I posted a week or two ago regarding a photo collection left behind by an old photographer who lived in my newly purchased home before I bought it. I had asked for advice on where to have the collection reviewed and where to sell it. Unfortunately I received no replies, but since then a lot has happened and I figured I would provide an update for anyone who read my original post.
I reached out to one of the 5 big auction houses and a specialist came by my house yesterday afternoon to evaluate the collection. Between my original post and yesterday I did a ton of research and ended up finding about 200 items in total. The items consisted of portfolios and mounted photos from all of the big names such as Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Paul Caponigro, Cole Weston, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Ruth Bernhard, August Sander, Edward S. Curtis, Paul Strand etc. After about 4 hours at my home the specialist left with 85 items in total. He provided me estimated for which they will bring the items to auction at and the total range is $81,700 - $119,400.
Thought it was a pretty cool story to post here since I have nowhere else to talk about it.
I didn’t see the first post, but I looked at it just now and given the value here I’d advise asking your real estate attorney whether the contract covers this…
What an amazing windfall.
Absolutely incredible!
That’s incredible, congratulations!
Also doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion on something like that. Plenty of unscrupulous auction houses and dealers out there that’d try to low ball you.
I actually use the auction house that I chose quite frequently to purchase wine, so I do not have much worry about them. They are making a commission on the sales so it does not behoove them to lowball me as they would make less. I actually confirmed recent auctions of almost all the photographs they took and for the most part the estimates provided were actually more on the conservative side, so there is room to make even more.
Did you keep any of the photographs? I would have cherry picked one or two for my collection. But, as others have posted, great find.
Oh, also… you should watch the 9th Gate before giving any prints to “experts.”
THose are some stellar names. Awesome find. You could almost open a photography gallery with that sort of quantity and quality.