Hidden Treasure?

Buy what you like…if you like it, chances are someone else will too. That’s the theory.  In the interest of making this blog a little more interactive, we’ll find out if it is true together.

A couple of weeks ago, I was checking out a local auction’s preview pictures and ran across this picture.

The Box Lot at auction.

As you can see, it is a very small picture of several box lots.  Fortunately, with this auction, you can click on the picture and see a slightly larger version.

A larger version of the Box Lot Picture.

Check out the red item in the upper-left corner.  It looked like a set of ruby glass scales to me.  Hmm, that was kind of interesting. I hadn’t seen a set of those in years.  But usually, if an item is special, it isn’t in a box lot….so the big question was “Is it actually worth anything?”

There were still a few days before auction, so I did some research.  I looked the item up on eBay, with the following results.

A scale that sold on eBay recently for $29.95

It wasn’t quite the scale I was looking at, so I went to the other pricing source I use, www.priceminer.com.  It is a membership-based pricing resource that I really appreciate.  The results in this case, however, weren’t all that helpful. But this set was fairly close, and had an eBay sold price of $46.00.

Priceminer Listed  Scale which sold for $46.00

So that at least gave me a starting point, though honestly I thought the one at auction was much prettier!

Still uncertain, I decided to twitter about the item, and discussed it with one of my good twitter buds, Linnetwoods.  Linnetwoods runs the twitterhood (Check it out!).  She really liked the description of the scale…and I did too.  So I decided to make a trip to the auction to see it in person.

Once I got to the auction, I nonchalantly took this picture and sent it to Twitter so Linnetwoods could see it.

Discrete photo of the scale at auction.

At this time I could see the other denizens of the box lot:  a ruby glass chicken on a nest and two Pyrex butter dishes.  Linnetwoods seemed to think the scale was a pretty item, and CarolD jumped in and agreed (twitter discussions can become multiperson very quickly) and I really liked it myself.  So I bid.

After some competition, I won the bid. Now, if this were just business, I wouldn’t mention here what I paid.  After all, I am going to put these items up for auction.  But we’re going to have some fun, so I’ll tell you I won the lot for $35+$3.50 buyer’s premium totalling $38.50.  Not all that far from what the other scale sold for on eBay.  However, that includes the chicken and the butter dishes, too.  As well as a funky crystal nut dish and an M&M camera.

The items that were in the box lot.

The items from this box lot went up for sale today on eBay. You know what I paid, and honestly, so will the buyer because they will have access to this blog.  Putting that aside, we have until Sunday (July 5^th, 2009) to see how it all goes.  And after Saturday, I will post to the blog what the results were. Below are pictures of the items. You can click on the pictures and it will take you to the eBay Listings.

This is part of what being an antique dealer feels like…pretend it is your time and money on the line.  Watch the auctions, and see if they do well.  Stay tuned and see if I found hidden treasures, or lost my shirt.  We can enjoy the experience together.

The Question is: “How do you know what it is?”

The most asked question I get is “How do you know what something is worth?”

That question leads to the “hours of research and years of study” answer. It’s kind of boring.

The question should be: “How do you know what it is?”

Now that’s a fun question, because sometimes we really have no idea…at all. I will frequently purchase something (if it is inexpensive enough) just because I don’t know what it is and want to research it more thoroughly.

Through recent conversations with other dealers, I have discovered that I am not the only one who does this. To a certain extent, the “Need to Know” seems to run fairly deep in the Antique Dealer species.

Sometimes, we don’t actually buy the unknown item on purpose. At auctions, for those of you who haven’t been, there are box lots. A box lot is literally a box of items. Before the auction, you have the opportunity to look at, and frequently pick up the items. Usually a box lot has one or two nice items and a good deal of stuff the auctioneer knew he couldn’t sell by itself. I bid on the good stuff, and have to take the funky stuff with the good.

Recently I purchased a box lot because it had a beautiful vintage bar pin in it. The pin was marked 14K gold and had a small diamond in the middle. For this reason, I purchased the box.

The Bar Pin which caused me to buy the lot.

I did not purchase it for the gold teeth (Ewwwwwww! Probably first on the list of worst things I’ve discovered in a box lot) nor did I purchase it for the small pins that were also in the box.

These are the pins I found in my box lot.

However, the small pins were intriguing. They were obviously old. One was sterling, the other some form of gold (plated, filled, or 10K but no markings). They were simple in design and very small, less than 1 inch long.

Side view of the pins

I put them aside, in the When-I-have-a-moment-to-research pile. A short while later, serendipity stepped in to give me an assist. I have a twitter buddy, aneD, who has a very nice store, Gardenartus Antiques –  http://www.rubylane.com/shops/gardenartusantiques. Occasionally, as we all do, she will post a link to an item in her store. As a good twitter buddy, I go check out the item and then usually spend more time than I should wandering online through her other items. One of the items she had online was a lingerie pin which, in form and in size, bore a striking resemblance to my little pins.

Gardenartus Antiques Lingerie Pin

It turns out these little pins were used in Victorian times to decorate/hold together a woman’s lingerie. Currently they sell very well as vintage Doll pins because they are of the right age and the right size to decorate a Victorian Doll. From now on, when I am looking at box lots, and small jewelry items at a sale, I will be looking for the lingerie pins, because now I know to do so.

This is how we know what to buy, and what things are…first, we study a lot and try to learn as much as we can; next, if we don’t know we may take the chance and buy the item, then we work hard and research the item…and sometimes, we just get lucky.

But, there is a lot of hard work behind that lucky.

If you want to play the “Mystery Item” Antique guessing game, Barbara Crews has a new item every Wednesday.  Her archive is here:  http://collectibles.about.com/od/quizzesforcollectors/tp/MysteryItems.htm