Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Male Side of an Estate



Often when I clear out an estate, it tends to lean towards the feminine. Sterling, jewelry, china, linens, etc. All wonderful things that I adore, but I am always still on the lookout for what men like. (not that men don't love what women love & vis versa. I'm generalizing a bit) I know men love vintage. I'm married to an antique fountain pen collector who also loves old books, antique wood boxes, old space toys, etc. etc. He's taught me to keep my eyes open.




Yesterday I headed 3 hours back up north to pick up more items from the rare estate I'm handling. I was able to get a sneak peek into the male side of the estate and boy, what a peek it was. He's into cars. Lots of cars. He has 3 warehouses and one stock yard. Over 100 cars in the stockyard that are waiting for restoration. Then they head into the first shop for cleaning and evaluation. After that they go to the second warehouse for disassembly. Finally, they go into the third warehouse for restoration.




I was given an informal tour of the final warehouse. I was only able to see a few autos, but what beauties they were. A crew of the nicest guys work on these cars daily. What a great job!




The reason I ended up at this warehouse was due to all the antiques stored there. Since each warehouse is huge, he has lots of extra space for whatever he picks up at auctions. Apparently he stores a ton of antiques. His crew kept rolling their eyes behind his back and mouthing "you have NO idea!"





It was so quiet inside the warehouse when I was there. There was a fine layer of dust on all the cars. I felt a sense of anticipation when I saw all those cars there-as if they were ready to roar to life off to some big adventure.





In this car bay, I was shown a glass sided commercial icebox, a giant scale that must have weighed around 300 pounds, an old turn of the century butcher store block, old metal signs, a china cabinet and early 20th century coffee grinders. (yes, more coffee grinders. He was at one point really into them)

I'll head up again in the next two weeks. It's such an adventure. It's made me realize I need to invest in a box trailer. Renting trucks isn't cost affective at all. Now I just need to figure out how to ship all these heavy antiques!

5 comments:

  1. WOW, My husband would flip over the cars.

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  2. My Daddy would whistling and grunting ecstatically over those cars! What a privilege for you!

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  3. WHOA! I'm not into cars but my eyes were bugging out at what you posted! What a cool ' job' you have - it's hardly a job - more of a treat I'd say!

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  4. All your photographs of your estate sales are so awesome! I get excited each time I see that you have new photos to share! Keep em' coming!
    JenZee09

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  5. Wow, my husband is in the same boat as the other guys! He is an expert in vintage cars, mostly European. He has owned many over the years. His first car was a 60s Volkwagen Bus that he drove during high school. Yes, he was pretty smooth... One of the first times I met him, he took me on a ride in his 1948 Buick Roadmaster.

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