Malankazooie, on 19 September 2021 - 01:47 PM, said:
I always find it a bit sad when I see a sign tacked at a street corner advertising an estate sale like it is a weekend garage sale (even though I have no emotional investment and the deceased is a complete stranger). There's something ghoulish about opening up a residence and allowing people to look through and purchase items of the dearly departed. I guess it's a necessary discomfort though, to unburden family and friends of someone's belongings. I've never been to an estate sale. I thought about going to this one. Have any of you guys ever been? What are they like?
I have been to many. They are a lot of fun, honestly, and it's my preferred method of acquiring things because it keeps the reuse cycle going.
They can be a little strange in that one does get a privileged, relatively uncensored peek into a person's or persons' private life/ves. I recall one estate sale where I opened a bedroom closet. Inside was a film projector alongside several boxes of film reels. I was curious, so I plugged the projector in and popped in a reel. (This is slightly taboo in the estate sale world, though there are never any
actual rules against it). The photos were of the couples' trip to Egypt in what looked like the 50s. The next reel, a trip to Japan in probably the 70s. The next reel, Russia (maybe) in the Cold War era. And so on. While this might seem invasive, I see it as helping to preserve the memory of their lives, despite their strangerhood.
I have plenty of furniture, tools, and other gear that are from estate sales. It's another form of secondhand.