In my local thrift and picking adventures I come across a lot of cool stuff, retro stuff and of course antiques, but when I try to get local appraisals from antique stores or the like it seems they don't want to help or I wonder if they are low-balling in hopes to buy the item from me. I.E. I found an ornate Victorian Child's bed last Summer and for the life of me I couldn't get a straight answer from any of the places I went to. They all seemed to hmmm and haaa before giving me totally different answers. I ended up selling the bed for $450(I got it for FREE from a client), but even though it was straight up profit I feel the piece was worth much more than I got. Many I found ranged from the hundreds to the thousands, but I had no clue to the value of the one I had.
I'm looking for a site to help me with appraisals of the items I come across...not just Danish and MCM stuff. Before I drop $9.95 here and $19.99 there on appraisal sites memberships I thought I'd ask some of you who are more knowledgeable.
Thanks for any info you can afford me!
Yes, educate yourself.
Dealers aren't going to be eager to appraise your stuff if they suspect you're going to turn around and sell it, thus competing with their business. Which you are.
I've been to about a zillion auctions at this point in my life and I can't tell you how many times I've seen a newbie ask a regular what something is worth. No one ever tells them a thing. Well, maybe some misleading info now and then if the regular is kind of a jerk. It's a very competitive business and the most reliable way to learn is to teach yourself with good reference books.
Totally in agreement
and can add one more hint. The antiques-pricing-guide-books that you find in bookstores usually give vastly inflated estimates regarding what a dish/chair/armoire/painting is worth.
Sorry to repeat, but it simply takes years of first hand attendance at auctions, estate sales, perusing ebay, etc. to learn the trade. There are no shortcuts.
And, remember. An object is worth ZERO until you have a buyer.
The reason you fail to get a straight-answer is because there IS no straight answer!
It all depends on how the thing will be sold-- an object might sell for $ if being sold by an individual without a store, $ x 2 by someone with a store, $ x 3 by someone with a metropolitan store, $ x 4 by someone with a highfalutin metropolitan store.
$ for a quick sale, $ x 2 for a not-so-quick sale, $ x 3 for a slowish sale, and so on.
Only currency has "face-value"-- the price something sells for on Madison Avenue has no bearing on what Mrs. Evelyn Hampster of Shinbone, Indiana will be able to sell it for.
I've been in the collecting...
I've been in the collecting of antique toys for close to 30 years, so I know most of the routes for finding value of those items. I've been to plenty of auctions and estate sales tracking that stuff down. I've been buying and selling on Ebay since 2001. Many of the routes are the same to find the value out of anything, but it seems finding the value of a collector's toy is a lot easier than finding the value of a piece of furniture or a designer's household decor piece.
worthpoint http://www.worthpoint.com
Allows you to review old ebay auctions to see what the item has sold for over the years. I know it really doesnt tell you what the item is trully worth but gives you an idea of what people are willing to pay for it.
What people are willing to pay
IS what the item is worth.
Studying historical Ebay sales prices for a particular item will tell you precisely what it was worth at that moment on Ebay... And you can use trends or other known relationships to estimate what it'd be worth elsewhere or at another time.
More times than not if I...
More times than not if I find a piece for cheap and it's not something I'm going to keep I'll let it go for cheap rather than sit on it for months trying to get what it's worth. I'm not greedy. As long as I make a little for my efforts I'm happy. The end game is to find items I can polish up and sell so as to afford the nicer items for myself or as in the most recent case, fabric and materials to upholster our Schnadig chair.
the other value factor
flyingpatricio,
The other value factor is if a person "needs" the money or "wants" the money.
I have sold many items on eBay over the years for several thousand dollars each. During that time I have had the usual people offer much lower prices, even though there is no "best offer" listed, and I always tell them the same thing: Thank you for your question and I want the money I do not need the money. The price is as listed.
At thirty or forty cents a month I can leave things sit on eBay forever and wait for the buyer. Being under-capitalized is always a poor sales position!
I've been a contractor in the...
I've been a contractor in the Skilled Trades for the last 18 years, so I'm not really in the "sales" of items to make my living. Even though money is what unfortunately makes the world go 'round, making money has never been a driving force for me or my business. The way I look at it is, if I can make a quick buck on something I mess around with in my spare time then why not. Picking is more of a hobby to me than anything. I dig the hunt!
My main interests in value are for insurance reasons and also to be educated in what I have found. If I got a $500 piece for $100 and sold it within the week for $250 I'd have to say that $150 profit for what little time I had invested in it is well worth selling it quick and cheap. Why would I want to sit on the item for months waiting for the right buyer to give me $500? I'm not looking to sit on "inventory"...I'll leave that to brick and mortar retailers. Plus, some of the pieces I find I sell to clients that aren't willing or don't have the time to hunt, so I have the added satisfaction of an even happier client.
If you really need...
If you really need appraisals for insurance purposes, then don't you have to get them from a licensed appraiser? Insurance companies aren't going to accept value based on what some dealer in an antique mall says, are they? Or maybe they are, I dunno. I looked into it once for insuring a collection of mine that's worth ten grand or so and I know I had to pay for the service, whoever did the appraising.
I paid to have my antique toy...
I paid to have my antique toy collection appraised some years ago, but it was worth over $15,000. The pieces of furniture and other items I need to know the value of aren't very valuable. All I need to know is round about replacement value so I can up my overall coverage every so many years. I don't have expensive designer pieces that need true set in stone appraisals.
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