People imagine an estate as a kind of organised abundance. The good china set out. The watches in a row. The books alphabetised.
It is rarely like that.
What you usually find is a life, compressed and unedited. Drawers that were never meant to be opened by a stranger. Boxes that were moved from one house to the next without ever being unpacked. Objects whose purpose is no longer obvious and whose owners are no longer available to explain them.
This is not a complaint. It is simply the reality of the work.
The mythology of estate buying involves the find. The overlooked Rolex at the back of a drawer. The first edition shelved with the paperbacks. These things do happen. Not often, but they happen, and when they do the feeling is specific: a kind of quiet satisfaction that has nothing to do with the money.
But the mythology leaves out the eighty percent. The hours spent on things that will not be acquired. The politeness required when the family has placed great sentimental value on an object that has no monetary equivalent. The care needed when handling someone's effects while their absence is still new.
An estate is also a trust. The family is handing over the job of discerning what matters from what does not. That judgement should be exercised carefully.
The best estate buyers I have encountered treat the work the same way regardless of what they expect to find. They look at everything. They ask questions before they give opinions. They leave the house in better order than they found it.
The finds take care of themselves. The conduct does not.