Hi all,
My dad was a leathersmith for 40+ years and amassed a small factory's worth of machinery, tools, materials, etc. I grew up helping him in his shop and gained an appreciation for the craft. His specialty began with shoe/saddle repair and ended with belts. At his peak he was selling to LL Bean and several other notable places.
Sadly, he passed away last year after a long battle with cancer and I inherited his remaining leather business with no documentation. I have taken a different route in life and am now looking for guidance for how to best approach sorting through things and liquidating.
I thankfully don't have any timelines or deadlines to deal with but it would be great to be finished in about 1-2 years. I'd like to approach selling items with respect for what he collected and to find the balance between treating items fairly as inheritance (which will be split with family) while also being generous.
Unfortunately, the leather business is intermingled with a wide variety of other items he collected/hoarded, making cataloging the entirety of the items essentially impossible. I do have knowledge of what many of the items are (except some of the hand tools) but next to no knowledge (without research) for what items are actually worth. Links for pictures are at the bottom for a rough idea.
Where possible, I'd like to avoid the scenario of selling items to the parties informing me of the value. It's not that I don't trust people, but overall I don't think that approach is necessarily wise for anyone to take (plus I don't want to feel dumb).
All that being said, my general thoughts on how to approach this task is to start with machinery and then separate remaining tools/materials once more room is available to organize. I figure the machinery takes up the most space and is probably the most straightforward to sell. I probably need to start a spreadsheet with major items/model numbers/etc.
I would be able to compensate someone knowledgeable (with cash and/or items) for assistance in this overwhelming journey I've found myself on (I'm located in western NC, USA). Does starting with the machinery sounds like the best course of action? I might make a single post with just machinery with model numbers/etc for help identifying items/pricing.
Any advice or guidance is sincerely appreciated!
Pictures:
Machinery: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cAMMJHLHLwIatfd6NWshuhtOKhmNizzW?usp=sharing
Tools/materials: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1G9RfW8Y20XO3B92jhouMHvOa1S9L-yaG?usp=sharing
