Selling Antiques

pban

I have inherited some antique crockery, jewellery, english and foreign coins,postcards, a bookcase and other miscellaneous items. Could anyone advise me where I can sell them to obtain the best price. Auction houses seem to take a large percentage with no guarantee that the items will reach a fair price (I have no idea of their worth).

soolin

You could try Ebay but that might not be successful if you can't give a lot of info about what you are selling. Real auction houses are expensive but for some items they do at least sell.

Suzy_M

How much you can get depends on many factors not least how much work you want to put in -

No work - sell as a 'house clearance' lot but you won't get a great deal.

or - You could ask a dealer or auctioneer to visit to give you some idea of values but frankly dealers will value at the least they can get away with and auctioneers tend not to be interested in small domestic items.

Some work - divide in to smaller categorised lots and try auction house, classified ads or sell on eBay.

Most work - research everything you've got using internet, library etc. Check out Miller Guides for a rough idea of value, completed sales on eBay, specialist guides for postcards, coins etc.

We've done the latter but I am interested in domestic and social history etc. so to me its probably more of a hobby - albeit a lucrative one. But it is very time consuming and it would depend on what value you put on your time.

Oh and before you let the postcards go if any relatives are interested in family history do let them have copies of the messages - they can be a goldmine of information.