Antiques

When it comes to determining the value or worth of an item there are several things that you need to take into consideration;

A. Why do you want to know the value (personal knowledge, insurance purposes, to resell)
B. If you are going to sell the item, where are you going to do so (on-line auction, antique shop, on-line antique shop, garage sale, estate sale)

If you need the value for insurance purposes then you need to get a written appraisal and this needs to be done every year but at least every two years so that it is current in the event you ever need to use it. You can contact your insurance company for a referral or I do have resources
on my website for you to use to aid you in finding an appraiser.

If you want the value just for your personal knowledge, everyone’s instinct is to jump right to the antique price guides. Remember, these are “guides” and the prices listed come from a variety of resources one being auction houses which add an additional amount to the final sale price, therefore price guides might be better used to find the insurance replacement value. I recommend doing a search on-line for the same or similar item and see what items are selling for. You can also look at the “closed” auctions on the on-line auction sites and see what the item may have sold for. Visiting local antique shops is also a great way to see what your item may be worth and to learn and explore other antiques and collectibles.

You want the price to resell the item, if you are going to buy and sell antiques, collectibles and memorabilia on a regular basis please invest in some reference books. I don’t know how many people ask me the value of their items so that they can sell them on the on-line auctions. This somewhat puts me out, I am giving my expertise so that they can make money. I do offer appraisals but I am going to implement a mandatory “donation” for requests such as this, it is just getting way out of hand.

Back to the topic. You need to look at the venue where you will be selling your item and price it accordingly. If you are selling through an on-line auction research what the same or similar items have sold for, on-line antique shop or live antique shop use a formula based on what you paid for the item (mark it up 50%) but you should be continually studying the field and know what is selling at what price and what is currently not selling. Garage sales…. you can price yourself out of sales if you try to price items at antique shop prices. Estate sales can bear prices that are somewhat higher than garage sales but once again you need to know what the market is doing.

You cannot forget the value of the local public library. They are still a terrific source of information. They have antique marks books covering many titles and some of the larger libraries have old catalogs and magazines which I find to be amazing resources to aid in identifying china patterns as well as glassware patterns.