The Man Who Sells Dead People’s Things

What draws you to an object when you wander through antique marts, thrift stores, and estate sales? Can you feel certain things call to you, as if they had a soul? If you brought something home, and things started to move around, would you be okay with that? When shopping for antiques, what are the odds of finding a haunted object?

Today, we speak with author and antiques dealer Duane who has decades of experience buying, selling, and writing about the histories of objects with stories of their own to tell. So set an antique tea kettle on the stove and get ready for Homespun Haints.

Listen now:

About the Guest: Duane Scott Cerny

Duane Scott Cerny, antiques dealer in Chicago, collects stories about the people, places, and things that pass through his shop. Duane owns Chicago’s oldest and largest antique store: Broadway Antique Market. provides the very best in vintage furnishings, art, lighting, objects, fashions and jewelry from 75 top dealers. If you’re not local to Chicago, you can browse the potentially haunted antiques on his Etsy store. You can read the piece he mentioned that he wrote for the New York Times here. And here are his published books, Selling Dead People’s Things and Vintage Confidential: Retro Rattled, Tales Tattled—Confessions of the World’s Third Oldest Profession.

Episode Promos:

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The Haunted Edgewater Hospital in Chicago

Duane told us a story about his first hand paranormal experiences buying vintage fixtures from the abandoned Edgewater Hospital. Back in 1929, Edgewater Hospital was a renowned medical center. It was also a pretty swanky place for big Hollywood stars to go and “dry out” in the days before rehab. The hospital’s reputation took a dark turn later on. Corruption scandals involving unnecessary surgeries and Medicare fraud lead to its closure in 2001. Also, apparently one of the doctors there experimented with limb transplants on dogs…Duane didn’t find that out until he’d spent quite some time there, wondering where that ethereal barking was coming from.

As it turns out, visitors are no longer welcome there. We think you’ll wanna take a peek at some creepy photos of the abandoned hospital that might have been taken somewhat illicitly a couple years after the place closed down. It really does look like something straight out of Fallout.

Other Ghost Stories from Haunted Chicago

We have interviewed so many haunted Chicagoans! Here are a few of our best paranormal podcast episodes from Chicago.

• DJ Cemetery feat. Guardian Grandma
• The Drum Circle for Haunted Brothels
• You Remind Me of My Dead Sister
• The Most Haunted Cemetery
• The Creepy Chicago Carriage House with the Death Door

Are Antiques Haunted, Usually?

What do you think, would you consider becoming an antiques dealer after hearing Duane’s personal paranormal stories? Do you have any haunted antiques among your family heirlooms? Are you having trouble getting your antique ghosts to adopt new technology? Did you know there is a Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre in the UK? If you have any personal ghost stories about a haunted antiques shop or similar spooky business, submit your story here, and you could be featured on a future episode of Homespun Haints. Buyer beware: all sales final whether or not you have a spooky day!