Am I alone in thinking that it's strange for an ad for a barn sale - a barn sale - to include the phrase "beautifully curated?" According to Wikipedia, speaking of museum curators, "The curator makes decisions regarding what objects to select, oversees their potential and documentation, conducts research based on the collection and its history, provides proper packaging of art for transportation, and shares research with the public and community through exhibitions and publications."

I'm very unlikely to go to this particular sale - even if they were advertising tools, the presence of the phrase leads me to think that prices will reflect the vocabulary. But, if I somehow found myself there, I would be tempted to pick up some piece of knick-knackery and ask the sellers if they knew its provenance, and could they place it in the context of the particular style, and do they have a sense of whether that particular detail (pointing to something on the object) is more common on this coast than in other areas, and on and on. Then, of course, I wouldn't buy it; if I was really in a mood, I would just comment that I was looking for one (of whatever it is) in a different color.

I suspect the building in which the sale will occur is a barn only in the historical sense; not likely to find much in the way of horse/cow/sheep waste or other evidence of agricultural/farming activity.

This is related to the fantasy in which I go to something advertised as an estate sale but where the sellers just want to offload some of their unused belongings (that is, no one in the family has died/gone into a care home), and, after confirming through tactful questions that that's the case, offer my deepest condolences, because surely someone has died, which is what estate sale means, damitol!!

I agree wholeheartedly !

Beware of LIVING ESTATE sales.
That means that Papa died years ago, the kids grabbed all the good tools, and Grammy is going to assisted living.
Nothing there for me.

We didn't have an estate sale when mom died because we had a barn cleanup while she was still alive. All the kids and in-laws got their pick of the "stuff" and were happy. The junk went in three industrial dump containers and was hauled away.