Any tips for valuating antiques?

[Charles Wiggins]

Our church is doing a garage sale as a fundraiser and one couple donated hundreds of items. Many are antiques, some furniture but also a lot of dishes, decorations, and other household items. We think we might do a lot better with the antiques on CL. We don't want to sink money into an appraiser but we want to price things fairly for both the fundraising sake and the customers.

Any tips or go-to sources for looking this stuff up and assigning value?

[Pat Barry]

It seems to me that if they donated the items for a garage sale, then they should be sold in a garage sale.

[Sam Murdoch]

You are venturing into folly if you think that you will accurately recognize the value or not of an "antique" without the guidance of a true professional.
To pick up on Pat's comment do you think with a clear conscience that the couple who donated these items would be just as happy and would have intended to donate the items that you later discover to be a $ 3,000.00 or $ 12,000.00 + antique? Seems to me if you really think you are onto some potential undiscovered values that you should have these appraise by a professional then discuss your findings with the donators to see how to proceed. Maybe they are fully aware and will be happy that their donations will have a greater impact. Otherwise let them be as intended - garage sale items.

[Mel Fulks]

I don't see Craig's list as competition for Sotheby's or Christies . Or as anything above a garage sale. Never seen any prostitutes competing for dollars at garage sales. Regardless of venue prices have to be determined,I would ask for church members to serve on committee to price and watch for any items that might seem worthy of further consultation.

[Mike Cutler]

Charles.

It would take you months, maybe years, to even begin to determine if their is a value beyond what may not seem apparent.
I can show you two genuine, authentic, Stickley bookcases. One is worth 20K the other <10K. The difference is a small sticker in the corner. With pottery, glass, and china it can be a simple as a single glaze color used in a pattern.
I do think that you are doing yourself a disservice by trying to sell on CL. That's just not the place to sell antiques.
On a larger scale, the items were given to sell at a church garage sale and that is how they should be ethically sold, unless you can locate the donor and express your concerns and arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement with all parties. Personally, It would make me very angry If I donated something for a specific cause/event and it was sold via a separate mechanism.

[John C Lawson]

On the ethical question of how donated items are sold, if I donated a bunch of stuff as way clear my house and do good at the same time, I wouldn't care how they were sold as long as whoever I donated them to reaped the benefit. I would prefer the profit go where I intended, and not the antique dealers who mine these kind of events.

[Shawn Pixley]

Anitique appraising is a bit too broad to be helpful to you. A qualified appraiser for furniture (say early victorian to art moderne) is unlikely to be qualified for other items (say toys, miltaria or early american furniture). Others may be qualified appraisers for a period (say Victorian / Edwardian). They could be qualified to appraise furniture, dishware, silver, jewelry, etc... from that period yet unqualified for other periods / items. My mother is a certified apparaiser for Victorian period western European / American furniture, tableware, glassware and jewelry. Her knowledge of other items is fairly rudimentory.

As others have stated, Craigslist is probably not your best choice for selling true antiques. Either EBay or another specialty site would get you the desired (not bottom feeding) audience / buyers. At least around my area, I see little high-end pieces on Craigslist (I look through musical instruments & tools). Thats not to say there aren't nice items on there - for instance, there is a nice G&L ASAT guitar that has been on the for weeks. The price keeps getting marked down. It is a very good deal on a very good guitar. There is also a older Bosendorfer Grand Piano on there at a very good price. However, the audience is not on Craiglist for these types of items.

[Jim Matthews]

You could parse results from Skinner, online.

They post results, but that is based on a qualified appraisal.
My guess is that any comparison will skew your valuations upward, without the provenance to back up your claims.

Without a professional certifying your claim, you're likely to see value that can't be validated,
and that will lead to unsold items.

If it was me, and it's not, I would concentrate on the pieces that look heavily used and very old.
Most of the furniture you find that's in fine condition, isn't old at all.

[Jerome Stanek]

If it were me I think instead of a garage sale I would hold a charity auction. See if you can get an auctioneer to do it for free. When we were going to sell my moms stuff the auctioneer said one nice thing about an auction is everything sells in one day.

[Harold Burrell]

hmmm...I'm kind of surprised at some of the responses here...

Has anybody here ever donated anything to an organization that they really cared about by giving them stuff to sell in order to raise money...and wanted them to get as little for it as possible??? Doesn't make sense to me.

Charles, you could try the CL thing. Why not? But I too think that the auction idea might be worth checking into as well. Let me ask you something (just a thought) but, have you asked the folks that donated the stuff what they thought? Would they have a preference?

[Jim Koepke]

Talking with the folks who donated the items is a very good idea to avoid any future misunderstandings.

They may also know the value of what was donated.

Silent auctions are nice because it keeps the people involved staying around buying stuff while waiting for the auction to time out.

Your best use of Craigslist might be to post some pictures and make people aware of the event.

jtk

[Matt Meiser]

Some people do get worked up if donations aren't used as intended but you of course could ask.

[Kevin Bourque]

I know a lot about antique furniture. It's not a subject that you can learn quickly.

[David C. Roseman]

Interesting thread. Charles, this is no help with your question, but I spoke today to a friend who's mother deals in antiques, and he confirmed what I'd heard elsewhere. The market in the U.S. for antiques, especially antique furniture, has plummeted from where it was 20 years ago. Seems the younger folk just aren't interested in, and don't appreciate "old stuff" the way my generation and earlier do. Have others heard this as well? Could well be that some of the church's donations are very nice items that the donors' kids didn't want for their homes.

Perhaps you could take some pics of a few of the items that you think are more valuable and visit a local antique dealer or two, and just tell them the church's dilemma. Given the charitable cause, a dealer may offer some good advice.

David

[Mel Fulks]

I hear the same thing ,David. Some of the things being turned down by young couples are not just antiques but heirlooms.
They just don't want them. I am less gloomy than some here about church members being able to determine the better pieces without expert guidance. Most know hand cut dovetails, plastic dishes, Avon bottles ,sterling silver, Readers Digest Condensed books, stenciled milk cans , and Disney stuff when they see it. Some who don't really know much are successful antique dealers. There's a local guy like that who had a brass carriage clock in his shop that he had just bought.He was concerned about it being tarnished and was going to use brass cleaner on it. I looked at it and showed him that it was made of brass ,like many of them,but was covered with ormolu with most of it still there. I also told him he needed to learn to recognize gold . No matter ,he knew the word Tiffany when he saw it,and would have made good money even if he had stripped the gold.