Re-homing 5,000 some books was a key part of a household goods sale that antique dealer Debbie Lund of Wheeling recently handled. Many went home with tag sale shoppers, some (like this list of Civil War soldiers) were being pondered for local museums. One, a book of maps, was rare enough Lund said it was possibly headed to Christie’s auction block in New York City.

WHEELING — As Debbie Lund bounded from floor to floor of a mammoth Victorian in Woodsdale, it was clear she knew every light switch and exactly where to duck one’s head when walking through the basement. That’s the kind of thing that happens when an antiques expert has spent months cataloguing the contents of a home’s every nook and cranny.

Or book and cranny. This sale — the result of John and Marianne Hazlett relocating to be near children and grandchildren — involved some 5,000 volumes. Lund handled each before they began to leave by various routes.

Most were valued, marked with a color dot indicating price and sold in an open-house tag sale. Some, including a list of West Virginia soldiers from the Civil War, were being pondered as museum bound. One — a selection of vintage maps — was so unusual she was considering auctioning it through Christie’s in New York.

“There’s still more to go, but we’ll get there,” Lund said of the books and other remaining bits ranging from toy soldiers to small pieces of furniture.

And, the Hazlett sale was just one household of nine that she handled over the summer. Lund — who also co-owns Sibs Antiques and Quality Furniture with her brother, John Woodring — said fielding multiple such sales at any given time has indeed become a major focus of an antiques career three generations in the making.

DEEP ROOTS, WIDE WAYS

It would have been hard to imagine where Lund would ultimately take the business when her grandparents opened Litten’s Antiques in Colerain in the 1920s. Or, even when her teacher parents were doing auction sales as a side gig.

Some household sales still involve auctions — brother Woodring was a caller as is Lund’s son, Richard Lund. (The latter brings a fourth-generation spin to the family business as owner of Gold 2 Green — cash for jewelry and coins — in Bridgeport.)

Households with lots of items may lend themselves well to an on-site tag sale, Lund said. She noted the possibility of touring a historic house can draw in potential customers – a key reason she added television advertising to her regular newspaper spots for the Hazlett sale.

Still other households — including those with limited parking or whose owners don’t want people on their property — might require an online sale, she added. One recent customer on GC&P Road fell into that category.

“‘I need everything out of my house,'” Lund said of how the call came in. “She was taking like a few pieces of clothing and a couple of pots that she liked.” Lund catalogued, priced, posted and cleared the entire house in 10 days.

That kind of capability came the hard way, noted Lund, who worked her first auction as a runner when she was 5. “My knowledge base is very, very wide. A lot of people get involved in tag sales … because it looks like easy money.”

But it’s not, Lund said. She noted a big part of the learning curve is knowing how to price things, which requires skilled research if an item is unfamiliar. For example, knowing the difference between “vintage glassware” and “Hobbs glass” made in South Wheeling by Hobbs, Brockunier & Co. in the 19th century can affect pricing in a good way for the seller.

“I need to get the best I can for these people based on where we are located,” Lund said. Or, elsewhere if needed, she noted. She maintains a working relationship with Christie’s in New York for items the local market won’t bear.

STUFFED WITH STUFF

Money is part of the antiques equation. “I’ve earned my living this way since I was in college,” Lund explained. “I actually put myself through college for a couple of years.” But, she noted emotion is another factor.

“‘We have this houseful of antiques, and I don’t know what to do.’ That’s how they usually come to us,” Lund said of clients.

When the question comes from the son or daughter of a recently deceased parent, Lund said shoppers sometimes wonder why the children don’t want to keep everything. But, she has noticed the average age of everyone involved has climbed over time.

“No one in their 70s wants to add on another household,” she said. “They’ll get the candy dish that they rattled as a kid, and they’re done.”

Other times, however, the call comes from a living homeowner who is either downsizing or shedding one of two households — with the keeper often being in Florida. That train of thought brought her to a cautionary tale.

When a nonagenarian called her to look at a house stuffed with stuff, Lund noticed the woman had tagged only a handful of items as worthy of re-homing. “I looked and asked, ‘What about the china? What about the glassware?’ She said, ‘I didn’t think anyone would want it.’ ”

Yet, someone somewhere generally does, Lund said. She noted almost everything goes in cycles. For example, the “brown furniture” that’s been out of favor during a painted-wood trend is back.

“It seems to bring a peace of mind to people that their things are going somewhere,” Lund said of working such market trends. “They’re not going to end up in a dumpster.”

To that end, Lund acknowledges not everything will sell. She also works with clients in terms of donations to non-profits such as museums and Youth Support Services. “We don’t need anything else in a landfill.”

John Hazlett, a relocator who is retired from the finance sector, hears that. “We had a lot of extras in there,” he said of downsizing from 4,500 square feet of Echo Point house that had long been in the family to a 1,300 square foot residence.

While hopeful each extra would be valued by someone else, he noted there is also emotion connected to letting it all go. Hazlett said he particularly misses being able to read anything in his book collection whenever he likes.

JUST SAY NO

Lund offered a final caution, saying she prefers to see houses in their “dirty” state. What a well-intentioned relative might perceive as trash can bring cash, she explained.

She once came across a tiny-but-rare tin that sold for $650 in an online auction, for example. Similarly, an original bill of sale for a 1950 Oldsmobile — a single sheet of paper — sold for $60. “You just don’t know,” she said.

Households may also contain valuables that are even more valuable than they appear at first glance, she added. Her cataloguing has yielded such finds as signed Jack Kerouac and J.R.R. Tolkien novels mixed in with the general run of books. Once, she found the last will and testament for which the family had been frantically searching.

Brandishing a smile that was clearly a teaser for the antique minded, Lund noted she is back in the thick of such cataloging. She said the contents of another large Wheeling home — this one in the Highland Park historic district — will come up for sale in mid-September.

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