Selling Dead People’s Things

“I’ve shopped Duane’s store for years and sourced some of my best vintage finds there. This book is a beautiful collection of all his years of experience and a twenty-five-year love affair with design.”

—NATE BERKUS, Interior Designer and Author

“At turns hilarious and poignant, Duane Scott Cerny illuminates a world where one person’s trash is another person’s life…”

—RICHARD WRIGHT, Auctioneer, Wright20.com

“Steering like a Ouija planchette, Selling Dead People’s Things takes us across personal artifacts of lives passed on, rousing stories and spirits revealing often that life is the greater mystery than death.”

—MICHAEL CARBONARO, Creator/Executive Producer of The Carbonaro Effect on TruTV

“Ever wondered what lies within the hoarder house? Why people end up with twelve cats? Why some get obsessed with vintage artificial limbs and others with Jadite mixing bowls or railroad timetables? The answers are here—some of them, at least. (As for the rest, as Duane puts it, “What happens in your personal Las Vegas stays in your personal Las Vegas.”) More than a guide to the business of vintage, Selling Dead People’s Things is also a hilarious, poignant set of stories revealed by the oddest of objects and assembled by a skillful, tenderhearted Sherlock.”

—ASHTON APPLEWHITE, Author/Activist, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism

“Selling Dead People’s Things, by Duane Scott Cerny, is a CanterburyTales of flash, clash, and trash—a sociological slice of dealers and collectors, from highbrow to kitsch, from hoarders to refined collectors, a mix of everything in between, and how a dealer finds himself amongst it all. Pick it up and prepare not to be able to put it down.”

—LEWIS TRIMBLE, Antique Dealer, Lewis Trimble Decorative Arts

“Duane has written a cute book filled with personality. Best of all are the characters he’s encountered while becoming a master of vintage. One funny guy, he uses humor to bring us into his wild process of becoming an adult in love with…Dead People’s Things.”

—LESLIE HINDMAN, President/CEO, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

“Sharp stories of intriguing objects and fascinating characters…”

—CLAYTON PENNINGTON, Editor, Maine Antique Digest

“Selling Dead People’s Things is a wild romp through the esoteric world of resale furniture and memorabilia dealers and obsessive hunters and gatherers, told by a vintage veteran who learned the biz from musty mid-century basement up to lakefront penthouse. Cerny makes house calls, and his journeys are tearjerking, haunting, celeb-studded, and frequently fetid. The entertaining adventures, life lessons, and collector tips are relayed with humor and compassion and the underlying message that objects have lives that live on well after we do.”

—BRADLEY LINCOLN, Lifestyle Author, Editor, and Design Enthusiast

“Not your grandmother’s take on vintage, Cerny’s lively text and take on the characters, collectors, and dealers he’s encountered takes the reader along on his rollicking voyage to becoming a premier dealer in all things vintage. More memoir than how-to, his anecdotes will have you laughing and sometimes rueful—and always entertained!”

—DANIELLE ARNET, The Smart Collector, Tribune Content Agency

“Basement full, attic full, houseful—Ever think about all the stuff left behind? Whether the world of vintage is new to you or you’re a seasoned antique dealer, Selling Dead People’s Things is a riveting vintage adventure. But it’s not only about the stuff. It’s about the people who left it behind and those who give it a second life. Everyone in the business has a story, but Duane has hundreds. I laughed, I gasped, I held my breath—be ready for anything!”

—MELISSA SANDS, Dealer/Promoter, Vintage Garage Chicago

“I am like a hawk gazing over the surfaces of lost souls in search of the perfect find. On occasion, these choice selections are for my home, but more often they act as catalysts for my work. They instigate new ideas with their history and human stories. When worked into my art, the past becomes reborn and re-contextualized for contemporary contemplation. Selling Dead People’s Things shares these and so many other objects’ journeys, illustrating how everything we are and everything we touch can be an influencer.”

—NICK CAVE, Artist

“Others may walk into old homes and buildings, but Duane walks into their stories. Here he finds personalities, history, charm, sadness, humor, and more than just dead people’s things. I laughed out loud as I met so many outrageous characters. It makes one want to visit the marvelous city of Chicago, see the origins of these stories, shop his wonderful store, lean across the counter, shake his hand, and—most of all—buy this book!”

—GORDON HUGHES, Producer, An American in Paris, Come From Away, The Cher Show

“Duane Scott Cerny’s writing brings the dead back to life and tells the “E! True Hollywood” tales behind the stuff we buy at estate sales and antiques markets. The designers, collectors, and dealers who purchase these pieces would hold these treasures ever more dearly if they only knew their backstories. This is a heartwarming, heartbreaking, and HILARIOUS narrative about the way dead people’s things, and their owners, really lived. As an avid reader drawn toward in-depth New Yorker pieces and fascinating historical and nonfiction books, I could not put this one down!”

—SALLY SCHWARTZ, Show Promoter, Randolph Street Market, Chicago

“This is a hugely charming book about collecting and learning where and who things come from. It’s rich with stories about the places and people connected to things. It’s all about what is perfectly odd and sometimes romantic and joyful. Duane’s book is a nonstop wonder-trip of hunting and gathering. And even better, of the ever-so-challenging and story-filled life of having a shop that sells these objects. It’s a love letter of looking and finding and so many characters worth knowing.”

—THOMAS O’BRIEN, Interior Designer, Aero Studios

About the Author:

Duane Cerny is the co-owner of The Broadway Antique Market, Chicago's oldest multi-dealer vintage shopping destination. He is also the author of Selling Dead People's Things: Inexplicably True Tales, Vintage Fails & Objects of Objectionable Estates. Cerny received his B.A. from Northeastern Illinois University on a poetry scholarship awarded by Gwendolyn Brooks, the Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois. He currently resides in Chicago.