Hidden Gems: Meet Hagop Sandaldjian of American Estate Buyers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hagop Sandaldjian.

Hi Hagop, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My interest in reselling began in elementary school by going to local sports card shows and dealing lower end sports cards. I’d look in dealers’ junk boxes and find cards marked $1 or $2 that I thought I could resell on eBay for $5-$10. I was too young to have an eBay account so I asked my parents to make one for me. Next to one of these sports card shows was a small estate auction that my dad would frequently visit while I was dealing cards. In middle school I stopped going to the card shows and joined my dad at the auction. While my dad was buying items for the home on a whim, I took an interest in the dealers who would bring box trucks and buy hundreds of items at a time. How did they know what all these different items were worth? How were they reselling so quickly to be able to do this every month? This was a step up from flipping $1 sports cards, but in the same world. I quickly climbed the ranks at this auction by buying fine artwork, jewelry, antiques – just about anything I thought I could get a good deal on. I soon decided to scale and looked for other sources of inventory. Still too young to drive, I found a few other local auctions that my dad would take me to- a fun bonding experience I’ll never forget. After graduating college with my degree in finance I had to make a choice, do I look for a job in the corporate world or continue to scale this hobby turned small business? I decided I could always go to the corporate world should this not work out, so I took a full dive into the world of fine art and antiques. I signed a lease on a 5000 sqft warehouse months out of college with 2 business partners, and we started doing large scale estate buyouts and were aggressively buying at all auctions- just like I’d seen the dealers do almost 10 years prior.

My passion was always art, and I quickly realized that there were no fast and easy ways to sell artwork in this field like there were for jewelry. Every jeweler, pawn shop, coin shop, etc. advertise that they buy jewelry, giving the public easy liquidity of their valuables, but there was no such place for artwork. Most galleries/dealers in the field- auctions included, were are happy to take paintings on consignment, where the paintings may take 3-12 months to sell, but there was no place offering liquidity for all types of fine art. Sure you may find some dealers specializing in niches of the art market and buying those paintings, but that’s like walking into a jewelry store wanting to sell your necklace and the buyer saying they only purchase rings. I decided to bring my years of expertise dealing in millions of dollars of artwork to the market by opening American Estate Buyers. My business, which started from $1 sports cards, now allows collectors, heirs, and resellers an avenue to quickly sell their artwork based on secondary market prices, the same way a jeweler buys jewelry.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Within the first 6 months of the new 5000sqft warehouse lease, one of the partners approached us and said he wants out. This was my first big serious push in this industry, so having that much more liability thrown on me wasn’t easy to absorb. Our labor went down and costs went up, but we were able to adjust and adapt.

This business has plenty of scammers and thieves. I’ve had experiences of paintings stolen and fake paintings sold to my younger greener self, but that just comes with the growing pains of this business. I’ve since developed a mature eye for fakes and reproductions.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Specializing in purchasing fine art collections of all styles and periods. We are a one stop shop for collectors and heirs to be able to sell their art collection in a timely manner.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
What I like the most about our city is its’ diversity. It has accepted my immigrant parents and allowed them to establish themselves to raise my sister and I. This diversity also plays a large role in my art buying business, with so many different paintings having been imported here from all over the world to satisfy everyone’s unique tastes. This is why Los Angeles is one of the top art hubs in the world and there are so many local collections being bought and sold on a daily basis.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://americanestatebuyers.com
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/american-estate-buyers-pasadena-3