From a buyer's perspective, GB is fine and we don't want to discourage anyone from attending their…read moresales. From a seller's perspective, however, GB was very disappointing and unprofessional. If you're searching for an estate sale company to hire for your home or a loved one's, I can't recommend this company at all. We had an estate sale in April because we're downsizing and moving soon, and we had numerous issues. Coincidentally, we found out the day after our estate sale ended that the company had recently been sold and that the new owners were not good (it used to be run by Sal Sierra).
PREP: Grey Baron (GB) had nine days* to sort, price and stage our estate sale, and they didn't get everything done. I had many items that were never priced and made available to sell, but the GB team left early almost every day of the prep period, and on several days there was only one person here working.
*They initially scheduled eleven days for prep, but at 5 p.m. the day before Day 1, GB texted me that they were delaying because they didn't feel they needed the full 11 days! Apparently they were wrong.
PRICING: GB's prices were extremely inconsistent and I concluded that they don't really know the value of a lot of the items or don't know how to use Google Lens (e.g., $600 on a used, scratched coffee table that I bought for $12 at Goodwill; higher prices on new decor pieces than on antique, hand-painted items). We weren't expecting to sell anything for top dollar, but starting at $1 for vintage china or glass dishes, etc., was setting the bar too low. They also separated sets of items and sold them as individual pieces (e.g., salt and pepper shakers, silverplate cream and sugar sets).
STICKERS: The stickers that they used were good because every item had a bar code, but they were too small to include a decent description of the item AND they were very sticky and ruined a few items (e.g., silverplate, painted items, frames).
SECURITY: Even though we gave GB a key to our house on the first prep day, two days later they left at 12:30 p.m. (for the day!) while we were at lunch and we came home to find our garage door wide open! When I complained, GB said they didn't know how to close the door. What?! This is the biggest complaint of all because we trusted them with our home and our pets, and they completely dropped the ball. Anyone could have walked right into our house. And to clarify, we hadn't moved out yet so our all of our valuables were in the house in the off-limits rooms.
PAYMENT: One week after the sale, GB mailed me a check. After two weeks and no check, I followed up. GB said that we certainly should have received the check by then and offered to stop payment on it and replace the check, which they did. GB brought the new check to our house and left it in our mailbox even though we were home (it was a check for over $10K!). Thankfully we were able to cash the second check, but we were very surprised to see that it was not only a personal check, but that it was also post dated. It's been well over a month now and the first check still hasn't shown up (I'm honestly not sure if they every mailed it or if they were just making excuses to delay paying us).
We're glad to be done and to have most of the items sold, but it was a very disappointing, stressful experience and we know there are better companies out there. We made our decision based on GB's ratings and reviews, but those had to have been based on the former owner's sales or just reviews of individuals who attended one of their estate sales.