What is it worth?

How much is this worth?

As an antique dealer--this is probably the question that I get asked the most--mainly by people who are not in the business. Friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, neighbors--at some point in our lives almost everyone is given or inherits an item and wants to know how much it is worth.
This is probably the most difficult question to answer--worth to whom?

What is it worth to the family who inherited Grandma’s rolling pin? The same one she used to roll out her beloved Christmas cookies each year? To the family it is priceless. To sell a 1930s wooden rolling pin in a antique mall--maybe 15 bucks--if it does not have old dried up hunks of cookie dough adhered to it.

What are my English flow blue plates worth? Ask me in 1990--and I would have said--send your kid to Yale on the selling proceeds. Today--depending on pattern and condition--you will be darn lucky to get 20 bucks each. Flow Blue is out of favor now.

How about my great Eastlake Victorian commode? Certainly this piece that was passed down through the family since its manufacture in 1880--CERTAINLY has to be worth alot. After all--its OLD. Victorian furniture was hot hot HOT in the 1980s--now today’s home making public wants sleek lines and not fussy--and it is out of favor. I have seen all wood Eastlake style dressers go at auction for 100 bucks. Tops.

Trust me--old doesn’t make it valuable. Condition in whatever you are looking at means everything. EVERYTHING. I once heard a rule of thumb--the more recent the item the better condition it has to be in. In an increasingly visual society--what people see adverts, television, movies and in magazines is key to what is currently in vogue. Believe it or not--when Martha Stewart shows it--it still sells.

Many times Husbola and I will be at an auction--and we are stunned at what an item brings--either very high or very low. So in the auction world--and item is worth what two people in the same room would pay for it. This can be fueled by poor auction attendance or whether it is an estate piece and family members are in hot pursuit.

When asked by someone--”What is this worth? I actually would like to run and hide. Your guess is as good and mine--and we are both frequently wrong.