Videographer: Scott Shactman
Editor: Alison Harder

WorthPoint – Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Videographer: Scott J. Shactman
Editor: Sharon Levy

WorthPoint – Discover Your Hidden Wealth

WorthPoint – Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Videographer: Scott J.Shactman
Editor: Sharon Levy

The annual Fall antique show held at the Cape Porpoise, Maine Legion hall and sponsored by Glynnis & Sherman Thompson was another success and two Worthologist s including myself were set up on display.

Worthologist Kathy Tarr is pictured here with her impressive collection of hand painted and fine china. Here she holds a circa 1900 American Belleek hand painted and rare Dragon Tankard offered at $1995.00.
In the second picture, I am featured holding a rare 18th century tortoise shell English tea caddy box ,being offered for $2295.00.

The antique show saw a flurry of traffic on Columbus Day weekend Oct. 12-13 from all over the world ! We met people from Italy, Ireland ,England and Canada and all over the United States as well. Despite the volatile markets and times peoples attitudes seemed positive and upbeat.

The first day of the show was non stop with leaf peepers and tourist alike that gathered for the breath taking foliage views and stopping in to view the antique show. We did notice that big ticket items were off during the show but Kathy Tarr was pleased with some of the Shelley China and Limoges France china that she sold. As usual, I had an interested crowd in some of the sterling silver that I had to offer for sale. I met a nice couple from Miami Florida who purchased a set of sterling silver ice cream spoons. They explained that they and their two children eat very healthy all week but on the weekends the mother said that she “does it up” and they make ice-cream Sundaes with chocolate sauce. She went on to say that her family would enjoy using the spoons for the ice-cream sundaes. One serious collector was very interested in the tortoise shell tea caddy box that I have. I dropped the price to $1900.00 .When he came back the second time, I thought that he was going to buy the piece but went on to say that he was going to “think about it”.

It is times like these that all the work in setting up for a antique show is worthwhile. Meeting people who share common interest and people who enjoy collecting and using the products one has to offer compels us to continue the quest.

On the other hand, some will be rather specific as to the antiques they’ve inherited or have acquired over the years, although few will consider themselves any kind of expert. When told about WorthPoint and how it can help them evaluate what they have, they are usually very interested and quite delighted to have a credible place to turn to when it is time to sell.

So, over the past two days, I’ve been cataloguing the many different types of collectibles and antiques that folks seem to remember they have at home. As you might expect, stamps and coins, furniture and books rate as the most collected. The value of a Victorian dresser excited one “accidental” collector from Denver when Thom Pattie, our chief Worthologist, placed the value at about $1,000.

For kids, their collections consist of Legos, trains, Matchbox cars, Webkinz and the usual baseball and sports cards.

Autographed John F. Kennedy program

The most awe-inspiring item that came to us was a signed program from a fundraising dinner held in Seattle in 1959. It was a political event to benefit the campaign of a relatively unknown junior senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. It was also signed by his wife,
Jacqueline. This unusual political item has a value today of $1,000 to $1,500.

Another great item was a book jointly signed by Bess and Harry Truman, another particularly unusual presidential item, with a value of $450 to $600.

What do people collect? People told me they collect thimbles, Royal Doulton, a signed Mickey Mantle baseball, Candlewick china, an original Colorado state flag, Disney movie cells, railroad badges, all manner of weapons including a Daisy rifle, elaborate tally sheets for the game of
bridge in the early 1900s, a Victrola, school textbooks, paintings by C.W. Russell, Winnie the Pooh cookie jars, a John Denver signed photo with both his professional and given name (Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.), a Singer sewing machine dating from the 1920s and even $2 bills.

Collect the chickens, hold the mayo

In fact, one lady told me she collects anything and everything with chickens. I told her I collected chickens. too—on bread and with mayonnaise.

One of the “accidental” collectors I talked with told me she had a collection of old National Geographic magazines. As we talked, we discovered she had some very notable ones such as the November 1917 special flag issue featuring international flags, many of which no longer exist. That special issue has a value upward of $75 today. The July 1959 and 1960 issues feature the new 49- and 50-star U.S. flags with values of $10 to $15, much more than the usual $1 to $3 for general issues.

So, even if you don’t “have” a collection, you can still use WorthPoint to tell you about the “ordinary” things you do have. That is how WorthPoint helps you get the most from your antiques and collectibles.

WorthPoint — the premier Web site for art, antiques & collectibles

WHO:
Atlanta-based WorthPoint Corp. is an Internet-based data-and-media company that offers a vast database of sales records on art, antiques and collectibles. Founded in 2007, WorthPoint has quickly become the world’s largest social network for researching the worth of antiques and collectibles. WorthPoint helps collectors understand the worth of their items and provides expert advice from its team of Worthologists on how to preserve or sell antiques and collectibles.

With 700 exhibits, the Philadelphia Fall Home Show is the largest home event in the area.

WHEN:
September 26, 27, 28th

WHERE:
Philadelphia Fall Home Show Hall A
Pennsylvania Convention Center

Contact:

Dan Greenfield
WorthPoint
Dan.greenfield@worthpoint.com
(404) 549-6979 x9029
(404) 310-0023 cell

For over 25 years I was a trivet collector without a national group to represent me. Although I was the Leader of a prosperous Internet Trivet Group with over 250 cyber members, I longed for real world interactions with other collectors.

By chance, in 2003 I learned of and joined the Midwest Sad Iron Collectors Club, a national group for Iron & Trivet collectors. For several years I kept up with the MSICC activities through their quarterly Newsletter, but I never quite got around to attending their yearly Convention.

To make a long story short, in 2007 our daughter moved to Cincinnati- so my husband and I made the decision to travel to Indianapolis that August for the MSICC Iron Auction and Convention. We squeezed in a day visit to Mary before returning home.

We had such a wonderful time in 2007 that I attended again this year (2008) when it was held in Kansas City! Now my future plans will always include attending the Annual Convention.

Why is meeting, networking and socializing with other collectors so important? Because it inspires and energizes us as collectors! It gives us the opportunity to share our knowledge, while learning more about the hobby we love. And it provides the opportunity for Buy/Sell/Trade activities, which is especially important to specialized collectors who appreciate the chance to deal directly with others who understand the history, rarity and value of their items.

So … seek out and join an organization that addresses your collecting interest!

If you are interested in Trivets, Irons or other Laundry Day Collectibles, you would benefit from joining Pressing Iron & Trivet Collectors of America (formerly the MSICC; the name was changed in August 2008 to better reflect the demographics and interests of the members). For more information, contact PITCA.

Lynn Rosack is a Worthologist who specializes in trivets and kitchenalia

While at home for a change here in Southern Maine, I decided to keep the WorthPoint show presence going strong with a visit to the 34th annual Ogunquit antiques show at the Dunaway center in Ogunquit, Maine that was held September 13-14. I am so glad that I made an appearance at this small show. I saw very high end quality merchandise, in a small selected dealer setting. I attend shows all over the
place and this show had a great ambiance and quality antiques to match the atmosphere. The show was 25 or so dealers, mostly from the immediate area, all seemed more than happy to be there, and furthermore were very willing to share stories about their antiques and experiences.

As a year round resident of Southern Maine, I really appreciate all the collectibles that are here in my backyard, Maine is very rich in this market. I saw some really impressive Roseville pottery pieces, some wonderful depression glass, 2 beautiful works by New Hampshire native Maxfield Parrish, and countless other treasures.

In my show travels, I was very pleased to see the likes of Ed McDonough Jr. Ed is a Worthologist for WorthPoint and was selling some of his quality jewelry and related wares at the show. Ed and his dad, Ed Sr. are also locals from Saco, and operate Seven Gables. You may have seen them answer coin & jewelry questions on the site as this is their area of expertise. I always love running into fellow site users and employees while I am in the field.

I would rate the show an overall success, as all the proceeds benefit the Ogunquit Heritage Museum, which is an experience in itself. Ogunquit has always been known as a beach front tourist community with a major flare for the arts. Countless celebrities have stomped there, whether on vacation or doing an off broadway show at the world famous Ogunquit Playhouse.

If you vacation in the Ogunquit area, please check and see what antiques festivals are in the area at the time. If there are no shows, you can shop the antiques co-op malls that line the entire seacoast in this collectibles rich area. Please check out the pictures that I was able to get from this quality show, I think you will be as impressed as I was at the quality merchandise displayed.

See you at the next show!!!!

Brimfield – my pretty goofy set-up where I signed copies of my book. (Can’t complain. It went very well and I ran out of books very early.)

Special thanks to WorthPoint, a website for collectors and antique experts, who came and chatted with me and video-taped a brief discussion on my snowman collection and my insights. I’m sure I could learn alot from them but since we’re on the subject I’ll just touch on the subject before I go in-depth in a later post.

The way I see it, there’s really two divisions of snowman collecting; kitsch, which makes up 35% of all church sales and then there’s collectibles like Christmas ornaments from the ’50s and earlier and paper goods (like old book illustrations dating back to 1790’s, postcards from turn of the century and trading cards from the 1880’s and such). Of course there thousands of other materials to find a snowman on but it’s case by case as to whether the item would enhance your collection. The world’s largest collection is in Germany and made up of about 11,000 items. But my smaller collection of 800 is far more historical and interesting because of the much better kitsch-to-collectible ratio. Anyone can amass a large snowman collection strolling through any flea market on a given Sunday morning. More interesting is finding examples of the snowman in less common scenes (eg. a HTL, hold-to-light postcard of Santa Claus driving an automobile and running over a snowman) or depicted in a more serious way (no Frostys). In other words showing the snowman more as a form of folk-art and less a salesman for clothes or toys (unless the product is something unusual, like this asbestos ad). Some good examples from my own collection can be seen on top of my writing blog. Happy searching and please feel free to ask me any questions as I am a certified snowman expert.

Videographer: Scott Shactman
Editor: Alison Harder

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth