Post by Admin on Oct 17, 2014 5:47:57 GMT
At some point most people inherit some treasure from a family member or friend. It could be a piece of antique jewelry, or an oil painting, or a piece of what looks like antique silver. It can be difficult to figure out not just what the piece may be worth, but whether or not you should invest in an antique appraisal.
Believe it or not, ebay is not a bad starting place, but if you use ebay, you need to search for "sold" items. You just need to check the box in the left column before you put your keywords into the search field. This way you get what people actually have paid for an item instead of an asking price. You can ask a million dollars for something. That doesn’t mean that anyone is going to pay a million dollars. Worse yet, one dealer will see an asking price and think they can get the same price for their item because it’s similar. Before you know it, there are four or five asking prices of one million dollars for something that might be worth a few hundred dollars or less. The first person to list the piece price didn’t do the research and the rest were lazy.
Most personal property appraisers use auction results, at least as a starting point. While this does not reflect retail value, it should give the appraiser an idea as to what the wholesale price might be. While retail mark-ups vary, most antiques tend to retail at 2 to 2.5 times a legitimate auction value. Now when you see something selling for $1,000.00 but you have found several auction values at perhaps $100.00, you understand that the seller might have neglected to research the price before he or she listed the item at an on-line venue.
There are some good on-line sources for finding auction values. Liveauctioneers.com, for example is free, but you have to sign up for an account and give them an email address. There are some filters you can use, but mostly you need to know the keywords. Keep your keywords brief. If the search returns 3,000 auction sales, add another keyword. Keep doing this until you have narrowed the search results down to a manageable number.
So now you have found something very similar to your item, but not exactly like yours. It’s a good starting place. Chances are your item will have a similar value, so if it’s less than a few hundred dollars, it won’t pay to have an appraisal, unless you have many items. Most appraisers charge by the hour, not by the piece.
On the other hand, if you think your piece could be worth thousands, it is now time to contact the antique appraiser and talk to them about whether they think you should pursue a formal appraisal, or possibly just a verbal “walk-through” as some call it. In any case, the more real information you can provide about your item, the better equipped the antique appraiser will be to help you, even if they just direct you to a better source.
Believe it or not, ebay is not a bad starting place, but if you use ebay, you need to search for "sold" items. You just need to check the box in the left column before you put your keywords into the search field. This way you get what people actually have paid for an item instead of an asking price. You can ask a million dollars for something. That doesn’t mean that anyone is going to pay a million dollars. Worse yet, one dealer will see an asking price and think they can get the same price for their item because it’s similar. Before you know it, there are four or five asking prices of one million dollars for something that might be worth a few hundred dollars or less. The first person to list the piece price didn’t do the research and the rest were lazy.
Most personal property appraisers use auction results, at least as a starting point. While this does not reflect retail value, it should give the appraiser an idea as to what the wholesale price might be. While retail mark-ups vary, most antiques tend to retail at 2 to 2.5 times a legitimate auction value. Now when you see something selling for $1,000.00 but you have found several auction values at perhaps $100.00, you understand that the seller might have neglected to research the price before he or she listed the item at an on-line venue.
There are some good on-line sources for finding auction values. Liveauctioneers.com, for example is free, but you have to sign up for an account and give them an email address. There are some filters you can use, but mostly you need to know the keywords. Keep your keywords brief. If the search returns 3,000 auction sales, add another keyword. Keep doing this until you have narrowed the search results down to a manageable number.
So now you have found something very similar to your item, but not exactly like yours. It’s a good starting place. Chances are your item will have a similar value, so if it’s less than a few hundred dollars, it won’t pay to have an appraisal, unless you have many items. Most appraisers charge by the hour, not by the piece.
On the other hand, if you think your piece could be worth thousands, it is now time to contact the antique appraiser and talk to them about whether they think you should pursue a formal appraisal, or possibly just a verbal “walk-through” as some call it. In any case, the more real information you can provide about your item, the better equipped the antique appraiser will be to help you, even if they just direct you to a better source.
