Advice for Antique Chinese Trade Boxes

Hello All,

I'm new here and have a couple antique Chinese trade boxes I'd like to get appraised and potentially sell to a collector.

How does one best navigate the antique landscape to get an idea of value?

Thanks in advance.

C

 

Welcome Capita. What are the dimensions of the boxes? Is there any writing on them? You might want to take pictures from different angles and perhaps the inside.

When you post pictures, be sure to click "Insert" & "Full Image" so they don't show up as thumbnails.

 

start by comparing them...or matching them , to what you see here...

you'll notice that your pics are already up on the google site...
antique chinese trade boxes

 

Thanks for the reply and suggestion about uploads. Much appreciated. The dimensions are:

L30" x H7" x W10"

 

Hello, Capita. What is it about your boxes that tell you they are Chinese Trade Boxes?

 

Welcome, @Capita.
The first step is making sure your objects are correctly identified. That is often what we can help with here. The next step is to look for comparisons - similar objects that have been sold in the past. The internet has made this task much easier than it used to be. There are several websites with records of auction results that you can search for comparisons. Some require you to sign up (for free), while others require a subscription. Ebay is often a good starting point, if you look at completed sales. Here are a couple of other sites:

https://www.invaluable.com/
https://www.icollector.com/
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/auction-results

You can also search for similar items currently for sale - but you need to remember that these will be asking prices that may not be realized. Records of things that have actually sold will be more useful.

It is very important that you compare apples to apples - the closest objects in terms of age, condition, and other factors.

 

Thanks for the note. They were listed as such at the antique store I bought them at several years back so just going on incomplete data as of now.