What is an Antique?

According to the U.S. Customs Service, an antique is an item that is 100 years old or older. However, many people think that anything that is old is an antique.  But  since "old' is a relative term which means different things to different people, it is safest to stick to the 100 years old or older when defining an item as antique.

Tiffany style antique lamp

Antiques include the full range of items from everyday utilitarian items to purely decorative pieces. Even food, such as Civil War hardtack, is an antique. But just because something is old doesn’t mean it is valuable.

Valuation
Value is determined by supply and demand. Something can be an antique (i.e. over 100 years old) but if no one wants it then it has little, if any, value. So age alone is not the determining factor when appraising an antique. If there is little or no interest in owning a particular item, its value will be correspondingly little or nothing.

Comparables

Just because you see something advertised on eBay with a “Buy it Now” price or you see a price tag on something at a show does not mean the item is worth the asking price or that it will sell for the asking price. With eBay sales, always look at the ‘Completed’ sales to see if the item you are interested in has sold and for how much.

This is one of the ways an appraiser begins to determine the value of an item, he (or she) looks for comparable sales where similar items have sold on the open market. There are many other factors an appraiser considers when determining the value of an item, but that's fodder for another post.

What are Collectibles?

A collectible is most anything less than 100 years old that someone wants to buy or collect.  We delineate collectibles into two categories, a true collectible and a man-made collectible.  Both may have value but there is generally more value for a true collectible than for a man-made collectible.

Barbie Doll Collectible

True Collectibles
A true collectible is an item that was not intentionally made or produced to be collected.  Rather it was meant to be used or played with or just enjoyed for its decorative value.  An example would be the first Barbie Doll, which was produced in 1959.  These dolls were played with, not put on a shelf in its original box with the idea that someday it would be worth a lot of money.  Today, the few early ones that were kept in near mint condition are worth a lot of money, even more if you have the original box.


Man-Made Collectibles
By comparison, the modern day man-made collectible Barbie dolls although truly quite lovely to look at are worth only a small proportion of the 1959 Barbie.  At the present time the marketplace for these modern dolls is the first-time buyer; they are difficult to sell on the secondary market even for the original purchase price.  There are some rare exceptions where they sell for more than the original price but not as a rule.


Baseball Cards
Baseball cards manufactured prior to 1970 have more value than those produced after 1970 as the earlier ones were collected by kids who played with them, swapped them with their friends or even put them on their bicycle spokes to make their bikes sound more like a motorcycle.  Around 1970 baseball card manufacturing companies started mass producing cards and as the supply went up, the demand went down.  Consequently the market for modern cards is very poor compared to the earlier cards.