Clearing Dad's House: three books, by Russ Pohlman

Before the dumpster comes, know where to look.

Three cloth-bound books in a row on a workbench: The First Weekend, What It Brought and Who Gets What. Shown as books, delivered as Digital PDF.
3 books · Digital PDF

418 pages. Three books, a test card, a letter to your family.

Get the three books, $37

The order to clear a house in, what things really sold for, and how to divide what’s left without losing your brother. Written for the son or daughter with two weekends, and for the man downsizing his own place.

Digital PDF. Nothing ships. Your files open right after you pay. 30-day guarantee.

Illustration of Russ Pohlman, an older man in a chambray work shirt, in a basement workshop with hand tools on a pegboard behind him.
Hello from Russ

First the places, then the money, then the dumpster.

My name is Russ Pohlman. I’m 72. My wife Carol and I ran a small family estate-sale business in Ohio. I’m not an appraiser and I’m not a lawyer, and these books say so.

When I cleared my own father’s house I was tired, and I threw out his shop notebook and a box of letters. They looked like trash that day. Nobody will ever put a price on them, and I still think about them.

So don’t take my word for anything. Every sold price in these books gives the place and the date, so you can go and look. Where I’m giving an opinion, I say it’s an opinion.

How it works

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Real sales

Most of it brings little. Some of it doesn’t.

These are real sales from Book Two. A price here is what one thing brought on one day. It doesn’t say what yours will bring, and no book can.

What sold, where and whenSold for

  • Vintage hard rock maple dining table, chairs and buffet$34Cates Auction & Realty, Liberty, MO, October 2024
  • Encyclopedia Britannica collection with World Atlas and Book of the Year series$23Cates Auction & Realty, North Kansas City, MO, May 2026
  • Antique oak dresser with mirror, four dovetailed drawers$54Cates Auction & Realty, Liberty, MO, October 2024
  • Rogers Bros. 'Eternally Yours' silver-plated flatware set, 51 pieces$42Everything But The House, Online, September 2024
  • Group of more than 2500 circulated wheat cents, along with two 1909-VDB cents$159Everything But The House, Online, November 2022
  • H. Gerstner & Sons personalized oak machinist tool box with tools, circa 1930s$525Everything But The House, Online, January 2019
  • Griswold number 14 large block logo EPU cast iron skillet with heat ring, pattern number 718$650Air Works Consignment Auction, Millersburg, OH, February 2025
  • 128 piece Towle sterling silver flatware set$4,270Nadeau's Auction Gallery, Windsor, CT, June 2025
Illustration of old coffee cans and jars on a garage shelf, one tipped over with coins and washers spilling out.

You’ll see the low ones too, because that’s the part that lets you stop worrying. A dresser that brought a few dollars gives you permission to let it go. A greasy chest in the basement gets a second look.

Book Two prints 186 finished sales like these, each with the place and the date, and a list at the back with a link to each one. These books are not an appraisal. If something looks good, get it looked at in person.

Look inside

Real pages from the books.

Tap a page to see it bigger.

Book One page 12: Read This First.
Read This FirstFive things that stop the job.
Book One page 40: where cans and jars live.
Coffee cans and jarsWhere to look, one place at a time.
Book Two page 34: a table of cast iron sales.
Real sold pricesWhat sold, the price, the place and the date.
Book Two page 52: the coin table.
Reading a coinWhich coins have silver.
Book Three: a fill-in page.
Fill-in pagesPrint these and pass them around.
What is inside

Three books, 418 pages, and where to find things.

Book One: The First Weekend, 181 pages

  • Five things that stop the jobp. 12
  • Who gets to decidep. 16
  • Two weekends, hour by hourp. 24
  • The twelve placesp. 36
  • Room by roomp. 94
  • Things that need a callp. 118
  • Six ways to sell, comparedp. 136
  • Questions to ask anyone offering moneyp. 141
  • Printable checklistsp. 162

Book Two: What It Brought, 152 pages

  • What “sold for” meansp. 11
  • Reading marks and country linesp. 16
  • How to look up sold prices yourselfp. 19
  • The shop and the garagep. 27
  • Small things that matterp. 52
  • Paper and soundp. 76
  • The house itselfp. 98
  • What nobody wants right nowp. 123
  • Every sale, with its sourcep. 129

Book Three: Who Gets What, 85 pages

  • Before anyone takes anythingp. 10
  • The upset-to-lose questionp. 16
  • Four fair ways to divide thingsp. 18
  • The sibling who won’t answerp. 25
  • What to keep, what to shredp. 31
  • Savings bonds and money that may be owedp. 33
  • If it’s your own housep. 49
  • Writing the letter to your familyp. 61
  • Fill-in pagesp. 64

Cards and letters

  • Ten-Second Test Card2 pp
  • Letter to your family, PDF and Word4 pp
  • Don’t Throw These Out, free2 pp

What Book Two covers

The shop and the garagep. 27
Planes, machinist chests, cast iron, signs, lanterns, fishing, knives, toys.
Small thingsp. 52
Coins, paper money, silver, gold, watches, pens, lighters.
Paper and soundp. 76
Records, books, comics, cards, stamps, cameras, radios, guitars.
The housep. 98
Crocks, pottery, glass, china, furniture, quilts, Christmas.
See the twelve places and where they are
  • 1. Coffee Cans and Jars 39
  • 2. Tool Chests and Toolboxes 44
  • 3. The Freezer and the Icebox 48
  • 4. Rafters, Joists and Ductwork 53
  • 5. Books and Bibles 57
  • 6. Coats, Suits and Hatboxes 61
  • 7. Dresser Drawers, Pulled All the Way Out 65
  • 8. Beds, Closets and Floors 69
  • 9. The Desk and the File Cabinet 74
  • 10. Furnace Room, Fruit Cellar, Crawlspace 79
  • 11. The Car, the Truck, the Glove Box 83
  • 12. Sheds, Barns and Outbuildings 87
Free sample

Read a page before you pay.

This is the first of the twelve places in Book One. It’s the real page.

Page from Book One, the start of Coffee Cans and Jars.
Read this page in big type

Coffee Cans and Jars

Coffee cans first. A rusty can of bent nails is the easiest thing in the house to throw out, and it’s also a free, dry, lidded box that a man of Dad’s age had a stack of. It takes a couple of hours, and it covers the thing a tired person is most likely to carry to the dumpster without looking.

Where cans and jars live

Don’t stop at coffee cans. You’re looking for anything with a lid: tobacco tins, cough drop tins, bandage tins, cigar boxes, shortening cans, ice cream pails, peanut butter jars, canning jars, pickle jars, pill bottles, film cans, thread boxes.

  • The workbench. On it, under it, and in every drawer. Look at the back of the bench where it meets the wall.
  • The underside of shelves. A common shop trick is to screw jar lids to the underside of a shelf, then twist the jars up into them. You won’t see those from standing height. Look up.
  • Basement shelves, especially the top one and the back row. Check behind the paint.
  • The garage, along the walls and on top of the wall framing.
  • The pantry and kitchen. The cupboard over the fridge, behind the flour, the back of the spice shelf, the cans that aren’t really cans. Some cans sold for the purpose have a false bottom or a screw lid and look like soup or soda. Pick up and shake any can that feels too light or rattles.
  • Closet shelves and under the bed. Cigar boxes and tins live here.
  • Mom’s sewing room. Button jars, thread boxes, the sewing machine drawers.
  • The shed and the barn. Same list, with more dirt.

Don’t Throw These Out

First page of the free list, Don’t Throw These Out.

A free two-page list: twelve things to look at twice, each with a real sale, and eight things with no price at all. Digital PDF. No email needed. It’s yours either way.

Download the free list
The offer

One price, one time, and it’s all digital.

The three covers: The First Weekend, What It Brought and Who Gets What, a digital PDF set.

Clearing Dad's House: the three books

Digital PDF
  • Book One: The First Weekend181 pages. The order of work, the twelve places, room by room, and what needs a call.
  • Book Two: What It Brought152 pages. Reading marks, and 186 real sold results with the place and the date.
  • Book Three: Who Gets What85 pages. Dividing things fairly, the paper box, your own house, and fill-in pages.
  • The Ten-Second Test CardTwelve quick looks, a page for the wall and wallet cards to cut out.
  • The letter to your familyTwo fill-in letters, as a PDF to print and a Word file to type in.
  • Free updatesIf the books change, you get the new files through Gumroad.
$37One payment. Everything is digital. Nothing ships.
Get the three books, $37

Digital PDF. Nothing ships. Your files open right after you pay.

Cover of The Mark Sheet, a digital PDF.
Add-on, if you want it

The Mark Sheet, $9

Two sides, made to laminate and keep in the drawer: silver words, gold stamps, coin dates, country lines, makers and Hummel marks.

Digital PDF
Add-on, if you want it

The Drive Over, $20

Four short talks from Russ for the car: the first hour, the twelve places out loud, what to do before the dumpster, and one for the man clearing his own house. 6 1/2 minutes in all. It’s a short talk, not the books read aloud.

4 MP3 files

You choose add-ons at checkout. Books plus the Mark Sheet is $46, plus The Drive Over is $57, and both are $66.

30-day guarantee

Open the files and look around. If this isn’t what you needed, reply through your Gumroad receipt within 30 days and you get your money back. No questions.

A note from Russ

You don’t have to do this fast. A rented dumpster has never been a good reason to hurry. You can cry in the car, and then go back to the garage.

Open every box. Keep one thing that’s no use to anybody but you. Then let the rest go, and don’t feel bad about it.

That’s what these books are for.

Russ Pohlman
Ohio

Questions

Before you buy

Is this a printed book?

No. It’s three digital books in PDF, plus the cards and letters. Nothing comes in the mail. You can print any page you like.

Will it open on my phone?

Yes. A PDF opens on any phone, tablet or computer, and you can pinch to make it bigger. The contents pages have links you can tap.

I can’t find my download.

Look in your email for a message from Gumroad. Search for the word Gumroad, and check the junk or spam folder too. If you have more than one email address, check the one you typed when you paid.

The link in that email takes you back to your files, as many times as you need. If the email is gone, Gumroad holds the files, so ask at the help page on gumroad.com and give them the address you bought with.

Will you tell me what my things are worth?

No, and be careful of anybody who gives you a number off a photo. These books aren’t an appraisal. They show you how to read a thing, what similar things sold for, and who to ask. For anything that may matter, have it looked at in person.

Are the prices real?

Every price in the books is a finished sale, with the place and the date, listed at the back of Book Two with a link to the page. Auction sites do take old pages down, so a link may not last forever. Auction lists also run high, since an item that didn’t sell leaves no record. Book Two says so plainly.

Dad’s still alive, or he’s in care. Is this still for me?

Yes. It’s still his, so the first section is about who gets to decide. Book Three has pages for doing this with him.

It’s my own house I’m clearing.

Book Three, Part 3 is for you: what to do first, what the kids will actually want, how to get your tools to someone who’ll use them, and the letter.

Does it tell me what to do about guns?

It tells you to leave them alone if you don’t know how to handle them, lock the room, call a licensed dealer and ask the estate’s attorney. It doesn’t tell you how to sell or value one.

Is this legal advice?

No. Wills, probate, taxes and who may do what are the estate attorney’s job. The books tell you when to ask.

Is the type big enough?

The books are set in 11.7-point type on a 6 x 9 page, and a PDF can be made as large as you like on a screen. There is no separate large-print copy.

Is this a sale price?

No. $37 is the price. There’s no countdown and nothing to rush for.

What if it isn’t for me?

Open the files and look around. If this isn’t what you needed, reply through your Gumroad receipt within 30 days and you get your money back. No questions.

Questions and refunds are handled through your Gumroad receipt.

Open every box before the dumpster comes.

Get the three books, $37

3 books · Digital PDF. Nothing ships. 30-day guarantee.

Get the three books, $37