A representative of Margie Beegle Sales expects this two-story home in Southgate across the street from Rice University to hit the market next month. If you’re interested in a sneak preview of the home or would enjoy the opportunity to participate in the frenzied dismantling of the rather astounding collection of collections mounted inside, here’s your chance. The estate sale at 2141 University Blvd. is this weekend. Looking for a Kabuki mask or a vintage Hell Driver Rodeo racetrack? You’re in luck! A few more featured items from among the assembled treasures: KISS Psychic Circus action figures, some rather large Nutcracker figurines, and two full size mirror-image representations of Cracker Jack’s blue and white logo-man Sailor Jack with his dog Bingo. A much abbreviated preview of the scene:
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- Southgate Estate Sale of the Year!! [Margie Beegle Sales]
Disco Balls!!
Looking at the photos on the Margie Beegle Sales site, I can’t imagine that they expect to sell everything in one weekend.
How long and how much money did it take this person to “collect” all these things?
And, was this place simply a storage for the collections or did someone live there too?
Bet the neighbors have some stories to tell.
Looks like they spent a fair amount of time/$ at the Village Five and Dime store.
The owner either was/is a hoarder or Margie Beele has added her own inventory to the inventory so to speak.
I think Hoarders missed an opportunity with this one. HCAD says last owner had it since 1997.
And he died this year at age 110. Born 1900.
It looks clean, very organized and quite beautiful. Good question: when does collecting become hoarding?
I think the concept of “collecting” implies that you have applied a discriminating eye and chosen the most appealing among everything available. Hoarding means that you take everything you come across. This is somewhere in the middle – just a lot of stuff – doesn’t appear to be at the level of health hazard, and clearly organized.
There was actually a private “pre-sale” to the actual sale. It was by invitation only. The photos you see here and on Margie’s website were taken after the “pre-sale”, there was MUCH more stuff.
BB
From Ash:
This is somewhere in the middle – just a lot of stuff – doesn’t appear to be at the level of health hazard, and clearly organized.
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Clearly organized in terms of having paths through which one can walk. A sign of hoarding. Not collecting.
Collectors display things and store what they can’t display if they collect as an investment.
Hoarders collect as well but end up with homes that look like this one. Looking like a “Trash and Treasure” shop rather than a home.
Just the same, I suspect the estate dealer brought in her own inventory. To what degree, only the neighbors know.
Wow…I had often wondered about this strange house whilst walking by it on the Rice track. Now I know! Will there a be a sale open to the general public at some point? I don’t see much I’d actually by in the photos, but I am nosy!
This is NOT hoarding, but collecting Matt. Google is our friend….Use it.
“Now” there are paths. The sales crew had to come in weeks ago and clear loads of stuff from the house just to be able to walk through it. There are about 15 hefty bags just of stuffed animals in the back yard by the algae-green pool. The house itself needs lots of work. The floor of the back addition is rotten underfoot.
What’s the story on the owner?
I hardly go to estate sales any more. They always want too much money for what junk they have left. Not everything is an antique!
I usually boycott Margie Beegle sales due to their ridiculous mark ups and being followed around the sale like you are a theif, but this looks too ridiculous to pass up.
thief*
In one of my incarnations I worked with a very famous, or infamous, estate dealer whose “modus operandi” was selling reproductions from Burton’s as “antiques” although she wasn’t the only one.
She once told a dining room table and chairs to two people. One of course ended up with a table and chairs that were “picked up” at Burton’s and delivered. The problem was the cushions were rose instead of white.
She explained to the irate buyer that it must have been the light. The cushions were rose, of course, not white.
Amazingly this customer liked the “replacement” table and chairs better that was now in the dining room at the house where the “estate sale” was being conducted. I think the estate sale itself consisted of some kitchenware and a couple of tables and paintings. The rest was merely “added” from the inventory from her shop. The “replacement” was a different style of course. Which the customer actually liked better. So she traded. Which the estate dealer, bless her little larcenous heart, didn’t mind at all. She made an extra $250 off the trade. The new set cost her $250 less at Burton’s than the old one.
She had the eyes of a hawk I will say. All the valuable stuff was always in eye range. One day as a woman was “checking out” the woman was stunned to find she’d been charged for the Lalique figurine she’d stuffed in her oversized purse. Which of course she paid for. Embarrassed as hell she was.
I generally avoid estate sales by estate dealers. Been there, done that. Quite a few are at the “yard sales” buying stuff in the first hour which ends up in their “estate sale” the following month. They like the stuff the owners don’t know is worth more than what they have it marked for.
But I still “dumpster dive” if something catches my eye. They do that too. You’d be surprised what people throw out. Sometimes that silver bowl that had been in the family for generations was in fact plucked from a dumpster the month before. Took awhile to remove the years of tarnish. But it was free. So there’s still profit in it. One man’s trash is indeed another’s treasure.
Many many years ago I had a co-worker who was a very talented artist. Somehow she knew the folks at an antique store on Main St and they knew of her talent. Said antique dealer/auction house acquired some authentic turn of the century drawing paper and asked her to do some sketches of some of the historic buildings in Galveston. She was totally unaware and when she discovered they planned to sell them as ‘antique’, she was horrified. That was over 40 years ago. I believe they are still in business but of course, it may just be the name has not changed but the owners have.
The Press says it is hoarding… just saying
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/07/estate_sale_of_the_century.php
@ Tex: Spoken like a true hoarder.
From PYEWACKET2:
…Said antique dealer/auction house acquired some authentic turn of the century drawing paper and asked her to do some sketches of some of the historic buildings in Galveston. She was totally unaware and when she discovered they planned to sell them as ‘antique’, she was horrified…
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Tricks of the trade as they say…