Antiques Forums

[paulc]

Hello,

Can anyone recommend any good dedicated antiques forums? A quick internet search has thrown up very little.

Thanks

 

[Mrs C]

Have you tried antiquers.com?

 

[D_W]

I think you'd be better off searching for what you want to do with antiques than searching just for antiques. The range of possible topics is wide enough that some would be like arborists vs. woodworking.

With a side of a never-ending flow of people settling estates expecting someone to tell them what their stuff is worth or provide all kinds of free assistance.

The antique industry here thrives on not sharing information, not the other way around.

 

[Keith 66]

The antique industry here thrives on not sharing information, not the other way around.

This is very true, but its such a vast field & to be honest there is such a vast over supply of stuff that much of it is becoming increasingly more worthless by the day as nobody wants it any more. Picking what is worth the money is where its at!

 

[Sandyn]

here?
here?
here?
here?
here?
here?
.....and here, this forum is full of antiques
Sometimes if I'm searching for things like that, I use reverse image search. I take a picture of the item then go to Google Images, click on the camera icon to search by image. It might throw up a lucky return.

 

[paulc]

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

Any more from anyone else would be great. Maybe this thread could become a 'sticky'? No idea if that's the correct lingo.

Including specialist antique forums ('ceramics', 'furniture') would be great. I'm sure there's plenty of retired dealers and enthusiastic amateurs out there who have plenty of information they'd happily share!

 

[Turnr77]

I collect and deal in glass paperweights from their first uses in about 1845 onwards and also some knowledge of other glass. www.glassmessages.com is a good source of further info on glass items. Or you can pm me on paperweights if needed.

Nick

 

[paulc]

Thanks Nick. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. Excellent.

 

[D_W]

This is very true, but its such a vast field & to be honest there is such a vast over supply of stuff that much of it is becoming increasingly more worthless by the day as nobody wants it any more. Picking what is worth the money is where its at!

Agree - thus the need for barriers (pretending that something in a gallery is so much more valuable than an almost identical piece not in a gallery, or providing estimates to owners of items at half or third of intended sale price in order to pave the way to buying items from said owners at 1/5th or 1/6th of a later sale price).

Interestingly, the latter was an issue with some war memorabilia dealers (think civil war, not recent stuff) in the US. The dealers were working with the antiques roadshow franchise and using their permission to do on-site appraisals to understate the value of items brought to them, later buying them off of the owners.

Always better to get an appraisal from someone who isn't doing the buying.

The supply never was short - as with the local lady here selling antiques by appointment, her real money was made finding a cheaper source for furniture and then convincing stupid people that the same quality furniture from overseas (where it was worth less locally) should be bought for more than similar quality furniture locally available in the US.

Interestingly, she was doing the selling in an area that was settled in the early 1700s and there's no shortage of hand made older furniture made to a high spec.

 

[jcassidy]

Agree - thus the need for barriers (pretending that something in a gallery is so much more valuable than an almost identical piece not in a gallery,

There's a whole section in art history studies about this! Look up the Stuckist Manifesto.