Value Apps for Antiques, Furniture, and Mixed Finds

Start With Documentation, Not a Price

Photograph the entire object in neutral light, then document the back, underside, interior, joinery, hardware, labels, maker's marks, dimensions, materials, finish, repairs, and damage. Save any receipts, family history, exhibition labels, or provenance records, keeping documented facts separate from stories — both are worth recording, but only one is evidence. A scanner can suggest search terms, yet the physical evidence must support the identity before a comparable price becomes relevant at all. The order matters because a price attached to a wrong attribution is worse than no price: it anchors every subsequent decision to a number that was never about your object. Do this documentation before any cleaning, and store the photographs somewhere you will still find them in a year.

• Whole object in neutral light, from front, side, and above.
• Underside, back panel, and interior of every drawer or compartment.
• Joinery close-ups: dovetails, pegs, screws, and how panels meet.
• All hardware, including the reverse of handles and any replacements.
• Every label, stamp, stencil, or chalk mark, under raking light.
• Full dimensions, plus damage and previous repairs.

Style Does Not Establish Age

A piece can look Victorian, mid-century, Art Deco, colonial, or primitive without being made in that period. Revivals, reproductions, imports, and later adaptations are common, and some were made well enough to fool casual inspection for a century. Construction methods, tool marks, fasteners, secondary woods, veneers, oxidation, and hardware may help a specialist assess age, but no single clue is decisive on its own — each is evidence to be weighed rather than a test to be passed. Avoid converting a visual resemblance into a confident date or maker attribution, which is the most common and most expensive error in this category. The safer formulation is to say what the piece resembles and what the construction evidence suggests, and to hold those two statements separately until they agree.

Match Comparables Carefully

Look for the same maker or workshop where known, then match object type, dimensions, material, period, design, condition, restoration, and provenance. Auction results may include buyer's premiums and may not reflect local private-sale values, which means two figures that look comparable can differ by a substantial margin purely in how they were reported. Dealer retail, auction hammer price, insurance replacement, estate fair-market value, and quick-sale value are genuinely different concepts describing the same object, and mixing them produces nonsense. Decide the valuation purpose before choosing which comparisons matter: you cannot sensibly compare an insurance figure with a hammer price and average them. Write down which basis you are working on before you start collecting comparables.

Location Can Dominate Furniture Value

A desirable table can still be difficult to sell when transport costs exceed buyer interest. Compare local pickup or regional auction outcomes when an item is impractical to ship, because a national listing price for a pristine designer piece does not represent a damaged anonymous example in a smaller local market. Include moving labour, stairs, storage, delivery, restoration, and time to sell in your arithmetic, since all of these are real and all are routinely omitted. Record both the gross comparable range and the realistic cost of reaching a buyer, and treat the difference as the number that actually matters. Furniture is the category where the gap between theoretical value and achievable proceeds is widest, and where sellers most often discover that gap only after committing to store something for six months.

• Moving labour and whether stairs or narrow access are involved.
• Storage cost and space occupied while it waits for a buyer.
• Delivery expectations — many local buyers expect it.
• Restoration cost, if the piece needs work to be saleable.
• Time to sell, which in this category can run to months.

Condition and Restoration Need Specialist Context

Structural damage, replaced parts, refinishing, missing veneer, insect activity, odour, water exposure, and unstable surfaces can all change value dramatically. Restoration cuts both ways: it can improve usability while reducing collector value where originality matters, and the balance differs by category, period, and market. Do not clean, polish, strip, or repair a potentially important object before getting advice, because an irreversible treatment may remove the very evidence that established what the object was. This is worth stating strongly because the impulse runs the other way — a dirty piece looks like it needs help, and the help is frequently what destroys the value. Photograph flaws honestly and compare against items in similar condition rather than against restored examples.

• Never strip, refinish, or polish before you know what the piece is.
• Active insect damage needs treatment; historic damage needs disclosure.
• Replaced parts and repairs must be described, not concealed.
• Compare against similarly conditioned pieces, not restored ones.
• When uncertain, do nothing — inaction is the reversible option.

Use the App to Ask Better Questions

A useful scan gives you a possible category, style, maker, period, and — most valuably — the search language you need to research further. Verify those suggestions using marks, reference books, catalogues, auction archives, and specialist opinion. If the object may be valuable, is attributed to a known maker, has historical provenance, or is needed for a formal purpose such as insurance or probate, obtain a qualified appraisal. The app should shorten discovery rather than replace the expertise required to prove what the object is, and in this category that distinction is sharper than in most: the gap between a plausible attribution and a documented one is where nearly all of the value sits.

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