Assessing Value in the Antiques Game

I have to laugh when a so-called "expert" (also known as some people who write a story or two about the antiques market after interviewing three people who hosted yard sales) writes a column or posts an online blog and lists which items are "hot" right now. They rarely get it right and the list is yet another misguided attempt to compile that single, comprehensive list of what is worth keeping. These lists are bogus.

Here's why: 

First of all, most people know what is valuable to them. But most people don’t know what’s valuable to other people. For instance, if someone is trying to get rid of an old pool table that has become obsolete, they have a hard time realizing that someone else would want that pool table. Once you have no use for an object, you figure no one else has use for it either. That’s why people ask me, “Who would want my old object?” That’s where human nature gets in the way. It’s this attitude that loses you money. Big money.

People call my office or email me and ask this question over and over again: "I have a (insert any antique object here), does it have any value?" My answer is always that everything has value.

The real questions are how much value does it have? How does that dollar value relate to you? For instance, some of the richest people in the world, like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, probably wouldn't think that a couple of aging Barbie dolls worth $150 each are valuable. If you are not Mr. Gates and are, instead, an unemployed lion tamer who found these dolls in their original boxes in your neighbor's trash, it would probably be more valuable to you. Do you get it? Value is relative. Some people will bother going after $150 by selling those valuable Barbies and other people won't.

Here is the real deal when it comes to making your list of valuables: Experts know that the collectibles market is not about trends, it's about quality objects and historical or cultural interest.

If you are banking on making money on a trend, you are dealing in the collectibles market in the same way a gambler would play the roulette table. Trends are a crap shoot, a lottery ticket, a slim chance at a big win. Trends are those flash-in-the-pan items that never hold their value very long – like the Pet Rock or Beanie Babies. Those items had some interest at one time, made some money for the manufacturers and the marketers, but they say nothing about culture, history, or what’s of interest to contemporary society. The objects that relate to history are those with real value and have staying power in the marketplace. 

When it comes to collecting, you want to acquire objects that say something about our society, the period in which it was made, or a technological innovation.