'I found a few vintage coats that I grabbed and ran': Inside the weird world of estate sales
In a private home in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, Amy Byer plays the piano wearing white leather gloves and a 1960s gold Chinese dress. The walls behind her are full of artwork of mid-century art. In the kitchen, beyond stacks and stacks of antique china.
Byer is the founder of Handled Estates, an estate sales service that packs the contents of homes to across California – like this one, where a sale took place last weekend in Los Angeles – and posts them on Instagram to grab attention before they open their doors. Each sale usually spans several days, but can be as much a chance to peek into the golden lives of the wealthy as it is to find treasure.
This Wednesday in New York, a similar sale is taking place of writer Joan Didion's estate. Among the 244 lots from his Upper East Side apartment to be auctioned at the Stair Galleries in Hudson, bidders will browse his iconic Celine tortoiseshell sunglasses, a framed photograph of the writer pensively gazing at the camera of photographer Brigitte Lacombe, even her striped cocotte. . As of this writing, her Le Creuset set is selling for $8,000. Sunglasses? $27,000.
Real estate sales are big business in the United States, especially when it comes to the rich and/or famous. In August, Sheryl Crow opened her Nashville home to the public in an estate sale that included, among other things, a collection of antique rocking horses and a bizarre clown painting. Pharrell Williams put 52 of his possessions up for sale on his new Jupiter auction platform last month (think diamond-encrusted chains and a personalized 18-karat gold BlackBerry), while the V&A recently bought a service rare tea and coffee set designed by Paul Follot of the Estate of Karl Lagerfeld (it was last sold at a Lagerfeld Estate auction in December 2021 for €6,300).
< p class="dcr-18sg7f2">At Julien's Auctions in California, Elvis Presley's 1972 Ebel gold and diamond watch recently sold for $256,000, while John Lennon's wire-rimmed glasses sold for $162,500 . If rare fashion finds are more your thing, I'm sorry to tell you that earlier this year you missed the wardrobe of former Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, who died in 2016, at the Fondazione Sozzani. In Milan. The lots included Azzedine Alaïa dresses and a Miu Miu blue python coat.
These sales are also growing in popularity in the UK, with antique dealers sourcing items from estates of deaths and celebrity memorabilia auctions from houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's And there's always the internet -
In a private home in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, Amy Byer plays the piano wearing white leather gloves and a 1960s gold Chinese dress. The walls behind her are full of artwork of mid-century art. In the kitchen, beyond stacks and stacks of antique china.
Byer is the founder of Handled Estates, an estate sales service that packs the contents of homes to across California – like this one, where a sale took place last weekend in Los Angeles – and posts them on Instagram to grab attention before they open their doors. Each sale usually spans several days, but can be as much a chance to peek into the golden lives of the wealthy as it is to find treasure.
This Wednesday in New York, a similar sale is taking place of writer Joan Didion's estate. Among the 244 lots from his Upper East Side apartment to be auctioned at the Stair Galleries in Hudson, bidders will browse his iconic Celine tortoiseshell sunglasses, a framed photograph of the writer pensively gazing at the camera of photographer Brigitte Lacombe, even her striped cocotte. . As of this writing, her Le Creuset set is selling for $8,000. Sunglasses? $27,000.
Real estate sales are big business in the United States, especially when it comes to the rich and/or famous. In August, Sheryl Crow opened her Nashville home to the public in an estate sale that included, among other things, a collection of antique rocking horses and a bizarre clown painting. Pharrell Williams put 52 of his possessions up for sale on his new Jupiter auction platform last month (think diamond-encrusted chains and a personalized 18-karat gold BlackBerry), while the V&A recently bought a service rare tea and coffee set designed by Paul Follot of the Estate of Karl Lagerfeld (it was last sold at a Lagerfeld Estate auction in December 2021 for €6,300).
< p class="dcr-18sg7f2">At Julien's Auctions in California, Elvis Presley's 1972 Ebel gold and diamond watch recently sold for $256,000, while John Lennon's wire-rimmed glasses sold for $162,500 . If rare fashion finds are more your thing, I'm sorry to tell you that earlier this year you missed the wardrobe of former Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, who died in 2016, at the Fondazione Sozzani. In Milan. The lots included Azzedine Alaïa dresses and a Miu Miu blue python coat.These sales are also growing in popularity in the UK, with antique dealers sourcing items from estates of deaths and celebrity memorabilia auctions from houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's And there's always the internet -
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