Antiques Value Guide: How to Find What Your Antiques Are Worth

What Qualifies as an Antique?

The general definition of an antique is an item over 100 years old, and US customs uses the same threshold for duty-free import purposes. Items roughly 20 to 99 years old are usually described as vintage, and the distinction matters because buyers search using those words and because the two markets behave differently. Age alone does not determine value. A plain 150-year-old wooden box might be worth very little, while a documented piece of period American furniture can sell for a very large sum, and the gap between them is maker, quality, condition, provenance, and current collector demand rather than years. This is the central discipline of the category: resist the assumption that old means valuable. Establish what the object is and who made it first, and treat age as one input among several rather than as the headline.

• Antique: generally over 100 years old.
• Vintage: roughly 20 to 99 years old.
• Age is one input; maker, quality, condition, provenance, and demand matter more.
• Use the term buyers search with, since the two markets differ.

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How to Identify Maker's Marks

Maker's marks are the single most important value indicator for many antiques, and finding one turns a guess into a research question you can actually answer. Pottery, silver, and furniture are commonly marked, though the mark's location differs by category and is often somewhere you would not think to look. For pottery, check the underside for impressed, printed, or painted marks. For silver, US pieces typically carry "Sterling" or "925", while British silver uses a hallmark system that encodes the maker, the assay office, the standard, and a date letter — which means a British hallmark can date a piece precisely. For furniture, look for paper labels, branded marks, stencils, or chalk signatures inside drawers, on drawer backs, on the underside of the carcass, and on the back panel. Photograph any mark under raking light so the relief shows, and photograph it before cleaning.

Furniture Styles and Period Dating

American furniture is generally categorised by period and style, and knowing the sequence lets you place a piece within a few decades from its proportions and details alone. The main periods run: William and Mary (1690-1730), Queen Anne (1720-1755), Chippendale (1750-1790), Federal and Hepplewhite (1785-1815), Empire (1810-1840), Victorian (1840-1900), Arts and Crafts (1880-1920), Art Nouveau (1890-1910), Art Deco (1920-1940), and Mid-Century Modern (1940-1970). Construction methods provide independent evidence and are harder to fake than style: hand-cut dovetails are irregular and few, machine-cut dovetails are uniform and many; wooden pegs and hand-forged nails predate machine screws; circular saw marks indicate a later date than straight pit-saw marks. Reproductions are extremely common in this category, and original period pieces carry substantial premiums, so use construction evidence to check what the style suggests rather than trusting appearance alone.

Condition, Restoration, and Original Surface

Antiques follow a rule that surprises people arriving from other categories: original surface usually outranks clean appearance. A period piece with its original finish, original hardware, and honest wear is generally worth more than the same piece stripped, refinished, and fitted with replacement handles, sometimes dramatically so. Refinishing removes the patina that authenticates age, and it cannot be undone. Before you clean, polish, strip, or repair anything, establish what it is — a great deal of value has been destroyed by well-intentioned improvement carried out before research. Where restoration has already happened, disclose it, because buyers at this level ask and will find out. Sympathetic structural repair that keeps a piece usable is generally accepted; cosmetic refinishing of a period surface generally is not. If in doubt, do nothing and ask a specialist, since inaction is reversible and stripping is not.

• Original finish and original hardware usually beat a clean refinished surface.
• Never strip or refinish before you know what the piece is.
• Sympathetic structural repair is accepted; cosmetic refinishing often is not.
• Disclose all restoration — buyers at this level ask.
• When uncertain, do nothing; inaction is reversible.

Provenance and Documentation

Provenance is the documented history of an object's ownership, and in antiques it can be worth a substantial fraction of the total value. Receipts, auction catalogue entries, exhibition labels, estate inventories, letters, photographs of the piece in situ, and prior appraisals all contribute. The reason provenance pays is that it addresses the buyer's two biggest fears simultaneously: that the object is not what it is claimed to be, and that it may not be the seller's to sell. Keep everything you have, even fragments — an old shipping label or a faded dealer's sticker on the underside is evidence, and removing it during cleaning destroys value. Where you inherited a piece, write down what you know about who owned it and when while the memory is fresh, and note who told you. Undocumented family attribution is weak evidence, but recorded honestly it is better than nothing.

• Receipts, auction records, exhibition labels, and prior appraisals.
• Old dealer stickers and shipping labels — never remove them when cleaning.
• Photographs of the object in a documented setting.
• Written family history, recorded honestly as family attribution.

Where to Find Antique Auction Prices

LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable are the strongest databases for recent antique auction results, and both let you search realised prices rather than estimates. Christie's, Sotheby's, and Bonhams publish their realised prices online, which is useful even for modest pieces because it establishes where the top of a category sits. For more everyday antiques, eBay sold listings are an excellent reference and often the most representative, since that is where comparable objects actually change hands. Worthpoint maintains a subscription archive of past sales across many categories. When reading auction results, check whether the figure includes the buyer's premium, since that can shift the effective price substantially and the two are frequently compared as though they were the same number. PriceSnap gives you a fast directional range from a photograph; use these references to confirm anything where the answer matters.

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When to Get a Professional Antique Appraisal

For antiques potentially worth more than a few hundred dollars, a professional appraisal is usually worth the investment, and above a thousand it is difficult to justify skipping. Look for appraisers certified by the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), the Appraisers Association of America (AAA), or a category-specific body such as the NAWCC for clocks and watches. Specify which kind of appraisal you need, because the two most common types produce very different numbers for the same object. An insurance appraisal states replacement value — what it would cost to obtain a comparable piece at retail. A fair market value appraisal states what the piece would realistically fetch between a willing buyer and seller, and it is the correct basis for selling, estate, and tax purposes. Confusing the two leads people to expect insurance-level prices in a sale and to be badly disappointed.