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Let us imagine you know nothing about antiques, you don’t even know how old an item must be to be called an “antique”.

That’s good news, very good news indeed, mainly because your lack of knowledge allows you to become an expert at valuing antiques, while avoiding all the ambiguity and difference of opinion surrounding the value of most popular “antiques”.

It’s all of this confusion surrounding antiques that deters many people from entering the business, and makes newcomers think it takes years of experience and knowledge to begin making regular profits. Not so!

To see how much confusion there is, consider that prices for the same item vary enormously between antiques fair traders with low overheads, and antiques dealers with high upkeep four storey shops in London’s West End. Prices vary also between auctioneers just miles apart in the same town or city, also between bidders on eBay. So, for example, bidders on eBay today, also visitors to a big London auction house tomorrow, may pay very different prices for the exact same product selling on eBay next week or through a different London auction house next month. More confusing still, all those prices are very different to how much an insurer says an item is worth.

Moving on, the word “antique” itself is open to many very different interpretations, some suggesting only items aged 100+ years qualify, others saying anything more than 30 or 40 years old is an “antique”.

Let me tell you all those different definitions and varying opinions are of little importance to newcomers, and focusing on them will only delay your journey from total novice to expert dealer in antiques.

And expert antiques dealer you can easily become, even without years of experience and a brain busting with knowledge. I say that from personal experience, given I’ve lived with antiques for more than 40 years, and I get more values wrong than right, and that sometimes goes for vintage postcards that have been a major part of my life since I was a very small child.

And I also know countless much more experienced sellers, even top auctioneers and television celebrities, who regularly make glaring mistakes, such as several times television experts have valued old postcards and got their prices very badly wrong. The first time, on Blue Peter, the team asked for old postcards to be sent in as part of a fundraising exercise. They displayed silk embroidered postcards to show what they wanted children to collect and send in to raise money for whatever their cause of the day.

“More than £500” they said one card was worth, when in all honesty I would not give them a penny, and I was very close to real market value on that occasion. The card was torn and badly foxed and depicted flowers, the most common of all subjects on silk postcards. Many years later and even in mint condition, that card from the First World War is still worth less than a tenner!

So if Blue Peter researchers get it wrong, alongside others regularly proving their ignorance* on popular television antiques programmes, surely that means even newcomers can regularly buy and sell antiques for profit, including on eBay. (*Witness a recent TV programme where an expert identified a stone pot as dating back many thousands of years, when it was actually created the week before by an expert forger and entered into the programme to discredit dealers!)

The fact is you don’t have to be able to recognise an antique, you don’t have to be able to value it, all you need is access to someone else who can value your items and does not work on Blue Peter!

Let me tell you how it’s done, using concepts that take you as close as possible to identifying and valuing, and proving authenticity of most antiques, and making sure you maximise your profits on eBay.

Those concepts are research, provenance, authentication, appraisal. One thing to note, however, although they are listed separately in the last sentence, those concepts often go hand in hand in real life. As an example, let’s say you take your antique to a television Antiques Roadshow event, this being the start of the research process for your item. That’s where you meet up with an expert in your particular field of antique who asks where you got the item (checking provenance), then he tells you whether your antique is genuine or a fake (he or she is authenticating your item), and finally the expert suggests how much the antique might be worth (he or she is appraising it).

Alternatively, you might research, check provenance, have your item authenticated and appraised all in one quick step, without leaving home. One way is by uploading an image with a few basic details about your antique to a site such as www.valuemystuffnow.com, where experts will carry out the entire process for one small fee. More about this later.

In reality, if you think you have a priceless valuable on your hands, you should obtain as much information about it as you can, from as many reliable sources as time and money will permit.

Now let us see what those individual concepts mean with help from “The Free Dictionary” at www.thefreedictionary.com:

Research (meaning “Close, careful study”)

Research to discover what your item is and determine its history, can be as simple as keying words describing your item into the search box at Google, and looking at sites and images for items similar to your own.

Sometimes there may be clues on the item itself, such as a maker’s name or a date, which can also be identified and verified online.

From books, websites and through expert helpers, you can check if marks and damage on the piece are commensurate with the age your seller claims it to be, or could they have been applied to fool you into thinking the item is old?

Or maybe there is somewhere online showing what patina should look like on ancient coins, or how wood changes colour with age, and whether paper is from centuries past or just made to look old.

Researchers might also look in books and auction catalogues, telephone friends for advice, or study past sales from big name auction companies like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, Phillips and Bonhams, and look for items resembling their own.

There’s a site I particularly recommend and which I use almost daily for my own research, it’s called Antiques Research Guide and you’ll find it at:

http://www.antiquesresearchguide.com

Notice how a selection of research resources exist here – I’ve checked them all, and they provide a wealth of information for new and experienced antiques dealers.

Resources

Christie’s – www.christies.com

Sotheby’s – www.sothebys.com

Phillips – www.phillips-auctions.com

Bonhams – www.bonhams.com

Provenance

(Meaning “Place of origin; derivation. The history of the ownership of an object, especially when documented or authenticated. Used of artworks, antiques, and books”).

Provenance is especially useful for determining a genuinely old item from a recent creation, fake or reproduction, as well as proving or disproving its past ownership. Although many methods of testing provenance exist, the easiest and probably also the cheapest way is by asking your seller. So on Antiques Roadshow, experts will ask visitors how they obtained an item – as an heirloom, from an auction, did they obtain it as a child – and the better and more believable the answer, the more accurate its provenance will be.

“Provenance” derives from the French “provenir”, meaning “to come from”, and it’s very often documents or photographs that prove whatever tales are told about an item’s history. So, for example, an item accompanied by a photograph showing Harry Houdini using the magician’s equipment you are listing on eBay, proves your item may once have belonged to Houdini.

As such, an item worth £1,000 without proof of past famous ownership, might be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds with that photograph accompanying it on eBay. Other ways to help prove provenance include:

– Study original receipts for the item and including a buyer’s name, not necessarily the first person to own the item.

– Look at notes or letters, gift cards or thank you notes relating to the object or placing it in a specific location. As an example, something showing a painting hanging in a royal residence lends truth to stories the item once belonged to Queen Victoria. Or maybe not, as you’ll read about soon.

– Look for an image of the item in books or online.

Try doing a search on Google “Images”, and if you find Catherine Cookson sitting beside the model of a Poodle dog, then it’s probably safe to say the label claiming it came from the sale of her goods is genuine. At least that very photograph from Google “Images” is how I will prove my Poodle dog with label once belonged to Dame Catherine! The catalogue and my receipt from the sale of her goods will also help prove my Poodle’s provenance.

– Check for clues on the piece itself or from other items accompanying it. So, hypothetically, a piano with a doodle signed “Groucho Marx” suggests your seller may be correct in saying the item once belonged to the Marx Brothers.

– Other independent items that may stand as provenance include letters mentioning the item and signed by a famous past owner, photographs of that person using the item, newspapers from the area where that person lived, and so on.

But there is a problem here, for buyers at any rate, because provenance can be faked or contrived, in Houdini’s case where several similar items of magic equipment are known to exist, and the photograph has been obtained separately and does not relate to your particular item.

The chance of false “provenance” can keep prices low unless an expert can be found to authenticate the provenance itself. Having “provenance” and “authentication of provenance” increases credibility for your antique, and is worth obtaining for potentially very valuable items. And that’s another example of how using more than one of our four featured concepts is a good way to add value to your antiques.

In Rules for Valuing Antiques and Collectibles Like an Appraiser, Pamela Wiggins reveals how provenance fits in with other important means of valuing your antiques, such as authentication: “If an item has been in your family for many generations and you know the provenance, you can feel reasonably sure you’re dealing with an authentic antique. But if you purchase an item at a shady flea market, many times you’ll have to authenticate it before you can truly determine the value. Look for telltale signs of wear and age, along with discrepancies in marks and signatures. Subtle details can often provide clues to the true age of an object. Use black light testing as a place to start.”

Source

Authentication (meaning “To establish the authenticity of; prove genuine”)

When you’ve done your research and you’re reasonably certain your item is antique, and valuable, and you consider it lives up to claims made by past owners and sellers, it’s a good idea to get a second opinion from an expert in the field.

If you’ve done your own research and studied provenance, the expert is “authenticating” your opinion as well as what others say about your antique. Most importantly, he or she will determine whether what you think is a genuine old piece with an interesting history is genuine or a fake.

If you have no idea at all what your item is or when it was made, most experts can research, identify and authenticate items for you, as for example where you pick up a decorative vase at a boot sale, it has no marks or accompanying material and the seller says it once belonged to King Henry VIII. So you take it to an expert valuer in some swanky international auction house, where that person researches and identifies it, and authenticates what the seller said about its age and suggested past owner. Or dismisses it as a recent creation by an inveterate liar and cheat!

For another example, imagine someone sells you a letter saying it’s hand signed by Lord Nelson, but an expert in identifying – authenticating – signatures and using black light testing to establish the age of paper items, says the signature is very convincing, but it must be a forgery because the paper on which the letter is written is less than 10 years old.

Authentication is usually given in a letter or certificate from an acknowledged expert who testifies to specific features of your antique, such as origin and age, belonging to famous past owner, condition, and so on. As such, showing an image of your expert’s authentication certificate alongside the product on eBay is a good way to increase its perceived value.

BUT – and there has to be a but doesn’t there? – like provenance, an expert’s opinion can be unreliable, as for example where the expert named on the certificate has since been discredited, or maybe he never existed, or he is dead and his assessment can not be confirmed. That suggests you should not rely too heavily on authentication provided by sellers, you should always contact experts yourself to confirm or deny past assessments, real or fictitious.

Authentication takes many very different forms, usually depending on the material from which the antique was made, and a wealth of knowledge and accessories have been developed to help even novices identify valuable antiques from recent fake and reproduction items. Tests to authenticate antiques include:

– the radiocarbon C14 test can be used on many different materials including wood, cloth, bone, shell.

– thermoluminescence testing is performed on objects containing clay, and sometimes stone, porcelain and bronze.that has been heated to over 500 degrees Celsius. This may include stone, porcelain or bronze objects.

Read more here

Appraisal (meaning “An expert or official valuation, as for taxation”)

Sometimes items are valued as part of the authentication process, and vice versa, but not always. The reason they’re sometimes separate procedures is because it takes a great deal more knowledge and expertise to authenticate an item beyond all doubt, compared to guessing its likely value.

For obvious reasons, authentication is an exact task, the answer has to be “Yes it is a genuine painting by Van Gogh”, or “No it’s not by Van Gogh, it looks more like a recent fake”. The answer can never be “Maybe it’s by Van Gogh, or maybe it’s a recent fake.”

Value however is an opinion, it varies between individuals (buyers, sellers, insurers remember), and a wide fluctuation in lower and upper values is acceptable for most buying, selling, and insurance purposes. So unlike authentication which must be spot on, your expert’s appraisal certificate can say “Worth between £10,000 and £20,000”.

And that’s why you won’t encounter experts in every town who are able to authenticate rare and unusual antiques, but you will find countless “expert valuers” at all flea markets and car boot sales, and in every high street auction room.

So it follows, if accurate authentication and close appraisal are essential to your eBay listing – as they always should be – you should hire the most experienced and knowledgeable individuals for the job. One of the best ways to do that is by taking your antiques to valuation days held by experts of major auction houses like Christie’s and Bonhams, Phillips and Sotheby’s. These people spend their entire working lives focusing on one or a handful of different antiques, they know what they’re talking about, and they have reputations to uphold. They rarely get it wrong, and they’ll usually get second opinions from colleagues before committing their opinions to paper!

IMPORTANT: Always check, before experts start work, that they’re doing it free of charge!

Either contact those experts direct from their Internet sites, or look in the antiques and auction columns of local newspapers for information about forthcoming valuation days in your local area.

Most important of all – yes, I do know I’ve said it many times before – DO NOT GET STALLHOLDERS AT ANTIQUES FAIRS or high street dealers to appraise – value – your antiques. That doesn’t mean they won’t give a completely accurate assessment of value; it usually means the value they give will be the price they want to pay for it, and that price will be way below what you could get for the item on eBay.

Tips for Researching, Confirming Provenance, Authenticating and Appraising Your Antique Finds

Remember the four steps we’re talking about can be carried out separately or together, also you can attempt all or any yourself or have experts do everything for you.

The main point is to spend as much time as possible, also as little money and effort, to turn items you buy for pennies at boot sales and flea markets, into hugely profitable antiques on eBay.

These tips will help:

• Take a hand-held computer to all your buying expeditions. This way you’ll be able to research, prove provenance, and even have your finds authenticated and appraised before paying for them. That’s because there are several Internet sites where, for a small fee, highly experienced professionals in all types of antiques will do everything from identifying to appraising your item and give you a certificate to download. Try the one mentioned earlier for starters, you’ll find it at: www.valuemystuffnow.com

• Treat yourself to a Kindle, it’s an eBook reader from Amazon, and similar to other brand name makes. Load it with antique research tools and price guides. This way you can do all your own research, possibly appraisal too, and stop expert valuers eating into your profits. But you should never take risks, and if you’re in any doubt at all about the age or provenance or value of your item, an expert is the best person to consult.

• If you see something interesting at a flea market or boot sale, or you’re visiting someone wanting to sell their antique, and you’re unsure of its value, make an excuse such as “Oops. I’ve just remembered I need to phone home and I’ve left my phone in the car. Do excuse me while I go get it.” Then rush out and value the item on your mobile phone or computer and work out its resell value on eBay. Then go make an offer that leaves lots of profit for you!

• Know and learn how to tell if an item is old and valuable, or a forgery and worth very little. Experience is the best way to learn, until then a selection of tools will provide very accurate results. A technique called “black light testing” helps detect cracks and repairs in porcelain, which are unnoticeable to the naked eye, as well as identifying new paint from old, and will help date paper items such as postcards and posters. For more information about black light testing go to:

http://antiques.about.com/od/resourcesforbeginners/tp/aa122205.htm

• All products, including antiques, are only worth what someone else is prepared to pay for them. So if you are the only person in the world who wants the item, you’re not going to sell it any time soon, and it may never return a profit on the price you paid for it at last week’s jumble sale.

As Daryle Lambert says in his book 31 Steps to Your Millions in Antiques & Collectibles: “Anyone who’s watched Antiques Roadshow can tell you it’s tricky to assess an antique’s investment potential. Of course, you’ll want something you can appreciate and enjoy, just make sure others appreciate and enjoy it too. Otherwise, there will be no demand for the item when it comes time to sell.”

Lambert’s book is an eye-opener, both showing what antiques to avoid buying for profit, and which to focus on. Find it by keying the title into the search box on Amazon, or visit the author’s own website at: http://www.darylelambertandson.com

• Value of all items, especially antiques, vary with trends and rarity, and most uncommon items rise in value over time. So it follows one of the best ways to increase its value is to hang on to your antique, for years if you can, and consider it an alternative investment. Otherwise, buy antiques while prices are low and sell when prices peak. You’ll learn more about how to do this by studying major auction companies’ websites, and studying past catalogues for specific categories of antique. As before, the best are: Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Bonhams.

• Despite what’s just been said, age does not always determine rarity or value. Witness, for example, fossils and antiquities dating back millions of years and worth very little in monetary terms. So don’t buy items just because they are old, always research their potential value first, on eBay for example, using the “Advanced Search” option. That’s another time a hand-held computer is a good companion at boot sales and flea markets.

• Most high class antiques are marked by their maker or bear an artist’s signature. But just because an item is not marked, that does not make it a fake! When you’re not sure, try a Google Image search to see if any similar items exist with maker or manufacturer marks, or if its lack of marks makes your item worth more than its marked counterparts.

• Sometimes specific makers or eras add value to an otherwise quite commonplace item, such as honeypots by Clarice Cliff compared to those from much earlier times but without iconic creator; vases and tableware from the Art Deco or Art Nouveau periods; items made by Mintons or Tiffany compared to smarter and potentially better quality creations without famous maker.

• Is there something about your antique that sets it apart from similar items of the same age and from the same maker, and which may make your item more attractive to bidders and fetch a record price at auction? Such as a design fault, for example, or a famous past owner’s name engraved on the base?

• Find out what similar items are fetching on the market today. If you’re selling it on eBay, eBay’s Advanced Search facility will help you check prices fetched recently at the site. But if you suspect your item is worth tens of thousands of pounds, you should not rely on that eBay search alone, the best course is always to have independent experts research and value your item. Once again, experts in those big name auction houses are the best place to turn.

• Never assume an item is worthless just because no one bids against you for it at auction. That’s because most offline auctions attract 100 visitors at most on sale day, usually less, compared to eBay where you have millions of people turning up each day to bid. So just because no one bids against you locally for airline sick bags that cost you 10 pence apiece at auction – no, they’re not antiques but they can be big price earners – that doesn’t mean you won’t find two or more people on eBay who want your sick bags and are prepared to bid high. The message here is to look for really unusual items locally, and attracting little interest, but which have at least two or more eager bidders on eBay and potentially very high resale values.

As for airline sick bags, for example, well they don’t fetch a fortune, at least not for modern day bags from the world’s most popular airlines. So you’ll find most sick bags from such as Virgin, BA, Spanair and WebJet fetch just £2 or £3 apiece (a Spanair example fetched £8 recently), but older bags from now defunct airlines (try Concorde) often fetch double-figure prices.

But think about it for a second, and next time you fly, try picking up 10 or 20 sick bags, hang onto them a year or two, then sell them on eBay to fund your next flight abroad!

• Some hand-made or hand-finished antique items are highly prized and fetch record prices on eBay, purely because they are unique and no two items will ever look the same. As an example, a Valentine’s Day gift produced from used shell casing by a soldier in the trenches during the First World War, called “trench art”, went for £3,000 recently at auction in Northumberland, compared to a pre-sale estimate of just £50. How much that item might fetch on eBay with millions of potential bidders, compared to just two people wanting it locally, is anyone’s guess.

by Avril Harper eBay Trading Expert Avril Harper is the editor of eBay Confidential and helps new and expert eBay traders find ways to increase their eBay profits. You can sign up for her free weekly eletter here: Recent Articles by Avril Name Email

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