Featured Storage Full of Glass

Hey guys,

This community has been helpful to me in the past for getting rid of stuff. I was hoping to get some advice. So trying to keep this short, I have shelves upon shelves full of glass. This is because I have inherited the glass collection from my mother and grandmothers on both sides of the family.

I also have various other stuff such as some silver sets, silverware sets and the like. Having that said, there is a lot more glass than anything. So I wanted to start going through this stuff and I am looking for some advice on how I may go about this? For instance, should I just look for stamps on stuff and look it up on eBay? Should I try to post pictures of stuff here? Should I try to get it all together and take it somewhere for appraisal?

Most of my stuff was not in the best condition because of how it was stored but the glass should be in much better shape. A lot of it is in plastic bags or wrapped in newspaper and stored in boxes or plastic containers. I would like to keep some of the stuff but I would like to reduce it down from what it is now.

I am scared I will get this stuff out and have it all over the place and not have any clue what to do with it.

 

Maybe post a few pics of some groups of glass,and then if we see some things of interests you can take pics of those ?

 

I agree with Johnny.

Make sure you number them in some way so when someone ID's one they can refer to it as #1 - 2- 3- etc.

For instance, you could put a piece of paper in front of each one with the number & the measurements.

Also, do not forget to show us a close-up shot of any marks.

Start with maybe 8 to 10 pieces & see how that goes.

You may have to do some research on your own once you know who made the piece. You will also need a plan as to what you are going to do with the stuff once it is ID'd. For instance, are you going to sell the stuff yourself or take are you going to take it to someone such as a consignment shop or auction?

If you are going to take it somewhere to be sold designate an area for boxes to be filled with the stuff as it is ID'd. If you just keep setting the stuff back on the shelves or wherever it came from it will just make you do more work.

 

It depends on how much work you want to put into it. If you sort through to keep a few things and then just want to be rid of the rest: auction, garage sale, call in a dealer is your best bet. If you want to maximize value, that means photographing the pieces, properly identifying them, and listing them through some venue as individual sales.

 

Thanks for the replies. I will start out with a small combination of what you guys said. Like taking out a dozen or so items, taking pictures of them and seeing how I feel about doing that with all of it.

Do you guys have any advice for a better place to sell than maybe eBay for stuff like this?

 

Fox-Be ready to take more pics.The more info our Glassies have the more accurate your appraisals will be. Not that we do appraisals-we attempt identification-you research values.
PS-We've all been trying to avoid Ebay for years,they're the monster (& monstrous) Amazon of online auctions-good luck.

 

Yep, I know about eBay and Amazon all too well. Amazon treats their sellers especially like garbage. I have been using them to sell various things that I have picked up that I knew would sell well. They constantly misplace my items, sort my items into wrong listings and not to mention they take a huge majority of the profits. I know eBay has increased a lot of their fees over the years as well.

 

Hopefully Ebay will make less mistakes than Amazon.As far as fees go,I guess you've gotta 'pay to play'.
Members here have been trying to outwit Ebay for years,it's just as far as 'eyes on'-nobody can touch 'em.

 

If it’s really an overwhelming amount of stuff then getting a dealer to look at it where it sits would be the best bet probably. I thought of a creative solution for finding an applicable dealer in your area if you can’t find one via conventional methods. You could search eBay for antique glass using a filter that will give you only results within a close proximity to your home/storage. You could then see if there’s a seller with lots of listings whose listings look particularly knowledgeable. You could then send them a message and ask if they’d be interested in appraising and/or selling your collection for you. You have to get sneaky/careful about sharing contact info on eBay but it can be done. In the long run it would be good for them (ebay) if that dealer ended up selling your collection on ebay so I would not feel wrong about starting the dialogue on ebay even if against their policies technically. Just an idea. Good luck.

 

Photo'ing and ID suggestions already given are great.

Another suggestion for organizing - it's helpful to know which pieces of the same pattern you have- since that can drive selling them in sets and also to decide on which patterns to spend your time researching. If it was me I would get a bunch of bubble bags (they are cheap in bulk) and unpack them and get rid of the newspaper and sort them into groups and keep them together in plastic storage crates (Costco has some really nice large stackable ones with hinged tops for $8 or so).

It will cost a bit for supplies but it can help make the task more approachable. Once you know what you have, you can approach or advertise for possible buyers more easily.