Today’s question is “What’s my antique buffet worth?”
The answer: Not nearly as much as it used to be.
We liquidated an estate and cleared out a home in Phoenix, Maryland recently that had a lot of nice antiques sitting around. Some of them had been in the family for many generations. One piece in particular — a Hepplewhite-style buffet by Statton Furniture — looked like a great piece of eye candy. We had to brace our client, however, for the fact that his antique buffet worth was minimal. The same is true for antique sideboards, servers, and other antiques.
What the vintage to antique buffet sold for at auction
We transported the antique as part of our estate liquidation and home cleanout service. We sell the best stuff at auction and to specialty dealers. Then we take donations to charities and haul away the trash.
The buffet sold at auction for $150. Keep in mind hammer prices at auction are the prices before auction houses deduct their commissions. Such commissions can range from 30 percent to 50 percent depending on the auction house and a myriad of factors that it uses to set its rates for a consignment project.
The $150 sales price may not sound like much, but the sale could have gone much worse for our client if we hadn’t used a reputable auction house. One antique buffet sold on Etsy recently for a whopping .20. Yes, twenty cents. Orion’s Attic only works with the best auction houses in the Mid-Atlantic region and throughout the country. You’re not going to see us selling our clients’ items for twenty cents on Etsy or Facebook Marketplace. (Selling on Facebook Marketplace can be a bad idea for a lot of reasons.)
Why it was ok that the antique buffet didn’t sell for much
Our client recognized that the value Orion’s Attic provided was getting his house empty so he could sell it and make the real money. Smart people today don’t waste time and energy on estate sales. They recognize the real value of their home or one they’ve inherited is in the house — not the contents. We cleared his entire home in less than two work days and enabled him to move on with selling it for more than $600,000.
Added bonuses? We took away a mountain of stress and sold enough of his antiques, jewelry and collectibles to cover two-thirds of the entire cost of liquidating the estate and cleaning out the home.
Got some great stuff including higher-end antiques, jewelry and collectibles that you would like to sell?
Contact us today! We’re an estate liquidation and home cleanout company in Silver Spring, Maryland. We serve all of Montgomery County and the greater Washington, D.C./Maryland/Northern Virginia region.
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Learn more about selling all kinds of collectibles in Sell Us Your Stuff.
Learn more about liquidating entire estates in our Estate Liquidation and Downsizing Guide.
