Estate Rocks Need Advice

[fernwood]

Don’t want to jinx myself, but looking for advice.



Have a regular customer at my day job and someone who has become a friend.

Over the past year she had the tough task of dealing with her Mom, who has dementia.



I would often give her advice when she got a call from Mom when I was with her.

Or, when she received a call from Mom at another time.

My specialty, when working in Human Services, was Dementia.



About 6 months ago, the tough choice was made to move Mom into a care facility.

Mom and Dad were avid rock collectors. They traveled the country.

Mom also made lots of jewelry.



My friend knows a little about rocks, as she went to some shows with her Mom/Dad.

She just does not know values. Does know the difference between granite, copper ore, petrified wood, and many others.



Over the past several months, she has told me about what she found in her Mom’s house. The house is located about 2 hours from her home, so she goes there a couple times per month. Tries to see her Mom at the same time.



She was excited to see me at work a couple days ago. Said she was cleaning up the landscaping and found many “good rocks”. Found some more in a basement room she had not been into yet.



So far, there are several, standard size totes filled with jewelry supplies. These include glass beads, plastic beads, strands of rock/shell/wood beads, jewelry findings, carved fetishes and cabochon mountings.



A few tackle boxes filled with rocks.

The older ones are identified by name and sometimes location found. The more recent ones are labeled by color or not labeled.

As the dementia progressed, her Mom was collecting local rocks based on colors.

Some slabs.



Rough rocks.

A container labeled copper.

A container labeled petrified wood.

A container labeled from Oregon.

A container labeled from Montana.

A container labeled from Colorado.

A container labeled as from Arizona.

Another container with sliced, round rocks. The outside of the rocks did not look like much. The insides had beautiful patterns and some crystals. Told her these were probably geodes or thundereggs.



She let me know that most of the items in the containers were beautiful.



The containers are all about half, standard tote size.



A fairly large tackle box labeled preforms and cabochons. She did not open this, as she had no clue. I showed her some pre-forms and cabochons. She will open it on her next trip there.



My friend said she could fill the back of her truck with everything. We could meet up for me to purchase some items and give approximate values for the rest.



I like a good deal, but want to give my friend a fair value. She just wants to get rid of everything.

She needs to finish cleaning out and to sell the house. Do basic landscape improvements. She volunteers with some gardening/plant groups, so knows what needs to be done with that.



Her and her husband are not lacking $. They have many collections and live comfortably. Have many investments. Are retired and in their 60’s.

She is not interested in starting another collection, but wants to keep one of the large, Amethyst crystal formations she found. Yes, there are many crystal formations of various colors, some things that look like shells in rocks, petrified shells and other things.



I want to be fair with my friend for the items I purchase from her.

Give her fair value for items I do not purchase.



Any advice? Thank you.

[greig]

I am guessing you want to sell and not give away the rocks? One answer if you have the time is auction on eBay. Take good pictures and create shippable size lots. If you want to make it easy on yourself, but you will never know if you got a fair price, is get hold of a local rock shop and/or rock club and tell them you are selling all and get a few offers. Donation to a school, rock club or museum is also a way to move them and feel good about it.

[perkins17]

Sept 10, 2021 9:01:33 GMT -5 greig said:

I am guessing you want to sell and not give away the rocks? One answer if you have the time is auction on eBay. Take good pictures and create shippable size lots. If you want to make it easy on yourself, but you will never know if you got a fair price, is get hold of a local rock shop and/or rock club and tell them you are selling all and get a few offers. Donation to a school, rock club or museum is also a way to move them and feel good about it.

I agree. Maybe your rock club could take the whole lot off your hands.

[roy]

my advise is buy it all or have it brokered out to someone that can if she gets high graded to many times she wont get much out of whats left

[rmf]

So you need to ask your self some questions. How much work am I going to do for free for my friend? Does she need top dollar or does she want to just be done with it? Most collections require a lot of work to analyze, weigh and document. If you do all the work for her you should get paid or get a discount. We have purchased some collections. The first one I ever purchased I pulled out what I wanted and told them to dump the rest in a ditch. That sounds harsh but there was over a ton and I had a VW Rabbit and I was 100 miles from home (and yes they had a lot of junk). So how far must you move it? If you buy it all how fast can you move it? Or how fast can she move it if she does all the work?

Then there is the issue of conflict of interest. If I evaluate a collection for money. I assume I will not offer anything for the collection to avoid my own personal greed tempting me. This also helps you if you do the ID, weigh, inventory and pricing. By not buying it she can't ever say you treated her unfairly and you keep a friend.

Then there is the issue of wholesale vs. retail. If you are buying a large lot you should expect to get it cheaper than if you were buying 5lbs. If you buy a large lot how long will you have it before you get your cash out of it? She is not a retail store therefore not entitled to retail prices.

If you want a few pieces then do a web search and find 2 or 3 places selling the same thing and offer her an average price.

[Rockoonz]

I did estate sales and outright purchases for the club in Oregon. I have bought several estates myself. For the rock, I estimate the total weight and consider the ratio of good stuff to ditch rock. For the common collection I have never spent over $.50 cents per lb. If there are tools and equipment then it gets a lot tougher, I have lost my @$$ purchasing equipment that turned out to be scrap metal when I got it home.
Like Roy said, if they can make it all go away at once, the time they don't have to spend dealing with it is of great value.
More important for you is your relationship to the seller. Estate sale services, if they're smart, require that family stay away during the sale. A sale like this is a big part of the grieving process, and protecting the families emotional state should be a big part of whatever you do.
I don't know how much this helps.

[RWA3006]

I've bought out some estates and can tell you that if you're looking to make a buck on it you'll have to buy it low. Money is made by buying low, not selling high. Determine if anyone's already highgraded it because that can cut the value in half by them only taking 5% of the bulk.

Like Roy said, buy the whole thing because the prospect of getting instant closure will drive the price down. It takes a lot of work and time to merchandise a collection piecemeal unless you have a retail entity to place it all into in one move.

Remember that people like your friend will be thinking of selling it at retail prices, but you must obtain it at wholesale or else you'll take a financial beating. Having walk away power is liberating even if you don't buy a thing.

[fernwood]

Thank everyone for the advice.

My plan was to purchase some and give her prices on what to sell the rest for.
She does not want to sell it for retail prices. She does want to make enough $ to pay for her time and gas to get there and back. She wants to give everything good homes. Sell to people who appreciate rocks and the jewelry supplies. If thy can make some money from the stuff, she would be happy.

Now some of you have me rethinking my plan.
My friend has had some garage sales at her Mom's house already. Not for rocks, but for many other things that were in the 3 car garage, basement and house. Kayaks, sporting goods, household items, furniture, clothing, etc.

I will wait until my friend gets back from a trip and make a decision on what to do when I see everything.

[rewdownunder]

As a geologist I have evaluated about 25 of these over the years. I do not sell rocks or try to buy collections so I can provide people with a fair opinion. You have been given some great information. The Market right now is down because of Covid -19 dealers just do not have the money. I start by telling people at best labeled clean material is worth at most 10% of retail not what they see on the internet. Most of the stuff will be worthless and will end up in the dump with no labels or dirty.boxes full of rat shit. Jewelry is not my area I value it only at spot metal prices no more.


I attend 10 to 15 club shows a year and Quartzite & Tucson so I have A good idea of wholesale prices. If you know an honest dealer that can make her an offer for everything that is often best. As several have said once it has been high graded it is all down hill. Tell your friend you will look over the material in exchange for your choice of a few pieces.



I always give people the option of just donating it all to local rock club, take a tax write off and feel good that the collection found a good home. Just make sure they understand they take it all and leave the property neat and clean.

Good Luck This can very quickly become a lot of work for little or no reward. The friendship is worth more than a deal on a few rocks

[fernwood]

I appreciate all of the advice. In the end, the decision was not mine to make.
My friend and her husband arrived where I work (they are regular customers) this evening. Their truck was full of rocks, fossils, etc.

She called this the good stuff.

They insisted I take it all! All they want in exchange is a certain red beer bottle I have a few of.
We were moving bins and tubs from the truck to my car quickly, as I took a short break. I pointed out some things that were worth more than a little $. I don't even know what was in some of the tubs, other than that they were labeled.

We talked later. I kept insisting that I should sell some of the items and give them the $. They are not interested. Told me to keep/use what I wanted and to make some $ by selling the rest.

I will start another thread with photos.