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Valuing Collectibles

What Is It Worth?

When you are buying and selling or insuring collectibles, you need to know "What it's worth?"

The only way to find out is by research.

There are Collectibles Price Guides for anything worth collecting. But they are only snapshots of values at the time of their printing.They do come in handy for rarer items that tend to trade less.

Better are Collectibles Magazines mainly because they are published more frequently, usually monthly.

Best is to try to find prices for your items online. For some collectibles, this is relatively easy. For others, it is harder.

Check sites and find those that sell the same or very similar items to what you are interested in. Most of those prices will be retail, which means they include a markup you will not receive if you are selling.

Some sites, like PCGS, for coins, contain up-to-date prices guides free for all to use.

You can also go to eBay and type what you're looking for in the search box.

You will find the items on auction as well as for direct sale.

Scroll down the page until you see the 'Completed Items' option on the left.

Check that box and click on 'Show Items' to search actual sales and completed auctions. This will give you an idea of what your item is worth.

If there is a wide range of prices, check the shipping charges. Some sellers will sell low but have inflated shipping charges, which you'll have to take that into consideration.

Remember eBay is for bargain hunters and not all sellers, especially at auction know what they are doing. This might drag down the values, at least temporarily.

But if you do enough research you will get a good idea of the value of any given item - and it might be less than you think.

For rarer and more expensive items, the only way you might be able to determine value is by using a professional appraiser.

Logically enough, many appraisers are also dealers. There might be a conflict of interest if you are planning on buying or selling from the appraiser.

Appraisals can cost money - some dealers will do them for free. Also some appraisers will inflate values if you are going to insure your piece, so take insurance appraisals with a grain of salt.

Before picking an appraiser out of a phone book, see if you can get recommendations from libraries, local colleges, art galleries or collector's clubs.

Finally, if all else fails, check out some local dealers and see if they can recommend an appraiser or if they have a similar item to yours for sale.

Collectibles on eBay

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