It depends on your level of patience and your end goals. If you want to realize a bit chunk all at once for your down payment, you'd be best served by showing your figures first to a competent financial advisor and talking over the situation. You may take a significant tax hit depending on your bracket and what avenue you end up selling.
Then, if you decide to sell, I'd probably look for an AH that will work with you on minimums, low commissions, etc.
As Adam experienced, big lots, not matter how much quality tend to go to those who will break up and resell, so your prices get depressed. I used to work for an estate auction company (we mostly did house cleanouts so big lots) and stuff would go for pennies on the dollar unless it was really good stuff.
I thought about selling my collection before the pandemic but having some time to sort through and think about it some more I decided that I would take a slow approach to selling, let my lesser stuff go for whatever it will bring and, at least for now, hold out on better prices for my better stuff. I'm not expecting things to get better work-wise for quite a while, so it's giving me something to do and making up for some of the lost income.
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