Hot Rods suggestions needed disposing cars and parts

Have very ill relative that has many ,many parts and some cars and parts cars. His wife ( my sister ) and I have discussed what to do with his collection. A big problem is that I now live 250 miles away and she depends on me. Probably have to have an auction because we are unsure of what to price many of the items which would make a 'giant yard sale " very difficult. Please weigh in with your opinions, ideas and recommendations as to what to do and if an auction who to use. We will probably wait till spring at the earliest to decide what to do. Most of the parts are 58 to 64 Chevy with many of them NOS . Also 348/409 parts and engines. Thanks ! Bill

 

my sister said if I die first she will just call one of those auction places and sell my whole life for pennies on the dollar so I decided I am taking it all with me.

 

Auction is the simplest way to go. Not necessarily most profitable though. I've seen 'em go both ways. Maybe go through the stuff & list the desirables, then auction the balance. The classifieds here might be a good place to start.

 

Ask him if he knows of any car guys he trusts. Ask them to be a consultant on pricing and pay them to do so. You will make more money and not be kicking yourself later for watching rare parts sell for scrap value.

 

Cut someone in for 10% and it may be money well spent.

 

My wife bitches at me to get rid of my lifelong collections and my cars so she will not have to do it. So I guess I am supposed to be unhappy for the rest of the time I have here. I am not worried if she gives it away or sells it for pennies on the dollar because I won't need it anymore. I have told her that Ebay, Craigslist are the easiest ways to sell stuff. Auction places will work but take a huge chunk of the money in the process. Besides who says I am going first?

 

Do you want it gone? Easy give away on crags list. Research what scrap is going for. If you can find any yard buying scrap. You will need to pay to have the unwanted stuff hauled off. You might find a Meth/Crack head to take the unwanted junk for free. Again depends on scrap price in your area.

If you want top $ you need someone to photo, research and list good stuff on here or EBay or Crag's List etc. This takes work and effort and most people think this is free. It is not. Can you make enough off the good to pay to get the scrap handled? Can you work out a deal with someone as a lump deal?

 

I HAD a wife just like that.

Auction is the easiest. Someone else does the work and you get most of the proceeds. Selling yourself gets the most cash, but then you deal with the low ballers and want-to-be's.

I got some cash and part of a house when my parents passed. I look at it as kind of free money. I didn't earn it and I wasn't starving without it. So if you look at it from that prospective, maybe getting top dollar isn't so important. Getting the stuff out of the way and moving on, for me, is.

 

Who's the car show that takes everything you've hoarded and not worked on and then builds one ?
Call them but they will ask what's there.

Without knowing what's there it's hard to say what to do. I've seen really nice stuff thought of as junk and junk thought of as really nice stuff. In both cases they just don't know what they have.

An auction will make it go away and break your heart.

 

BILL , YOU TALKING ABOUT MY FRIEND IN ARDMORE?

 

I'd bundle stuff into 'lots' if you go with an auction or even just a private sale. Depending on the volume of parts types, bundling will insure that all or most of the stuff should go. I think I'd try separating it by year first (example, one lot, '58 Chevy parts), then by type if the year volume is high (example, '58 Chevy body/trim parts). Make sure that buyers know that getting a lot means they take the whole lot. Do plenty of advance advertising for the sale.

You never get full value on forced sales though....

 

Definitely an auction house, it is a lot of time and effort to ask of anyone to liquidate any decent sized hoard.

I did this recently for a friend, and it was a pia, he just couldn't deal with the emotions of getting rid of all his dad's stuff. (Not car stuff, but sizable pile)

I told my wife that she should give all my stuff away free to anyone who wants it. Any "free-come take it" ad on Craig's is like pushing a cart full of raw steak into an open-air dog pound in Sri Lanka, you will have no problem getting rid of every last bit.

 

Get a HAMBER in your area to help you sell it on-line.
Decent stuff with decent prices will sell.
Shipping is the most aggravating part.

 

I cringe every time I hear the word "scrap" when speaking of old cars and what to do with them. I ran into a scrap 60 El Camino, a scrap 1951 and a scrap 1953 Chevrolet and got close to $9,000 worth of ebay out of the 3. I paid about $900.00 for all 3 including transport to my shop

 

I had a huge amount of Model A parts before I moved west. Listed them in Craigslist, some on here. At swap meets I spoke to people who dealt in only Model A parts and several guys in the Model A club. In the end one of the guys who does swap meets came over, looked at everything and made me an offer which was in the range I was looking for. Guy showed up with a pickup and trailer, helped load it all, and away it all went.

 

I assume that you are not retired with copious amounts of time to sell a piece at a time, and that there are enough cars and parts for an auction. If that is the case an auction may not bring as much money as you spending days selling the items, but you won't hate spending weeks doing it.

A neighbor died and his son and daughter were taking care of the estate. I think there was some antique furniture but other than the house and decent garage there wasn't much there in the term of real dollars. The only thing there was a lot of was garage door tracks and openers. The large garage was full and more was stacked along one outside wall. The daughter just wanted to "get er done" but the son wanted to get every dollar he could out of the scrap that was left. I saw them sorting out the scrap cutting short coppery wire leads into a bucket, etc. They took so long that they were no longer able to get insurance on the house plus had to pay taxes for the property. The only up side that I could see was that inflation may have increased the value of the house enough to offset all the taxes they paid.

 

A reputable auction house is, in my opinion, the best way to go...UNLESS....you want to be bogged down seemingly forever........When my Brother died 8 years ago, I helped my niece liquidate his numerous cars and parts......was glad to do it.....and was retired and had the time. Still, it was very time consuming and a lot of riff raff was left over....It took almost a year to get it whittled down enough to close the estate.

Those who talk about one method or another 'maximizing the cash received' seem to underestimate the time and work involved in achieving that.....and even then...who says you got as much as could have been had in an auction setting?

I have attended quite a few auctions and am continually amazed at what stuff brings in a competitive atmosphere. Not always, I'll concede, but usually. Gamblers usually go with the odds.....there is a reason for that.

Ray

 

If i were you I would post what state it is and ask for some HAMB friendly help. Have someone put eyes on it so you could make a sound decision.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

An auction is quick and they come with an army of in house help, then they advertise and bring another army outside help- bidders. At the end of the day most everything is gone and that chapter is closed.

Now on gamblers odds
I had an auction, some of stuff the stuff was in industrial stackable totes that I paid $25.00 a piece for, I bought a skid of them brand new too. The auctioneer was whipping down the row and bringing $ 2-3-12 bucks for the "lot" of stuff in the $25.00 totes including the totes. There was min & Easily $50 + retail new stuff in each the totes. I stopped him from that row and moved him to another and rounded up some help to de-tote the stuff and put it in boxes, some was just piles on the ground. I set 1/2 the empty totes aside for me to keep and the the other 1/2 to sell at auction. The bidders got pissed at me cause I told the auctioneer to start the empties at $15.00 each - If they don't sell I'm keeping them.

Well all the empty totes sold at 15 or more and the now piles created from what was in the totes earlier we're now bringing $15-20-40. The auctioneer told me that was a wise move.

After the auction we went to get something to eat and came back the next day to finish everything out. On the far side of the barn I found a big pile of former tote content that was sold earlier and dumped out. They just wanted the tote! And inside the barn where I stashed my 1/2 of the totes, well someone stole all but 3. Mother bitches.
My 3 totes

 

The question is........knowing what you know now, would you do that again?

Ray

 

That depends mainly on what my immediate needs were and what I needed to most.
If it was quickness and I had no time to spend liquidating it would be an auction, certainly.
If there was no urgency to liquidate, I'd cherry pick the good $tuff to $ell and auction off the rest.
If it were to maximize the value, I'd pay a commission to enlist help listing items on fleebay and get greater exposure. I'd probably list everything at 1.00 starting big and let the market decide. I've never lost doing that nearly 500 times but it's risky and times have changed since I played there so I can't say I'd still do it.

Consignment shops are good if they have the right clients and you gave the right stuff. Again that depends on , well your stuff.

Donations can be beneficial on tax filings, again depends on the stuff.

Rare parts need to be in front of the right buyers, and you need to know what it is to list it In front of them.

 

Right and you put in TIME and WORK to get those cars and you have knowledge. Some people can not/will not do that and think that IDing, taking pictures, listing stuff, dealing with A-hole buyers and getting the money should be free.

In OPs situation. Are we talking about a couple part cars in the backyard in a subdivision? Or a couple acres of god knows what of "Iron Stuff" with a couple of usable parts scattered about. That might take chain saws and heavy equipment just to be able to walk around and inventory it.

First he needs to drive the 250 miles and inventory everything and take pictures of everything. Especially the engine numbers. Then do the math. If the good parts will offset the expenses. Then talk to an auction company and see what that would cost verses you selling the good stuff. If you have scrap/land clean up what will that cost? You might be money ahead to find a package deal with someone. They take everything and clear the land in exchange for all of the good stuff. You will not know unless you know what is there.

 

^^^^^^^Well said!

Ray

 

never an easy project, even if it is your own stuff - never easy to let stuff go - sentimental value has to be thrown out first - the suggestion of trying to find guys from here that are local to where the items are located is a good one - they can at least help with some organization of stuff, and some pricing - of course they would be compensated - easy to wrongfully scrap parts/car that have a true value - auction people may not know the true value - some mention pennies on the dollar but, be willing to let some stuff go for pennies on the ten dollars - check with local estate sales companies - also look at Hemmings, etc

 

Thanks for the replies. There are many good ideas and experiences good and bad already stated. I have been into old cars since 1960 and I know a little about this, just not the stuff my BIL mostly fooled with. A couple of HAMBERS on here know some of what he has and it is NOT junk. Keep the replies coming, I appreciate them. Thanks Bill

 

...the point being scrapping old cars should be the last resort. dude hasn't even gone to look at them and your first suggestion is to scrap them...and yes, as it usually does it took TIME and WORK to make $9,000.00

 

There's plenty of money in parts, but it's work! Just like mining for gold is work.
Just like delivering papers or flipping burgers is work.
Lots of stuff is worth way more apart than it ever is together, it's weird how that works.

 

I did NOT. I said he will need to scrap the crap. In 99.99% of these situations the crap out weighs the good by a huge factor. The price is what someone is willing to pay for it WHEN and WHERE you want to sell it. Feelings be damned.

 

Some pics might give these guys a better way to help you. There's a lot of them that jump on threads for That Chev stuff. Maybe your friends can send you some cell phone pics. You might get their attention if you start a thread with "help selling 58 to 64 Chevy stuff...."

 

A auction is the easiest way of getting rid of everything,wham,bam thank you ma'am. HRP