Featured 4 Myths the General Public Believes about Antiques

Oh yeah! You do sometimes get fantastically lucky.

I bought a little, Georgian-silver Vinaigrette for about 1/4 the going-rate, because the guy who sold it me, thought it was a vesta-case. By the time a friend of his told him what it was, I'd paid-up and gone!

 

I once bought a Victorian ceiling lamp for a a fifth, maybe tenth of the price they go for, because the seller thought it was newer based on the wiring. Really it had just been electrified later.

 

# 17. The items were collected by wealthy folks who traveled the world , so they must be old, top quality , & expensive !

More often than not....they are just higher end tourist items !



But....as in everything else , there are always exceptions....

 

That second lot looks like a whoopsie. I recently bought two junk lots of jewelry or one "junk" and one "box". The junk had a long string of salmon coral beads smack in the middle of the photo, and the box of costume had a 14k chain that should scrap out for about $150. The seller thought the resin pendant meant the chain was junk too. Actually I haven't checked it yet, but it sure feels right.

 

Are we at myth #18?

Overpriced items with a "provenance", usually involving an item alledgedly owned by someone famous, and a relative's ancestor's maid who was given the item back in the day. It's often a precious heirloom, but now for sale due to spring cleaning or something.

Of course there are items with a real provenance and story too.

 

I SO agree with 4).
I restore many items most of which have already been messed with by people who didn't have clue.
I do it sympathetically and only use antiques materials.
I love to think that what I do means the items will go on for another 100 years or whatever.....
I'm very hard on myself if I think I haven't got it just right.

 

#19 When people think restoring equals a total, often unnecessary makeover.

 

The golden rule is to retain as much of the original as possible....
It never fails to disappoint me when I see something that has cannibalised
and hardly anything left of how it started life.

 

Add to that, "I bought this at an estate sale, the lady was 95 when she died, so it has to be old!"

Nope, sorry, even grandmas shop at Pier One and Chico's

 

Whoopsie = 18th & 19th Century Ashanti ( Akan peoples) gold weights.

 

I skipped over a few.....

 

I like restoring items. But you do have to be VERY careful with this stuff. Some items are just NOT possible to restore. And if you screw it up you really CAN destroy its value or desirability forever.

I remember my dad took his lawnmower in to get it overhauled. There was this great sign hanging on the wall next to the shop-counter:

LAWNMOWER SERVICING

$50 an HOUR

If you drop it off.

$75 an HOUR

If you need it done fast.

$100 an HOUR

If you worked on it before we did.

 

Now that's a whoopsie. They looked familiar; I hope you got the benefit of finding those little "brass" figures.

 

Just so there is no misunderstanding here, which could lead to another myth, gold weights actually are made from brass. They're called "gold weights" only because they were used to measure the weight of gold. The value is in the authenticity, age, and workmanship, not the material they are made from.

 

Good point !
Evelyb got that too.....but still worth mentioning !
& yes...the weights..& box are both mine.

( btw...if they were solid gold....I'd be paying all you guys a visit.....in a Limo !!!)

 

That happened to me a lot when I had a shop. I could never understand why some people expected me to pay them the price I had on a similar object.

 

So often there is a central focus on value, and this has a way of limiting what's most important - just what exactly is the item and what is it's place in history, instead of competing appraisals in different markets. A popular clock forum has a wonderful rule - value is not discussed. . . dialogue stays on the object.

 

Wise advice, thanks.

 

This is so true. It's frustrating when "value", that is just a current market price is used to measure how interesting or important an item can be. A lot of really expensive items are special and interesting, but that doesn't mean a $50-150 clock is "just some clock" that can't be rewieved with interest and dignity.

 

I love it when people come in with an item an say they know it's valuable because they seen the similar item in a 20 year old Antique Book or "Funny Books" as I call them.