And homeowners are learning the same thing. The North Beverly store is full of items you’re unlikely to find anyplace else, spanning eras from the 17th century to last week. Shoppers could find anything from a numbered lithograph by Peter Max for under $500 to a spectacular Baccarat crystal Mille Nuits chandelier from a home in Beacon Hill for $10,650. But don’t think you’ll walk in and necessarily find either of these specific treasures. Inventory moves fast and the couple has “limitless” storage, trucking new pieces in as soon as there’s space in their shop.
“I like to think of it as recycling high-end goods,” says Sheila, whose eye for beautiful pieces lends the store a jumbled charm. Unlike an antique store, Boston Consignment carries a mélange of goods—a modern lamp, new with tags, might rest on an 18th-century chest, while a mid-century modern Formica tulip table displays a silver platter laden with crystal from the 1800s.
With people constantly in flux these days, whether they are professionals relocating for a business opportunity, empty nesters who are downsizing, or folks who are just wholesale redecorating, there is no shortage of folks looking to offload precious items—anything from a set of heirloom dishware to a whole house full of furniture. The Roys can arrange to pick up items, and consignors get a check for half of the sales price when an item finds a new home. The only hard part of running a consignment shop is having to tell people “no,” Sheila says. “We try to explain, as gently as possible, that if your daughter doesn’t want it, and your cousin doesn’t want it, it’s unlikely that someone will want to buy it.”
The Roys themselves are ample evidence of the transient nature of things—they relocated their business to the North Shore in January to be closer to family, after 17 years first in Fairfield, Connecticut, then more recently in Needham. And they even started their original Fairfield business in part with pieces from their former residence in Beacon Hill.
The couple finds their new location a good fit. Where they nestled in a strip mall between a yoga studio and a karate dojo, many locals drop in after class just for a quick peek.
“It’s really good karma,” Sheila says with a laugh. “Now we’re a neighborhood shop for Hamilton and Wenham as well.” But their reach extends far beyond neighboring towns. Continuing ties to Fairfield, an affluent community about 90 minutes north of Manhattan, mixed with roots in Beacon Hill, means a wealth of consignors from all over trust the couple to handle their precious pieces. And buyers from all over carefully stalk the shop’s social media sites, run by the couple’s daughter, Stacey Lai. A buyer in Germany recently purchased a mirror, someone in Denver scored some gold and porcelain dishware, and a buyer in Texas has made several purchases, including some very heavy crystal blocks.
“Instagram is the star of the show,” says Sheila. “It is a marketplace.” As important as social media is, though, what she really values is the social interactions. “We’ve made a lot of friends,” she says. “We get to hear the stories of people’s lives.” And the Roys are happy to share, where appropriate, with buyers, who also love to hear the provenance of things. In addition to recording family stories, the Roys also do extensive research to value pieces appropriately. While the history is always interesting to buyers, though, that’s not always the story they want to tell. “Sometimes people like to act like an item was their grandmother’s,” Sheila says with a laugh. “It was someone’s grandmother’s, after all.”