Antiquers Squeeze Into A Packed 1840s Estate Sale That Feels Like A Movie Set, Then Spot A World’s Fair 1939 Hat And A Signed Duchess Of York 2001 Piece

“I wonder how many ghosts walk here.” That was the first line out of the mouth of a vintage jewelry dealer as she stepped into an 1840s house in South Orange, New Jersey, the day before a huge estate sale opened.

The host of Hudson Vintage – Collect & Resell had an appointment for an early look. The house, she says, belonged to a jewelry designer and collector in “a really old part of New Jersey,” and it was a glorious fall day.

Jewelry By The Bag, Glass By The Set

The first table offered jewelry at $10 a bag. She grabbed two bags and then kept going.

She spotted clay marbles, a set of uranium glass that glows, and depression glass canisters for sugar, flour, salt and pepper. The canister set was priced at $150.

“These are beautiful,” she says. She also found a Girl Scout honor set, chunky beads that felt cold and heavy like genuine stone, and a chess set with kings, queens, knights, bishops and rooks.

A Table From Holland That Came Through Boston

The house itself was a star. She loved the counter, the floor and the curved lines of a table she was told “came from Holland into Boston and now it’s here.”

“It just shows the age,” she says. “How many stories it has.”

The 1840s rooms were still full of family history, and the main room had tall windows and original details.

“It Goes Right Across My Face”

That is when the ghost story came out. The previous day, she says, she had solved a mystery about a Victorian hair wreath, two feet by three, made from locks of family hair.

A local woman had a similar wreath, and she traced the families through a handwritten family tree. They were cousins. Excited, she posted on Instagram, and something “goes right across my face.”

“It looks like if you’re outside blowing cold air,” she says. At the sale she told the owner, “I think that your mom really wanted me to make this all happen.”

Later, flashing lights in the house became a joke. One woman there said her mother has been doing that forever.

Spool Heels For $15 And Slippers At $2 A Pair

Her shopping basket got serious upstairs. A pair of Mary Jane shoes with a Louis heel, still holding their shoe trees, came in a box priced $15. “That is the spool heel of my dreams,” she says.

She planned to take the heels to a shoe repair shop to move them onto a modern pair she can wear.

Then came boudoir slippers from the 1940s. She offered $2 a pair, and the sellers agreed. She counted six pairs, five blue and one pink, and took them all.

A children’s nursery owl lamp, with its old plug, was $10. A slipper satin skirt was “in reasonable condition” and zipped, but smelled like a hundred years of dust, so it was headed to the dry cleaner.

A Louis Vuitton Trunk Hiding In Plain Sight

The biggest sleeper was something a fellow shopper pointed out. It looked like an ordinary old trunk from far away, but up close it was a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk.

Inside were the tags and straps, and the sides carried a faded monogram. “Every piece of the hardware would be stamped,” she says, which is how you authenticate one.

She reached out to the archives to see who owned it. The initials told her it belonged to a woman, since a woman traveling alone would have used her last name and first initial.

“It Feels Like A Movie Set”

By the time the doors opened, the house was crowded. “I cannot believe how many people are here. It’s insane,” she says. “Feels like a movie set.”

The closets held 1950s dresses, hat boxes piled high and a junior college item from 1954. A bathroom had painted 1950s sketches, including a mermaid in the shower, and baby hangers hung in an upstairs room.

She was cautious about clothes. Anything she took home would need quarantining and cleaning, so she passed on a 1960s silk shift.

The World’s Fair Hat And A Signed Duchess Of York Piece

Then came the finds that give the video its edge. “Oh, look at this. World’s Fair 1939,” one shopper says, spotting a hat.

Nearby sat a piece marked Duchess of York 2001, signed. The shoppers guessed it came from a line she once produced and autographed, tied to her garden.

Both items were the sort of small history that keeps antiquers coming back to a house like this.

What To Know Before Your Next Estate Sale

The host’s visit includes some good habits for any sale.

Ask about a preview by appointment, since early shoppers get first pick.
Look for stamped hardware on luggage, which can authenticate a trunk.
Use a rule of thumb for crocks. She says a six-gallon blue crown crock usually runs about $60, or $10 per gallon, unless it is special.
Test beads with a hot pin and check the weight and cold feel.
Be ready to clean and dry clean anything old before you wear it.

She left with three bags of jewelry, shoes, slippers and a story, in a house she says “has stories to tell.”

Vinyl and Velvet