Mona Scavo. Patrick Andrade for The New York Times
I moved to New York City my mouth watering for all the great estate sales that must be here in Manhattan, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, no one here sells estates out of apartments. My mother, back in Oregon, still insists that I'm not looking hard enough. She doesn't understand that, unlike in Portland, hordes of eager dealers staking out a property, sleeping in their cars out front the night before and lining up at 7 a.m. the morning of a sale just would NOT fly with co-op boards. For the authentic estate or tag sale experience you have to head out to the 'burbs.
There are many professionals out on Long Island, but one of the busiest is Mona Scavo, who runs Tag Sales by Mona (formerly Junkbusters). According to the Times:
Her customers have been known to shove their way through the front door as soon as it opens; on one occasion, a dispute between a few of them brought half a dozen police cars to the scene.
While other estate businesses are more picky, won't accept a sale unless it promises to bring in at least $10,000, and spend more time on prep work, Mona handles more volume, accepts both high- and low-quality sales, and works faster. Instead of pricing each linen handkerchief, she prefers to size up a pile of goods, eyeball the buyer, and name her price. There are some big fans of this method:
It has become customary for the first person in line to keep track of who arrives afterward and in what order, passing out numbers from a torn-out calendar, 1 through 31 (after the first 31 buyers, the best goods are usually gone). Occasionally, two sets of numbers start circulating and shoving matches ensue. “They fight over the numbers,” Ms. Scavo said. “It’s a terrible thing.”
Spring and summer are prime time for estate sales. You can preview Mona's upcoming sales on her website, and go catch some action this weekend.
No Such Things as Junk [New York Times]
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