George F. Blum recently crept through a garage used by a former funeral home in Shenandoah, carefully eyeballing the relics.
"Originally, it was a horse barn where my family used to house the horses that we used in the funeral service. It became a car garage in the late 1920s," Anne Chaikowsky LaVoie, 56, of Chatsworth, Calif., a representative of the estate, said Thursday.
She's the daughter of Leonard Chaikowsky, the proprietor of Leonard Chaikowsky Funeral Home, who died in April 2006 at 92. She's in the process of sorting her family's property in Shenandoah and recently turned to Blum for help.
"He was absolutely wonderful, professional, looks for the details. He's a very nice, genuine, honest man," LaVoie said.
The garage is on the 300 block of East New York Street, Shenandoah.
For some, the tour might have been eerie. But for this state-certified appraiser who is celebrating his 50th anniversary in the appraising and consulting business, it was exciting.
"The most fun thing is discovery, going in and you never know what you're going to see. You're always wondering, what's behind that door?" said Blum, 75, of Pottsville.
He runs Blum's Appraisals and Consulting at 1820 West End Ave., Pottsville, and has a website, gblum.com.
Items he appraised from the former Chaikowsky Funeral Home, including a 1965 Pontiac limousine, will be auctioned off at 10 a.m. July 14 at Cordier Auctions, 1500 Paxton St., Harrisburg, Blum said.
He will host two upcoming "appraisal clinics" in Schuylkill County in the near future: 4 p.m. July 31 at Schuylkill County Fair, Summit Station, and 10 a.m. Oct. 15 at Fairlane Village mall, Pottsville.
Born in Pottsville, April 1, 1938, Blum is a son of the late Frank Faust and Verona Mills.
He said his parents weren't married at the time of his birth and his mother couldn't afford to raise him.
"I'm adopted. I was probably 13 when I found out. Fortunately, some friends of my birth parents adopted me," he said. When he was 2, he was adopted by Charles and Rebecca Blum.
Blum is a 1956 Pottsville High School graduate. He served in the Army Reserves from 1956 to 1962 and was discharged with the rank of E-4.
He married Jean Denneler, Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 24, 1958.
"We were poor. I mean, we had food, clothing and shelter, and we didn't know we were poor. Our first house we bought in Mount Hope for $3,000 and the only reason I could afford it was it was a small double block, so I could rent half out," Blum said.
He graduated from the Academy of Lighting, where he became a certified lighting consultant. In the 1960s, he held a variety of jobs, working for Scranton Electric, PP&L, Coleman Electric, Schuylkill Electric and Hadesty's, Pottsville.
One fateful day, he became fascinated by appraisals and auctions.
"One Saturday in April of 1963 I wound up at an auction on Race Street in Pottsville. Don Klinger was the auctioneer. I spent seven bucks and I was stunned," Blum said.
"For some items, like batteries, the bidding started at a nickel. One fellow started the bidding at 5 cents on everything the auctioneer held up, and they had a huge truckload of stuff. It was the contents of a home. That auction might have brought in $300 or $400 total gross. I found that intriguing. It involved chance. What may happen this week may not happen in three weeks. One of my rules was if you buy a fad Tuesday, sell it Wednesday because Lord knows what's going to happen Thursday, and I thought it might be something I could do to help me supplement my income," Blum said.
Three weeks later, Blum went to another auction in Pottsville.
"It was up on the Union Street area. There I met a real nice gentleman who was named Ben Schnerring, who was one of the premiere antique dealers in the county. He was also a teacher at Pottsville Area. He was like a mentor," Blum said.
"I remember I had a suit on because at the time I was with Coleman Electric and working as a manager, and he told me, 'You can't come to auction dressed like that. You don't want to stand out. You want to look like everybody else.' When he went to the auction, he would wear a Woolrich-brand coat with the back ripped open and one of those fur hats," Blum said.
In spring 1964, Blum became an antique dealer at 1318 Seneca St. Then in 1981, he started Blum's Auction Service and built a 7,000-square-foot auction house at 2500 West End Ave. for $150,000.
Blum went into "semi-retirement" in December 2001 and moved his operations out of his auction house. In 2003, he sold the auction house to Patton & Lettich, certified public accountants.
While no longer an auctioneer, he continues working as an appraiser, buyer and a consultant, and he said he'll probably never retire.
"I love what I'm doing. It's still full-time for me. Sometimes it's 20 hours a week. Sometimes it's 60. It depends on when the telephone rings," he said.
He continues to collect antiques and makes arrangements to have them taken to auctions regionally.
"Most of my antiques go to auction. I'd say 80 percent of my stock is auctioned through other auctioneers. With the other 20 percent, I usually sell to collectors," Blum said.
This week, he put together stacks of "paper products" for such an auction in Dallas, Luzerne County, to be held either later this month or in July. The items he was preparing to send to auction included greeting cards to collectible photos of Roy Rogers and American Western swing musician Spade Cooley.
When asked how he was going to celebrate his 50 years in the appraisal business, Blum said: "Doing this. This is the party."
Today, his family includes his wife, Jean, 75; their daughter, Georgine, 53, of Florida; and their three sons, Dennis, 52, and Joseph, 48, both of Pottsville, and Thomas, 49, of Philadelphia.