Having no experience from selling old design furniture we wonder how to best go about to sell this Edward Wormley sofa from around 1960. The sofa is in very good condition, currently in our home in Sweden.
We have been in contact with one auction house in Sweden and they would be willing to include it in their autumn auction at a certain reserve price. However, on the web we have seen the same sofa for sale at four times that price, which has made us confused, how can the price variation be so big?
Would you recommend us to go through an auction house, and if so which one would be recommended? Or should we arrange our own auction through Ebay or similar? Or what? Any ideas are welcome, thanks!
There are some websites with prices much higher than current market value. 1stDibs is one (there's a big thread about them here if you want to search for it) and there are some others. It's important to keep in mind that these are asking prices only; they are often higher than what the item sells for in the end, if it sells at all. The only way to know the market value is to look at what things actually sell for. To get even a somewhat accurate idea, you have to find a lot of final prices and also consider condition of the piece and the part of your country in which it was sold (rural, big city, etc). That's an awful lot to compute.
There are people who will list things on ebay for you but they charge a commission on top of the 10% (approximate) that ebay charges. For a large item like a sofa, online buyers will also have to factor in the shipping charge which can be considerable.
A good auction house will have an idea of what a sofa like this will sell for--IF they have experience with mid-century modern and have regular buyers who deal in that style. Still--auctions are very much a gamble. If the right people are there, or if there are just two people who both want it very, very much---then you could do quite well. If not...you could end up with next to nothing.
A reserve price in an auction is simply where they start the bidding. If they don't get any bids at the reserve price, they do not sell the piece. Typically they recommend a reserve that is lower than what they hope to get. If you insist on a higher reserve, they know it will just turn bidders off. The idea is that people start bidding when there's a hope that they will get it for a low price; but as the bidding continues they realize they have to pay more. Sometimes two bidders lose control and pay more than market value! That's always exciting and it's not rare, either.
You might want to look for a shop or two that has a good inventory of mid-century modern and that takes consignments. That way you can have some input on setting the price and it will be on display and perhaps promoted too and you won't have to deal with showing it to people coming to your house. A shop will arrange delivery to the buyer, too. Where I am, you pay the shop somewhere between 40-50% of the final price for their services.
The other way to sell is on Craigslist or whatever the equivalent is in Sweden. You can try to get top dollar but people usually won't pay that much. Still, it may be the best way if you can be patient and you don't mind dealing with the public directly.
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