Adventures in Antiquity

One might assume that placing value on a piece of antique furniture is fairly obvious; however, the only people who consistently understand the actually value of an antique are experienced antique dealers. They gain that experience because they also know when to buy a particular piece. They can instantly identify an 18th century chinoiserie secretary from a reproduction of the same antique secretary. An antique’s market value also takes more knowledge and experience than one might initial assume. How do they do it?

Antique valuation

Experienced antique dealers decide on the value of antique furniture based on some fairly simple criteria, and these measures for determining the value of an antique might seem so obvious that one might wonder why anyone would bother writing it down; however, considering how often antiques are overvalued or undervalued, I will take nothing for granted.

Identifying an antique’s value

• the age of the item
• its construction
• its market value

How to know what an antique is worth?

You'll need to do some homework. You must know what similar antique pieces have sold for recently. You must be able to identify the age of that piece. Age and construction are joined at the hip of any antique. The construction of the piece is one way to identify the age of a piece.

Why the market value of an antique matters

By all means, if you like a particular antique dinning–room table, you should buy it. Anyone who buys and sells antiques, however, must understand what its market value is. The buyer, for example, must know what period and style of antique chandelier or antique mirror which is currently popular with other dealers. Otherwise she could buy a beautiful Venetian Mirror, but she may have to hold onto that piece much longer than she planned. Even if the economy was booming, she'd be out of the antique business very soon.