Comments on: Rinker on Collectibles: Advice on Selling a Collection

By: kathyt

kathyt — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:49:13 +0000

My final advice is perhaps the hardest to accept. Be happy with what the collection brings. Any money is better than no money. The collector’s response is almost always the same. “I will die with it before I sell it for less than it is worth.”

This last paragraph is bang on. Once I let go of my feelings towards my collectable I found it much easier to sell. Did I get top dollar. No. However, what I did receive was better than nothing and in the end a much less clutter home.

By: Bill Overholt

Bill Overholt — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:41:42 +0000

I agree with Terry. I ha ve had many people come to me to sell their 1960s+ collectibles on ebay. When I do some research for them I invariably find that their collect is not worth what they paid for it – whether it be beanie babies, Christmas Plates, Franklin Mint junk, or other “instant” collections. They had been sold a bill of goods.

True antiques will vary in time, but will never be worthless. Right now, sewing machines, ca1900 china, including Royal Doulton and Haviland, are at historic lows. They may return.

On the other hand, I have three kids who have NO interest in antiques at all, perhaps with the exception of primitives.

By: Terry Mangum

Terry Mangum — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:20:18 +0000

Harry you have once again hit the nail squarely on the head. As an auction gallery owner and auctioneer, almost daily, I see or talk to people who have collections to sell and their jaws drop when I tell them what the real value is for the items they have preciously collected for so many years.
Some swallow hard and move forward, but a lot mumble something like, “I’ll just wait for the market to come back!”
When I suggest that the market may never come back or that we are only half way down the hill of declining values, they look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.
Paul Simon, in the song The Boxer, wrote ” A man hears what he want’s to hear and disregards the rest.” I think a lot of collectors fall in to mind set too.

By: Bill Overholt

Bill Overholt — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:53:15 +0000

I sell old tool in a small niche market on ebay. I buy them at highly specialized auctions (Martin Donnelly, Browns, Spicers). I have talked with Martin, and we feel like intermediaries between the widows of tool collectors and the next generation. Lots at these auctions vary from $20 to $40,000, and in lots of a single tool to lots with 10-20 tools. The more expensive and rare items are almost always sold singly.

Now it may be that the bidders are a more or less a homogeneous group, which certainly changes the auction action – even though there are bidders who are interestede in only wooden planes (like me), level, Stanley tools, measuring devices, etc.

My point is that many whole collections are sold though these auctions, and large collections are usually spread across several.

These are mosatly antiques, and not “20th century collectibles.” Perhaps that makes a difference as well.