{"id":6432,"date":"2018-11-04T14:45:55","date_gmt":"2018-11-04T19:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/?p=6432"},"modified":"2022-06-22T18:02:42","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T22:02:42","slug":"deaccession-for-fun-and-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/collectibles\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day … not really work!) involves normal, accessible vintage items and antiques. Often, we are asked to help liquidate important estates for attorneys, courts and even our customs office. Additionally, throughout the years, we have been asked to help museums \u201cdeaccession\u201d pieces.\u00a0Deaccession<\/a>\u00a0means, frankly, to sell off items at the highest amount possible for the benefit of the museum. We have helped identify, catalog and deaccession pieces for museums many times over the years, and it is always fun.<\/p>

We sometimes place these things privately, but usually sell them at auction for the purpose of complete transparency. Our first was a privately owned toy museum in the early \u201990s that was open to the public for over 35 years. The heirs just didn\u2019t want the amazing, rare items. While we have worked with many museums (one of our most enjoyable led to manufacturing a watch in Switzerland for the\u00a0B&O Railroad<\/a>\u00a0Museum in Baltimore) \u2014 including selling hundreds of artworks for the\u00a0Edna Hibbel<\/a>\u00a0Museum in Palm Beach \u2014 our two most exciting interactions were local.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

A Trip To The Museum<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

A few years back, when we were chosen to be one of 50 dealers in the U.S. to be a part of\u00a0Sothebys.com<\/a>, the St. Petersburg Museum of History asked us to help them eliminate some clutter from one of their storerooms. Most museums will accept almost anything donated, but an estimated 90 percent is never exhibited.<\/p>

Donations are important to museums, especially monetary donations, and we strongly support this. But the incredible amount of items donated to museums can often create a storage headache.<\/p>

This museum let us tour their basement; we identified many things to sell for them and sold an array of goods, from textiles to Native American items that were in danger of degradation. The most space-consuming group of items was a huge group of life and death masks that a retired Ivy League college professor had donated 40 years ago.<\/p>

The professor had been in charge of the college\u2019s mask collection and decided to make \u201cone off\u201d casts of each mask. Pick a president or composer \u2014 we likely had an exact copy of that person\u2019s face in our office. We sold them on the Hess Fine Art portion of Sothebys.com; some brought only a few dollars, but several brought hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

An Incredibly Expensive Rolex Watch<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Just this year, we helped with (and are still involved in) deaccession of the contents of the Sulphur Springs Museum in Tampa, including a lot of things transferred from the Museum of Science and Industry. Incredible provenance<\/a> was attached, and we raised quite a sum for them. And two months ago, we were thrilled to be able to identify for the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg one among a group of old watches they thought were worthless \u2014 an old steel moon phase Rolex that we told them might fetch as much as $250,000 to $350,000, with a conservative auction estimate of $150,000 to $250,000! We even had a hard cash offer of $300,000 for them and told them we were not done yet.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"moon\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

$300,000\/ STEEL MOON PHASE ROLEX<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

They were thrilled with the news, of course. But before we could present them with an even higher offer, they decided to sell it with another venue, Sotheby\u2019s, with an even lower estimate for $100,000 to $200,000.<\/span><\/p>

Ultimately, they were able to net close to the same $300,000 I offered them, but through Sotheby\u2019s. We love to do community service and are happy we were able to assist them, even if they rebuffed our robust offer. So whether your item gets exhibited or not, at some point in the future it may bear fruit.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

This is an archival article formerly written and is for informational purposes only. The valuations in this article have likely changed since it was first written.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day … not really work!) involves normal, accessible vintage items and antiques. Often, we are asked to help liquidate important estates for attorneys, courts and even our customs office. Additionally, throughout the years, we have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,15,17,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDeaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Deaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hess Fine Art\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/moon-face-watch.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"599\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"961\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey P. Hess\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeffrey P. Hess\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jeffrey P. Hess\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cf21c7bb44110d7962c4526f437eb0a0\"},\"headline\":\"Deaccession For Fun And Profit\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\"},\"wordCount\":664,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Collectibles\",\"Gold\",\"Jewelry\",\"Watches\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\",\"name\":\"Deaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00\",\"description\":\"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Deaccession For Fun And Profit\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/\",\"name\":\"Hess Fine Art\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Hess Fine Art\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/logo.svg\",\"width\":251,\"height\":63,\"caption\":\"Hess Fine Art\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cf21c7bb44110d7962c4526f437eb0a0\",\"name\":\"Jeffrey P. Hess\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jeffrey-hess.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jeffrey-hess.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Jeffrey P. Hess\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/author\/hess\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art","description":"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art","og_description":"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/","og_site_name":"Hess Fine Art","article_published_time":"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":599,"height":961,"url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/moon-face-watch.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jeffrey P. Hess","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeffrey P. Hess","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeffrey P. Hess","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cf21c7bb44110d7962c4526f437eb0a0"},"headline":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit","datePublished":"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00","dateModified":"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/"},"wordCount":664,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Collectibles","Gold","Jewelry","Watches"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/","url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/","name":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit - Hess Fine Art","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-11-04T19:45:55+00:00","dateModified":"2022-06-22T22:02:42+00:00","description":"Most of our \u201cwork\u201d (Who are we kidding? We get to play with neat stuff and meet cool people every day ... not really work!) involves normal, accessible.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/watches\/deaccession-for-fun-and-profit\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Deaccession For Fun And Profit"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/","name":"Hess Fine Art","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#organization","name":"Hess Fine Art","url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/logo.svg","width":251,"height":63,"caption":"Hess Fine Art"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cf21c7bb44110d7962c4526f437eb0a0","name":"Jeffrey P. Hess","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jeffrey-hess.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jeffrey-hess.jpg","caption":"Jeffrey P. Hess"},"url":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/articles\/author\/hess\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6432"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6751,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432\/revisions\/6751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hessfineart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}