Need advice: where can I sell old brass ornaments?

nu1isit?

Hello I just need a bit of advice please (if anyone can help)...I have some old brass ornaments to sell, but when I researched ebay, they went for very little (excluding p&p); when I've sold other nick nacks at car boot sales, people seem reluctant to pay over a pound :eek: never mind anything else...
So can anyone give me any ideas/advice please, I don't want to practically give them away! I'm trying to raise some extra money for 'pocket money' for our wedding.

Oh - I also have some old slate 'pictures' where's best to sell these?

Thanks to all those who can help me!

soolin

I think you might be stuck, brass is no longer anywhere near as popular as it was. If prices at car boots and ebay are low that rather shows the market is dead. The last few bits and bobs I listed at 99p did not sell at all, all I have managed to sell in the past 2-3 years have been brass bells which do still seem popular for some reason, although still going for less than £5 including post and packing.

I hesitate to suggest a normal auction as the fees will be huge and actually that's where i bought my last lot, approx £5 for a box of 11 pieces, of that the seller probably got around £2.50.

Floxxie

I sold an old Victorian collection on eBay last year and it went to a Canadian for £11. I was really disappointed but at least they made some money which they weren't doing in my loft.

If you have any that have a theme e.g. Charles Dickens characters, it might be worth putting them together and using his name in the description - there are 'fans' that collect anything related to him. Assume the same probably applies to those who like horses, dogs etc.

Floxxie

scbk

Is there much weight in them? Scrap brass is worth quite a bit

jasmineswhiskers

It also depends what they are. I sold some brass candle wall sconces which went for a fair amount.

rosekitten

it depends on what they are I sold
a poodle and a frog £5 each
the unusual & querky ones still sell
why not list them all seperatly
starting at 99p each next time there
is a 5p listing day.

bing0

Talking of brass,a friend purchased several horse brasses from Wimborne Market a year or two ago.He paid £10.00 for the lot (which seemed quite high at the time).Anyhow to cut a long story short,he ended up selling them for £1800,00 in total.Yes they were rare,but until he told me what the high end of brass sold for,I honestly had no idea at all.

Basically do not disregard anything until you have researched it.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Fair point. Most horse brasses are only worth about 50p-£1 each these days. Similarly with other brassware, most examples are worth very little but there are a few exceptions. Soolin's experience of prices at an auction room is similar to my local auctioneers: brass ornaments tend to sell in lots of several pieces for not much money and fees are high. However if you do have any rare and valuable pieces they could go well at an auction where buyers can view and handle the items, which is better than looking at photos on eBay. Most auction houses will offer a free no-obligation verbal estimate of auction value, so you could ask their opinion then decide where to go from there.
If you have no particularly valuable pieces, my advice would be if you're not short of storage space, keep them until prices pick up again.

soolin

I just thought of another sort of brass that I've seen do well at auction, brass door knockers in fancy shapes.

My local auctioneer sold 4 door knockers, I remember one of them was a lion's head and one a fox's head and they went for £14 if I remember correctly.

nu1isit?

Thanks to everyone who has contributed already..I'm going to: research the pieces and talk to an auction house. I'm going to see if I can find out about the scrap metal merchants...
:D:D:j:D:D:D