Pelican Parts Forums - Another cool old barn find

This is not only a cool barn find but a darn interesting story.

MillerAuction

The list of vehicles.
Christies (7 September 1996) - Motorbase

Quote:

On first inspection, the event signaled the end of a story, not the beginning of another. When 78-year-old Imogene Miller died, it appeared just another inevitable passing in rural America. East Orange estate

Her husband, Alexander, age 87, of East Orange, Vermont, fell off a ladder while putting on the storm windows in the fall of 1993 and died from the injuries. When Imogene died of a heart attack this year, and there were no surviving children or relatives, the Orange County Probate Court took over the estate.

The town of East Orange is remote, reached from the interstate only after traveling 13 miles on two-lane blacktop, then a couple of miles on gravel, then about a mile on a barely one-lane dirt road.

There are just 26,149 people and 2826 houses (plus another 55 that are boarded up) in all of Orange County. East Orange is so small, it doesn't have a ZIP code, and the U.S. Census didn't list it in 1990.

The Millers lived in a paint-peeling three-gabled structure with a tin roof, heated with wood, and made do with bare necessities, at least to all outward appearances. They were conservative, frugal, religious, and a bit eccentric.

Alexander Miller operated Miller's Flying Service in Montclair, New Jersey, in the 1930's. His business card also listed "Expert Automobile Repairing" and "Aeroplanes Rebuilt & Overhauled." He inherited a considerable sum when his father, a New York securities broker and wholesale merchant, died in 1957.

The Millers didn't have Social Security numbers and never paid an income tax, neither to the Federal government nor to the State of Vermont. There was nothing on the surface to indicate what was concealed within the house and five barns dotted throughout the tiny town.

When officials began poking into the buildings, they discovered the Millers had stashed $800,000 in gold bullion in cigar boxes and canvas sacks in the house, had hidden $80,000 in cash and coins, and held $700,000 in promissory notes. Their real estate holdings totaled $127,000, and their stock and bond holdings added another $200,000.

Then there were the antique cars in the barns: 45 vintage cars worth an estimated $1.24 million. Among them were a number of Stutz Bearcats and a Stutz fire engine, a Stanley Steamer, three Franklins, a 1926 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Picadilly Roadster, and, to further prove the claim of eccentricity, several Volkswagen Beetles.

The Millers' collecting habit hadn't really been a secret. Almost everyone in town knew about the cars, and some even remembered when there had been a complete World War I biplane in a barn, but that has long since disappeared.

On May 24-26, when Archie and Joshua Steenburgh disposed of the first of the collections and accumulations of the estate for the Stratevest Group, a court-appointed asset management group, the sheriff and seven deputies were present to keep sightseers out of the buildings.

The Millers may have reused old stationery and worn plastic garbage bags for raincoats, but they collected (or amassed) with determination. There were collections of music boxes, typewriters, sewing machines, dye cabinets and spool cabinets, and a lot of mini-collections in quantity. music box

The best of the music boxes was a Nicole Frères of Leipzig "drop a penny in the slot" coin-operated machine that brought $7040. A Regina with 95 discs sold for $9625, but the large number of discs really boosted that machine's price.

The third day's sale was of a clean-up nature and took place beside the former schoolhouse, under which $40,000 in silver coins had been discovered buried.

The gold, coins, and currency are in bank safety deposit boxes. The vintage vehicles were sold on site on September 7 and 8 by Christie's. M.A.D. will cover that sale in a future issue.

The total estate is valued at somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.7 million, but the feds have placed claims totaling $7.3 million against the estate. The State of Vermont wants nearly $900,000, and 50 more claims have been recorded, many of them from religious groups that borrowed from the Millers and signed promissory notes for the same.