DEL.ICIO.USEstate purchasers turn memories into cash
Paintings, jewelry, coins offered up at Phipps event
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The woman in the oil painting could have been a younger version of Pat Nagel — back when her hair was dark.
“My husband said it reminded him of me, around the eyes, so he bought it for me,” said the mother of three.
Joey Ivansco/jivansco@ajc.com
The ‘Great Estate Buying Event’ was Tuesday at Belk in Phipps Plaza. Lindstrom & McKenney organized the event. Pat Nagel (far left), 82, brought in several oil paintings to be reviewed by Lindstrom & McKenney.
At 82, Nagel’s dark hair is silver now. Her husband is gone, after 53 years of marriage. And her Northlake-area home is full of “mostly Oriental stuff.”
So on Tuesday she decided to part with a few mementos, bringing half a dozen oil paintings to the Belk department store at Phipps Plaza, where a crew of estate purchasers was willing to pay cash for old memories.
Her favorite painting in the group was “Angelique,” a portrait of a luminous young woman in a red dress by California artist Georgia Bemis. But she won’t miss it. And she was glad to have $1,100 in extra Christmas money. Perhaps she hoped the Bemis would have brought more, but she said unloading it now is “better than having the kids saying, ‘What are we going to do with this?’ “
Lindstrom & McKenney, based in St. Louis, organized the event, which continues Wednesday at Phipps, and moves Thursday and Friday to Town Center at Cobb mall in Kennesaw. Laura Kurzu, director of marketing for the company, said the atmosphere at such events is not unlike TV’s “Antiques Road Show,” except that many visitors walk away with a check.
Now that the U.S. economic downturn is officially a recession, one would think more Atlantans would be finding old jewelry, silverware, coins and paintings to sell.
But Kurzu said estate purchasing is driven more by season and demographics than by need. The family silver, for example, stays under the bed until Thanksgiving, when it makes a once-a-year appearance. When November is over, she said, many baby boomers decide to cash in that otherwise unused resource.
“They’re not as formal in the way they live,” she said.
Lee Mendel of Buckhead was prompted to visit the appraisers on the third floor at Belk after chancing upon two handbags full of coins left by her late husband. Among the coins were Kennedy half-dollars, pre-1964 (as in silver) dimes and quarters and some other oddities. She won’t miss them, she said, because “I didn’t even know that he had them.”
Silver and gold prices fluctuate rapidly. Consultant Nick Laiben said silver coins typically sell for five to eight times their face value, “but six months ago they sold for 10 to 12 times their face value,” he said.
As Laiben examined Nagel’s oil paintings, he answered questions from his fellow consultants about a lady’s watch made of white gold mesh (nice but not valuable) and a dubious-looking heavy gold chain (it was the real McCoy).
Nagel said she didn’t question her decision to bring in the paintings, but a plumber working at her house earlier in the day wondered why she would want to sell such beautiful artwork.
Her answer: “So I can pay your bill.”
Details about the estate purchasing event can be found online at www.lindstrommckenney.com.
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