Buying Antiques

However, if you are shopping for antiques, it can be pretty confusing, especially if you haven’t been around antiques, or are just starting out with your passion for the old, wonderful pieces I love. It’s sometimes difficult to tell if a piece is really a legitimate antique, or just simply old, or a copy made to look antique. {I have come across a few that were so very good…that it took me a while to figure out why it just didn’t feel right to me!}

There are so many dealers out there wanting to sell you their next fabulous antique, and you need to know if you can really trust what they tell you, right? How do you know if they know what they are talking about? What should you buy? What shouldn’t you buy? There are a ton of questions, I hope that this will help you get closer to some of the answers.

Price Guides and Auction Catalogs can be helpful too, although the prices listed can’t take into account variables like condition, who sells a piece, and how popular the particular piece is in your part of the country, all those will have a big influence on price. Price guides are books filled with technical information on specific antiques, brief histories, references, short descriptions, photos, and average retail prices.

First, by law, an antique is at least 100 years old. I know that these days, most people in the business don’t hold strictly to that, I do. Vintage generally means anything and everything else that was not made this year. Although originally, the label of vintage was meant to be 50 years old. A collectible is just about anything that people collect {dolls, porcelain statues, silver teaspoons, cigar labels~ you get the idea.} Then there are vintage collectibles, which technically should be at least 50 years old, but again, these days most people don’t stick to that rule anymore.

Just like with anything else, the first thing I would suggest you do is some homework. I can’t recommend this enough, because once you have seen enough real antique pieces, you will know one when you see one. Spend time in antique shops, antique malls, auctions and museums. Talk with a few reputable dealers and collectors if you can find them, read up on some of the things that make your heart beat faster in magazines, books and online. I don’t really suggest you use ebay as a research place, unless you are certain that the dealer whose description you are reading actually knows what they are writing about. There are plenty of excellent, very knowledgeable dealers on ebay. But there are also plenty of people who sell things, and really don’t know if it’s real, fake or exactly what it is.

Price guides can be general or specialized, some cover a huge range of antiques, from armoires to porcelain figurines. Others specialize in one category: Victorian Silver, Pottery, or Glass, for instance. Price guides are updated each year, so be sure you read the latest editions. There are also many “online” price guides, Kovels is the one I recommend.

So once you have learned a few things, it’s a great idea to buy from a reputable dealer {meaning they have a good reputation} Most dealers I know will be happy to spend their time telling you about the items you are interested in. They will be able to tell you something about the item, the history, age, marks on the piece, how rare it is, and how to take care of it.

This is especially important if you are buying an extremely expensive piece, or buying it as an investment. I don’t deal in pieces like that normally, although I have sold some Victorian Sterling and extremely old and valuable Limoges sets that could certainly qualify as investments!

Despite my love for fleamarkets, I do have to let you know that this is where it’s a “buyer beware” situation. Many, many dealers at fleamarkets are honest, knowledgeable and extremely hard working dealers. Some, not so much. They buy, they sell, they stretch the truth a little. I once had a dealer I buy from sometimes try to convice me a piece of porcelain he wanted me to buy was antique Limoges. I said it wasn’t, and proved it by turning the piece over and pointing to the Made in China sticker! Does this mean you shouldn’t buy things at fleamarkets? Absolutely NOT! It all depends on why you want to buy. If you are buying things you love, you don’t really care about the provenance {who made it,where a piece has been, who has owned it before} you just like the way it looks {how we all buy for ourselves} then fleamarkets are the best. But if you are buying as an investment, please do your homework, and know what you are buying.

Antiques are fabulous. I love them! I can’t imagine living without at least one piece of something with the history, the quality and the stories attached to it that only something 100 years old has. As I’ve said before in interviews, all things old tell a story, and that is what I love about them. It is thrilling to wonder who owned this painting, or that tiara. These pieces were cherished by generations before us, I love to listen to the quiet stories they whisper.