At least throughout New England, and I would imagine throughout most of the
country, there are small, usually small-town or rural auction houses that
will sell ANYTHING.  Usually, these are weekday evening sales and may net
only a few dollars, but that is better than unwanted items sitting around
taking up valuable space.

Another alternative is of course ebay.  This is certainly public, and may be
a bit more work, but you can specify a reasonable fee for handling in
addition to shipping costs, thus recovering some/all of your labor.  Larger
items can be listed as "local pick-up only" to avoid shipping.  If you do
not want to do the listing yourselves, there are companies that will handle
the whole process for a fee, you just drop off the items.  Entire businesses
exist doing nothing but selling on ebay, and they are more than happy to
include you.  It's also a fun thing for someone who is retired to do and
willing to donate their time to the museum.  It even can be used as a
fundraising program, where donors give unwanted items to the museum
specifically for sale on ebay.  Even cars are an option - I personally have
purchased three on ebay!

Marc

American Conservation Consortium, Ltd.
     4 Rockville Road
     Broad Brook, CT 06016
     www.conservator.com
     860-386-6058

*Collections Preservation Consultation
*Conservation Assessments & Surveys
*Low-Tech Environmental Control
*Moisture Management Solutions
*Collections in Historic Structures
*Conservation Treatment of:
     Furniture
     Painted Wood
     Horse-Drawn Vehicles
     Architectural Interiors

Marc A. Williams, President
     MS in Art Conservation, Winterthur Museum Program
     Former Chief Wooden Object Conservator, Smithsonian Institution
     Fellow, American Institute for Conservation (AIC)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jill Chancey" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Sample procedures for handling sale of unaccessioned
objects?


> Re: auctioning low-to-mid-value auction items, you may wish to contact
> regional auction houses outside of the Big Names & Big Northeastern
> Cities, as the decorator market for such items is still strong in the
> "provinces."  New Orleans, for example, has two local auction houses
> which do a strong business in decorator-quality items in addition to
> their high-end sales.  I would guess there are others in Atlanta,
> Chicago, Dallas - anywhere people are paying decorators to do up their
> houses.
>
> To answer the original question, we get approval from our Collections
> Committee, which is made up of Board members and several community
> (non-Board) members, to sell never-accessioned items, usually through
> public auction houses.  I believe they report the sale to the Board, but
> no Board vote is required.  In the event that no auction house wants it,
> we offer it to the committee that runs the silent auction for our annual
> gala fundraiser.  This is the sale venue of last resort, since it is
> technically public but you have to be invited to the auction preview or
> buy tickets to the museum gala to attend the auction.   Stuff that we
> can't sell at all has ended up filling space, decoratively, in a
> conference room and several rooms that we rent out for private
> functions.   A few things have gone to the education department for use
> in still life drawing.
>
> --
> Jill R. Chancey, PhD
> Curator
> Lauren Rogers Museum of Art
> PO Box 1108
> Laurel, MS 39440
> www.LRMA.org
> [log in to unmask]
>
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