Discovering the Value of
Antiques & Vintage China
Do you want to be able to get an idea of the value of antiques & vintage china - for both buying and selling purposes. This is a self-help page (how to avoid paying experts if possible).
To find out for yourself, without referring to an expert, what your item or items are worth, you first need to know what you have, when it was made and who made it.
Knowing these key bits of information will allow you to research the value of your item using various resources both online and offline. If you need more direct and speedier help, think about filling in the form below:
This page deals with both how to find out what you have and also how to research it's value for free (without having to pay an expert).
I am assuming you already know about our free pottery mark identification forum.
If not, just pause to find out more on this page:- Pottery Mark Identification Forum..... more
Going it Alone on the Value of Antiques and Vintage China Identification Requires Commitment
If you have read my review of online antique valuation services), but still feel inclined to go it alone, don't forget there are a few offline services you may have overlooked.Yes, less convenient than sitting at your computer, but the 'real world' still does have some decent options if you can venture out of the Matrix for a moment.
Value of Antiques Research Tips
Firstly - Don't Overlook the 'Offline' Options. You can...- Utilize the reference books at your local library like the various Miller's or Kovels china encyclopaedias
- Ask your local auction salesroom for an opinion
- Purchase your own set of pottery and porcelain reference books for Europe and USA).
- Use the free expert advice helplines available at Pottery & Porcelain museums. For example, the Stoke-on-Trent City Museum has an open call line every Tuesday afternoon between 2pm and 4pm (UK time about 6 - 8 hours ahead of North America) where their experts are available to answer questions by phone.
Online Reserch
Researching pottery marks and the value of antiques and vintage china online is a time consuming and often thankless task. The best sites aren't necessarily the ones featured on the first page of results in Google. You have to dig around much more than that.Apart from on this site, where ther is active 'china chat' where we all help each other to investigate mysteries, free pottery mark online information is often limited to the websites of antique dealers who tend to have only selective information.
The prices shown on the retailer sites are retail prices and can give a false impression of what an individual might make if they sold their items at auction.
Otherwise, pottery mark identification is only available on fee-based membership sites (and they are too steep for the average person, unless you are a dealer).
Here Are The Online Websites You Can Use For Valuation Research
These sites can sometimes be hard to find because although excellent, they can fall under the radar of the search engines. All of them have their faults, but their heart is in the right place).....www.liveauctioneers.com - If you know what you've got and know how to describe it in a search - this is the place to get a ball-park value of antiques. It is a network of worldwide Auctioneers who band together to list all past & present auctions. It is free, but you have to sign up and join. An amazing yet little known resource. Use it in conjunction with my 'ready-reckoner price guide'. Get to know how liveauctioneers.com works. I use this facility everyday. Most resources like this have a monthly membership fee. If this website did have a monthly membership fee, I would pay it. The point is, you first have to know what you have - which is where the following websites come into their own.....
Gotheborg.com - Chinese & Japanese and Far East porcelain marks - A very good resource for Oriental marks. A monster of a website - hats off to Mr Gotheborg.
Porcelainmarksandmore.com - German and East European porcelain marks - excellent site but uses navigation based on geographical location not maker’s name, so lacks simple alphabetical navigation (can be frustrating for this reason). Some of the main makers marks are only available to those who make a donation to the site - which is well worth it.
Collectorscircle.com - Bohemian & Czech china marks - great for eyeballing lots of pottery marks quickly – I always scroll down on ‘auto-mouse’ to look for a mark (you can sip a cup of teas as you do so).
Oldandsold.com – French pottery marks - 22 pages of French marks. Navigation can be somewhat muddled.
Oldandsold.com - American pottery marks - 41 pages of antique pottery marks to search in alphabetical listing. Good luck!
efineantiques.com is a complete hotchpotch of a site and very old and frankly weird looking, however, it has one very long page of marks photos and background on manufacturers which is the Niagra Falls of all online information, and quite magnificent to an anorak like me looking to identify stuff so I can know the value of antiques.
I am always looking for good sites to add to this list. Please contact me if you know of one I have missed. Thanks, and good luck with your research.
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