ROUMILLAT'S ANITQUES & AUCTION

it was a first class experience. I didn't know what to expect, but everything was handled in the most professional manner. i am the executor of an estate, He came looked at all the items, brought a truck and loaded it all and took to his auction house. The auction itself was in Nov 2011. He and his family had all the items displayed as if they were new. We had guests there from FL and GA and they still speak of the service we received that day.Items sold and within 10 days we had an inventory and a check. If anyone is ever considering an estate auction this is the only place to go !!! ***this form requires that I add home built year, that does not qualify for this review, but since I had to put something, I put the year of the auction ***

SELLERS BEWARE! I have a friend lifelong friend, a woman in her 80's (I'll call her M.) who very recently sold her lovely house of 38 years in Charleston. As she cleared the house, she set aside some things in boxes to go to auction so that the income could offset some of the cost of moving. She has fine taste in antiques and a lifetime of collecting them. She had them taken over to Roumillat’s Auctions’ but she complained to me that she never was given an accounting of the items.? When she called them to ask about her items she was told it was a pile of "chips and dents" and that she would receive an accounting when she received her check. A couple of her items were on the record as having been sold and the rest would be sold at the next auction. She did receive a check but for only one or two things and she waited to see what would happen to the rest and for her total accounting. I went to the next auction myself, interested to see if my friends’ things would come up. For the first 45 minutes or an hour the crowd was very attentive, the auctioneer pitched every item and the prices were good. I saw several of her things sold. She had asked me, in particular, to look out for her "tea box", as she called it and see what it would bring. I recognized it immediately as M.'s when it came up and wathced as the bidding went to about $120. I could not stay ‘so after an hour and a half I left. At that point, however, the items were beginning to be rushed through the auction. Little or no information was agiven about items and almost no encouragement?from the auctioneer. The auctions went going so fast that the crowd was confused. They had begun to whisper to each other to find out what item it was?that was now being auctioned.??When the check came the next week?from Roumillats to M., there was no listing of the tea box or several other things that she M. had submitted that I had seen auctioned off. There only one or two things that were listed in this first accounting and they brought, on the whole, no money to speak of. She called the auctioneer and asked for an accounting of all her things and was told there was none.? She asked about?specific items she had?delivered?to them, such as the 'tea box' and she was told there was no 'tea box' of any kind.? Roumillats said that the rest of the things that were?sold were just pieces of junk that no one wanted to buy. Considering this experience, I was reluctant to take things to Roumillats. However, I had some things I really wanted to?sell myself?and I decided to proceed but with?a lot of caution. I planned to be very careful and on top of what was happening. I developed some?measures to prevent the same kind of issues that had so troubled M. from arising. I made a comprehensive list of all the items I?had to sell. I researched some?of the items to inform the auctioneer and help in describing and selling them.? I?attached this printed information to the items.? I visited?the auction house to learn how I might?ensure that my things would be brought up for sale?during the active first hour of the auction. I was told to bring my things in the day after?the last?auction was over.? They would be first in and?would be included in the first hour that auction.? This made sense to me and there wasn’t an auction?scheduled for?the day after next, so that gave me only 2 days to prepare and lots of gathering and the preparation work I mentioned, to be done so that I could have the things at the auction house the day afterwards. I made arrangements for movers with a truck?to bring two pieces of furniture, a sofa and a wing chair,?over to the site on that day we delivered them. But despite a lot of work and a very late night, I could not get all the other things prepared, wrapped, boxed, itemized and notated by 10: am the next morning. I did not arrive until late afternoon the next day and was immediately reproached. I was met with a surly employee who told me that I had lost my place in the next auction (in 2 weeks) because of my lateness. None of the things I was delivering would be auctioned off until a month from now. The only?things he would consent to auction were the sofa and the wing chair.?I wanted to know why he had not explained that the very hour of delivery was?critical. The?auction for these items was two weeks away and there very few that had arrived for it at the auction house. This person had all my contact information and my card. Would it not have been possible to give me a quick call to let me know how urgent this was? And, if the hour was so important why was I not told?? ? ?I explained that I had busted my gut and done the best I could but that I also had to work. That explanation was met with sneers and snorts of contempt. So?I apologized?for the 4 hours of lateness that day and accepted that in order to be in the first hour of an auctions, I would have to wait an additional two weeks, another month for my things to be sold.? To make a long story shorter, the sofa was sold in the first auction and brought just under $200 but the wing chair was sold in the final twenty minutes and brought $5.00.? When, at last, the auction day for the majority of my things came, I came and sat in the audience as I watched the auction. Not one of?the?things?I had brought?were among over 80 to 100 items sold in the first hour and a half of the auction. They were all put up at the end, as the auction was clearly drawing to a close. And as for all the preparation I had done, no information was ever read; no history was ever given or referenced in any way by the auctioneer. ?As a matter of fact, no item was given any description at all by the auctioneer. Once again, several minutes before it would close, the auctions were happening so fast that the audience could hardly keep up.? One item of mine, a huge decorated formal porcelain bowl?was brought up and it was announced that?the seller of this item (me) was?"unknown".?? It was a bowl and it brought $10. A mink hat and matching mink trimmed?purse in absolutely mint condition were thrown together with three beaded evening?bags and sold in one lot for $5.00. Okay. So, after the auction I approached the auctioneer and asked why my things were not put up as promised in the first part of the auction.? She said that all my things were just junk. I was offended until I reminded myself of what had happened to M. Two of the oil paintings, the auctioneer protested, were in the second hour of the auction and the people who bought one set of plates had just thrown them away. Why then, I wondered, had that person bought them? When I asked for an accounting of my items I was given a list that showed considerably less than half of the things I had brought to sell.? The next day I returned to the auction house and brought a printed?list of each of the items I had delivered for the auction but had never seen come up for bidding. I presented it to the auctioneer. She picked out item after item that she insisted were never there. She ticked off item after item that was ‘just junk’. By now, of course, I expected this and I held my ground. I wanted every item accounted for. After some time the auctioneer began to "remember" items. Attributing prices (like $5.00 for two large Victorian prints and $10 for an original?19th century still life oil painting with original ornate gilded frame.) I hung out insisting that I was not lying and these items had, in fact been delivered to the auction house. After wrestling for some time, the auctioneer and an employee "remembered" everything on the list but this was?one of the most HORRIBLE experiences I have ever had.? Watch out. Try another Auction House. (Paige’s on Sullivan’s Island, maybe?) These people are not just coarse and disrespectful, they are they are manipulateve and dishonest. Stay away!