Advice on Antiques

good luck with that. recently went through a simliar situation and found this is NOT a good time to get good money for antiques. things are going for pennies on a dollar compared to 5 years ago.

Call Harry Tennery at Riverport Liquidators. He has done several estate sales for me and is very fair and honest. He is out there in the trenches and can tell you what sells and what you can expect to get for it.

Harry can be reached at 241-6424.

I do not know much about antiques, nor could I recommend anyone, but I found your post to be both interested and funny. Quite humorous in fact.

If you find any coins I'd gladly grade and give you values for them. But that is the extent of my knowledge of valuables.

Sell everything on e-bay, cut ALL the middlemen out. The junk might be worth a lot more than you think. Nobody buying stuff by the houseful will pay what the stuff is actually worth, buyers have to maintain a profit margin, too. Maybe part the items out at auction? Anyone looking at your items will usually try to get the whole load for one price. I know of at least one cop who buys estate items, too.

Perhaps contact your insurance company and ask them if they've dealt with any appraisers for the purpose of providing insurance on the valuables? Those appraisers should be able to tell you value.

A family member works at Leffler Antiques and found him to be accurate in appraising value, though none of us have used him. I believe he does estates...

Maybe he is accurate in appraising, but my god he is ridiculous in his pricing for things in his store.

Maybe he is accurate in appraising, but my god he is ridiculous in his pricing for things in his store.

I've always had a theory that antique dealers don't really want to sell anything, they are just hoarders who have their stuff barely under control. Go into the Maumee Antique Mall and you'll see 5 people browsing, but no one buying because they have more sense than to pay $50 for a bicentennial Coke bottle.

I second Wulf and the ebay option.
A) your audience numbers in the hundreds of millions
B) the site is sortable, meaning it's easily accessible to people who are looking for specific things. You'd be able to find your target market for each and every item without even knowing what you're selling.
C) With very few exceptions, things will always settle right in around their fair market value. That avoids the two extremes of auctioning, in that you're either giving the stuff away, or people aren't willing to pay an astronomical asking price.

I suppose the downside of the ebay idea is that you may end up selling something you didn't realize was so valuable, and may have wanted to keep had you known. The consolation is that, if it really is that valuable, you at least made good $$ on it.

EBay if you have the time to individually list items. Agree that you can use it to somewhat determine fair market value for items as well.

Also, know the vultures are always circling. My dad had some Lionel trains from the 30's/40's/50's...and after he died my mom went asking locally how much they'd be worth. One "expert" here in town told her he'd take the entire lot for $200. When Mom told me that, I flipped out and said "no way". Sold everything via EBay for over $1,800. Every time an item sold, I felt like it was a big middle finger to that scavenger. I know it's his "business", but he didn't deserve to get everything for 20 cents on the dollar...the hell with that.

EBay may charge fees, but they aren't nearly what some of these douchebag dealers will screw you over for...

I don't know if I would be quite so hard on a guy that offered your mom $200 for all those old trains. Assuming he could sell them for $1800, he has a pretty high margin. But a low offer is what I would expect if you want the convenience of just having somebody local buy an item for cash. One year I was walking down the street during the Old West End Festival and there was a guy selling records. He had about three dozen really nice records, including some pretty rare Beatles ones. Retail was probably at least a few hundred dollars. But I offered (and he accepted) thirty bucks because he was able to sell them in his front yard for little to no effort. The guy wasn't willing to spend the time researching, photographing and writing descriptions for the items to put on eBay. That means he gets low prices. Capitalism at work.

great point. quite possible the dealers my family dealt with a while back were low balling on purpose.

I understand, Ace. I'm realistic...if he would have offered 50% I probably would have been like "sure, whatever Mom. Go enjoy the money".

But it was the attitude of "hey, this is the best you're gonna get" that he played to my mom, who in turn told that to me (and that I knew to be absolutely untrue) that aggravated me. Apparently there are lots of people who will bite on desperation deals, but we didn't fall in that boat.

Interesting re: the Lionel trains. My dad still has his entire set from childhood...I suspect in darn near mint condition. (Last I saw, he still had the original boxes in pristine condition & everything.)

Of course, they have a lot of sentimental value, so I don't know that they'll ever be up for sale. But it's good to have a ballpark idea of potential value too.

mom2: depends heavily on what kind of Lionel train...when it was made...track gauge...what cars are in the set...etc. In boxes in great condition is a good thing too.

Was never into trains that much personally, but I'm fascinated by the people who build the miniature towns, mountainscapes, tunnels, etc. and put 'em on display (or running through their basements). Learned a lot by having to learn about the sets to sell them.

OHT - I can only remember so much about the trains, because my dad kept them packed securely away when I was a kid. He only pulled them out a few times to show to us...those trains were a prized possession of his!

I'm guessing they must be from the 40s - dad was born in the late 30s.

Suppose it would be good to have an estimate of value if nothing else for insurance purposes. God forbid there was a fire or something that might damage or destroy them, after decades of careful handling!

oldhometown: ever seen the beautiful one at the Toledo Zoo in the Reptile house? It's amazing.

I used Rick Kigar-Kigar Auctions- and thought that he was more than fair.

You would be really surprised about how much trains can be worth to the right collector. $1800 for old Lionel's, I'm surprised you didn't get more, honestly.

Time = Money. If you have time to e-bay, your going to make a lot more money. Another point is who the executor to the will is. If you start selling off and somone else has a stake in this - you could run into trouble.

I'm surprised you didn't get more, honestly.

Yeah, I was hoping to break $2000, but I didn't set minimums so high that nobody would bite.

I also didn't want to go through a week-by-week "your item failed to sell" thing. The goal was to move the trains for a reasonable amount of money, not be forced to accept whatever from a collectibles scavenger.

I walked away pretty happy...or rather, my mom did. The sale of the trains ended up paying for a few house repairs.

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone who responded. I appreciate your efforts.

eBay is going to play a major role in liquidating a large part of the estate. The only real drawbacks to using eBay are the shipping, the spam and false bids I'll be getting and the occasional item that just won't sell. For the furniture and larger items I plan to use Craig's List, as shipping won't be practical.

The real antiques are likely to be sold on consignment or something along that line. I'll talk to Leffler Antiques and drop Maggie's name (insert appropriate emoticon here).

The family can fight over the family heirlooms, but my opinion is that you can only keep so much stuff and then the whole thing becomes ridiculous. For instance, my own paternal grandmother had an extensive collection of figurines, china tea cups and crystal. I requested one figurine out of the entire collection which I can remember her by. Anything more becomes very impractical.

I think it's likely that the housewares and other used junk will go to an auction somewhere - I'll call Kigar Auctions. There's just a ton of stuff that is gently used but not especially valuable.

I feel a bit like Hercules' able assistant, gazing at the Augean Stables and wondering why I got up this morning.

Glad you found what seems like the best route for you. Just a thought: For those household-y things that are of little value but still have use? There are always women's shelters or transitional housing programs or even Habitat for Humanity ReStore that very much needs such items. Best of luck!

This event might be worthwhile for those with just a few things to sell.

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/02/20/Wood-County-museum-offers-antiques-appraisal.html