do a few different inventory things. Ie Model A parts here. Dodge parts here. Ignition parts here, etc, etc. I’d guess it would be hard to sell as one lot (maybe someone would take a shot at it though) without a person of knowledge looking at it and know what they are buying. I’m sure it’s all Vintage stuff, but things need to be narrowed down (imo) to sell things to those that are into what ever “lot” being offered.
No they are expecting to get pennies on the dollar so they don't have to move it them selves. The sister lives out of town so it's only the brother to deal with it
If I can offer a bit of advise to you hobbyists & hoarders, it is to label your stuff. This is the 2nd of 3 dumpers hauled from a friends estate. Much of it is scrap but ALL of it is unlabeled Blocks, cranks, heads, rods, drums, manifolds, etc. Seats, regulators... 12 Ton here! A truck of TH 350/400s when for $50 each. The Family is not keen on working with wholesalers & the like which is too bad. label your stuff!
Someone like Matt from irontrap garage to offer on the whole lot could be good, but no picking through. Buy it all and take it away. I agree that a knowledgeable auctioneer is going to bring the best money, but even then the scrap man is going to get a lot of it.
many of us are in similar situations so I hope better ideas show up on this thread. A local auction is the same as giving the stuff away. It needs widespread advertising
@IronTrap buys big lots of stuff if its early Ford stuff & is "one of us". As stated earlier, I take a permanent marker sharpie and label all my parts stash to help avoid the stuff going to the scrap heap. @WTF really good on you for trying to help the famy out.
Sounds like like a trailer or 4 at a time going to a large swap meet once or 4 times a year If that foesnt work , contat as many auction houses as possible that deal s with such option s I bet a lot of people wish that they were closer , i know that they would help in one way or another ( i know i would if i was closer )
I remember when my dad and I used to see him at swap meets and car shows years ago. We used to by stuff from him all the time. I don’t live to far from him in Memphis and I would love to call and see if I could come up and visit with him and pick out some things if he wants to sell them.
we use to get free parts at swap meets if we stayed till the end of the last day...venders would leave stuff behind..also great time to get deep discount deals..
I agree with shivasdad on contacting Matt. He buys quite a bit of stuff. Even if he bought a portion of it it would help.
@choptop40 funny you mention that. I was at the Mopar Nationals at Englishtown many years ago and when everybody was packing up to leave there was a funny car body that was tossed and some guy was putting it over the top of his car to get it home. Don't know if he ever made it.
That is such a cool pile of interesting stuff and parts and a tad bit of so called junk, we all know as car people, what all of that stuff is, when it comes to saving it from the scrap man ! Such a shame that the distance between Milan Tennessee and Owingsville Kentucky is 383.4 miles which is a 5 hour drive. I bet that Lloyd of @Lloyd's paint & glass has enough friends with trucks and trailers that could haul all of it, to the upcoming Lloydfest. But lets face it, everything is now dictated to, per the price of fuel and the logistics of vehicles etc, etc. These days, that determines a lot of people's decisions, as to how far they will go, distance wise, to save valuable metal. I totally get the fact that its just the brother that is left to deal with all of it. And the fact that the family really doesn't want it, and they don't want to deal with the hassle of an auction either, although that is a viable route to take, still a ton of work to get all of that organized and arranged, and still the potential of a bunch of no sales, regardless of how well arranged and with a label as to what it might be ? So here is a potential scenario. If nothing is done with it, you all know dam well that the majority of it will go to scrap ! So with that in mind, and so that the family can make at least some money, not a lot but some money from it, consider this. Take a lot of great pictures of all of it, and I mean a lot of good well lighted pictures, then with that done, and this is just spit-balling as to a price for all of it, list the entire pile of it for say, $4000.00 cash, that will give the potential buyer or a group of buyers, a chance to pool their money and even make a low-ball offer of say $2000.00 cash. And the buyer of course has to arrange for all of it to be removed and transported to where ever it needs to go at their expense. That would potentially accomplish the cleaning out of the building which is what the family, I assume wants in the first place. If that happens, then the cool stuff is saved and the buyer/buyers can sort it all out at what ever facility it all winds up in. Keep what is cool and useful, scrap the rest of it, if applicable, or for those of us afflicted with that old habit of hoarding it, there is that scenario as well! Sure what I have proposed here may not be appealing to anybody reading this, but the main goal is to help the family and get rid of the stuff in the building, and to put a few bucks in the family's pockets, and the cool stuff being saved from winding up in the scrap mans truck. Everybody's results may vary! As much as I totally appreciate what is in all of those crates and boxes and shelves, if I was the brother in that family left with all of it to deal with, I would say, its all for free, ( to all of you fellow HAMBERS and hot rodders and HOODLUMS and HOOLIGANS ) Ya all come and get it right now ! Does that sound foolish ? Maybe, but it dam sure is better than all of it going to scrap ! Not everything is all about money, some times its just best to let such cool stuff, live on, at somebody else's place ! That is just my honest opinion about it, and nothing more ! It will be interesting to see what kind of responses this idea will generate ! Thanks from Dennis. Good luck on the dispersal of that cool pile of parts!
Not necessarily, my dad’s former bother in laws estate held an auction (advertised). I hate auctions and didn’t go, but my boss did, he was out of about 5 to 10 people who showed! Lots of vintage hot rod parts, muscle car, and sports car part, very little sold! My boss bought a real freshly rebuilt L-88 for less than the cost of machine work! That is the second local automotive auction with good parts that I know of in less than 2 years that very few people showed up to.
The best thing that Owen @WTF really has done, is to post on this thread as to what needs to happen, that alone will get the word out there and hopefully it will get enough attention, to get people to come help haul it all away, even possibly to Chattanooga Tennessee!
With that much stuff and a desire to have an empty garage, they should be open to anything! What did the Dad want? Did he express his wishes to the family? Did he prepare for this by labeling stuff and storing it in a somewhat organized fashion. Looks like it may have started as organized in the depths of the garage with shelves and boxes then morphed into throwing stuff in piles. As everyone has commented, there's roughly 3 choices; 1) Sell or auction the entire lot "all or nothing" to the highest offer. Pro: It empties the garage in one fell swoop to one customer. Eventually, all the parts find a good home! Con: It may bring less money than option #2. You may be hard pressed to find someone that will take it all. 2) Auction it in lots. This would require a couple of knowledgeable car guys, the Son and hire a couple of day laborers to move the parts to piles. Break into 2-3 teams and start going through. Model A stuff in one lot, boxed Ford script boxes in another lot. A lot for radios, etc, etc. Pros: You may find some hidden gold nuggets. Would make more money that option #3. Con: A lot of work. Could take a long day or a long weekend. After the sale is done, will no doubt require a call to the scrapper for all the crap nobody would even take for free. 3) Cherry pick out all the expensive and desirable stuff (NOS parts, vintage speed equipment, rare and early Ford stuff). List it (HAMB, etc) then call the scrapper. Pro: Mediocre amount of work. Con: Least amount of money. Plenty of good usable parts will get the deep six. Disrespectful to Dad... There will be untold, old car guys (including dealers, flippers) that will offer to go through there and cherry pick all the choice stuff (early Ford, vintage speed parts, etc). IMHO this should be avoided, because you'll be stuck with 99% of common stuff that nobody will want. Hopefully, there's some hidden gold in there. I'm seeing a lot of "unsold" swap meet items and junk. You and the Son should be pulling all the cherry stuff when you sort/catalogue, so you know what you have. A large bin of 100 miscellaneous door garnish moldings may go @ $5 ea, but what if you unknowing left a few 32-34 garnishes that were worth $500 each? If there's highly sought after expensive parts in the building, 2 pallets of it could out value the rest of the entire garage! One big section of all the very desirable high dollar stuff (NOS parts, vintage speed parts, Hot Rod parts etc) would be the hook to make buying the whole lot fruitful for a single buyer in option #1. It would also help set a value for the overall collection. Otherwise the cherry stuff needs to be listed (auction or sale) individually. Small stuff that's worth 100's might be worth listing.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here, how many of you have looked the photos over and said “That’s what I want, let me at it!” I see a lot of stuff but not much that will bring people out to attend an auction. And if there was an auction do you have to pay a fee up front to the auction company? That in itself could be a losing proposition. Would Matt drive down from Pennsylvania for that? If Lloyd was to round up a bunch of friends to load up that stuff and haul it to his place what happens to the major tonnage that could remain unsold? Would you guys want that to remain on your property, or have to deal with getting rid of it? Flame away if you will, but I’m not seeing the potential in that stuff.
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