Too much clutter hurts mental health. With indoor living nowadays thanks in no small part to the Coronavirus Pandemic, you ought to think about selling all the old stuff collecting dust in your closet. You have many options that will make you some cash and bring clarity and minimalism to your life. Some of the antiques are worth a small fortune, so seek the chances of selling them online or offline. For informal evaluation of the item, Google and eBay are tops. If the antique consists of a painting or work of art, Sotheby’s or Christie’s are willing to lend their services to the eager seller. There are itinerary databases available on the World Wide Web. Get an analysis of the antique item before you sell it to know how much it is worth.
There are newcomers to the field. Then there are the old hands who know all about auctioning off dusty and rusty goods from ancient days. The former can learn tons of stuff from the latter. Expert advice can come from someone who is already adept at the game. Among the different prices you can set for your stale gramophone or cracked painting are:
- Retail Price
- Wholesale Price
- Fair Cash Nexus Price
- Insured Price
- Tax Price
- Auction Block Price
There are two prices in the minds of the buyer and seller. They may not be the same. Then comes the price listed in the official guide. What the item sells for is an altogether different matter. So you have to consider all these points. In Australia as elsewhere, the evaluation of the product depends upon a couple of things. One of them is supply and demand. Then comes the relative state of the antique. Finally, we have its origins, scarcity in the world and beauty. An example would be antique glass items. For these, you would need to look into the following categories:
- Hue
- Date of Manufacture
- Avoiding Fake Facsimiles
- The Intricacies of the Item
Some of the Aussie guide books you could consult in this regard are listed below:
- The Alan Carter Price Guide to Antiques and Collectables
- Carter’s Price Guide to Antiques in Australasia
- Carter’s Everything Vintage
There are online auction sites, and then there are actual offline auction houses. eBay is a good site where you can search to your heart’s content. Also, a search engine such as Google or Altavista is ideal for the purpose. There are even online valuation websites that open up a treasure trove of information for the curious user. An appraisal may come in handy for which you will have to cough up two to four hundred bucks. You can also go to a store or dealer to exchange the item for some cold hard cash.
There are so many sites on the Net that offer advice to help you make the desired deal. These include:
- Kovels
- WorthPoint
- Barnebys
- MetArt
- ValueMyStuff
Never forget that your antique is only worth as much as the buyer is willing to shell out for it. No matter how old or precious, if it has little to no value in the eyes of the buying public, it remains just that – a useless burden.