Red Alert friends, I've been in contact with baseballmom 1027, she is selling Ted's personal collection. She bought it from his family. I was blown away when she told me. Kind of upset too, I have to admit, but I guess everyone has to move on. We'll always have the pictures and web site, I hope! I might have to try for a few myself, I think. Did anyone know his collection was being sold?

I suspected so, I saw the two castles for auction and they looked identical to the very first HOM right down to the paint markings.
Hope they all go to good homes!

I know we're all hoping that the relation who stuck close by Ted's side through the last months of his illness received good value on the houses she sold to baseballmom1027 and on the weird old electronics and the electric trains and the musical instruments, etc. But we also have to remember that she did everything she could for Ted when he was alive. Now she has to clear out a house filled top-to-bottom with arcane stuff (not just putz houses) that she knows very little about. However much she gets for it, she will not be able to get the last year and a half of her life back, so we just wish her the best, and have the grace to assume that she's doing the best she can under the circumstances.

As for Ted's legacy, that's the people that he brought together, and his free, encyclopedic online history museum, both of which are still going strong.

I just talked to Bruce (baseballmom1027). He reinforced my impression that he was doing the best he could to help Ted's heirs dig out from the clutter of serveral collections and get fair value. Bruce says folks have counseled him to put every house up individually, but this isn't his area of expertise. I told him that selling in batches is fine; that if someone really wants a particular piece or if a particular piece is really valuable, the cost of the batch will reflect that anyway. Ted's heirs had other folks in who lowballed them and were rude, but they liked Bruce and have asked him to come back and take another look around. At the moment, they still can barely move around the house it's so cluttered, so they're glad for his help.

Bruce doesn't like the idea of attaching people's names to things he posts - to him that artificially inflates the value of the item. (I've seen this in other areas like the unplayable $100 saxophone that was once played by Rudy Valee listed at $10,000.) I told him that he could add some verbage like "The family has asked me to help find homes for this extensive collection" or something to make it more obvious that he's working WITH Ted's heirs, not against.

I hope this makes sense. Still thinking about all those trains I'll never run again and all the room they take up . . . . .

Just poked my nose in on how the first round of auctions are going.

This house caught my eye.
Still a few days to go.

I could never afford a house that went for that much!

You'll have to build one, I guess.

Thank you for the info on Ted's houses, I wondered if the seller was helping the family. There are also some houses listed by sunneyville that appear to be in excellent condition.

Colleen:

Do you now if more house will be listed.
I think you said you'd been e-mail the seller.

Steve

Looks like round two of Ted's Houses.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/baseballmom1027 ... pg=&_from=

Round Three of Ted's house on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/baseballmom1027 ... pg=&_from=