Antique Appraisals

A Guide to Finding the Right Place to Appraise Your Antiques

There are many benefits in and reasons for having your antiques appraised. Interest in collecting antiques is on the rise, especially since the popularity of shows such as Antiques Roadshow have skyrocketed. With this insurgence of collectors brings opportunists. That includes both sides of the table- collectors and appraisers. However, an appraiser has a unique situation. There are two ways an appraiser is to make money: 1) by selling you an appraisal and 2) by lowballing an appraisal and buying the item directly from you. As the latter is a sorry situation to find yourself in, never sell your antiques to the business/individual that appraised them for you. Only under extreme circumstances should you ever do this, so don’t let the appraiser think he may be able to buy it from you.

Recently there has been a market cornered for online appraisers. Let’s face it, we are living in a digital society. Ironically, people are trying the merge the new with the antiquated… but it is probably a big mistake. There are all kinds of problems with online appraisals. For instance, there is the fact that the appraiser can never personally see and touch the item. How good is that appraisal going to be? And who in their right minds would want to stake their reputation on the appraisal of something they’ll never be in the same room with? Digital photography and a detailed description can only take you so far in the cyber world. However, some people really want to give online appraisal a shot.