In no small part my delightful experience with Trash or Treasure was due to the great people involved, both the Plains Art Museum staff and the appraisers from Ivey-Selkirk. Certainly their respect for the objects and collectors themselves was communicated to all. They genuinely appreciated hearing the stories behind the objects — often saying things like, “That’s a great story,” and making other statements about the intrinsic and personal value the objects held. And I overheard them complimenting folks on how pretty pieces were too. But what really convinced me that these events are wonderful is the opportunity to learn more about what you have.

What I’m really getting to is the intimidation factor we collectors feel. We tend to belittle our collectibles, often making self-deprecating remarks about our collections, our collecting habits, and ourselves as collectors — striking first before someone else can. We tuck ourselves safely into groups by collecting theme and club not only for the fun of trading and networking with other collectors of the same objects, but for the relief that comes with feeling understood. Less often we mingle with collectors of other items because we believe (fear) they’ll judge ours. So it’s understandable when presented with the option of having professionals who deal in such high end items look at and evaluate our considerably lower-end items we assume that they will look down upon them.

But really most collectors of objects — any objects — and those professionals who make a living off of collectors get it. They get us. Sure, the fine arts guy may not personally love my woolie, but he can appreciate my love of the woolie and the fact that there are others like me. (And let’s face it, that’s where their money comes from!) The passion is understandable because while the object changes, the love of objects doesn’t.

When we attended the MPMA conference I was told by Monta Lee Dakin, the museum professional organization’s Executive Director, that museum staff values collectors. Not just because they want us to donate our stuff for free, but because they know collectors are working towards the same goals. We all want to preserve stuff — and the stories of stuff.

Dakin said that the museum world has worked very hard to not appear as ivory tower types. They want to work with collectors; they welcome our involvement. They are not bothered by phone calls & requests for identifying items. In fact, as Steve Friesen of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum said, they often count on collectors for the information they possess. “We can’t know everything; we’re often generalists who rely on collectors who specialize,” he said. He told many stories of times he has worked with private collectors. Sometimes the museum is helped; other times, the collector benefits from the information and experience of the museum staff. In either case, it’s a win-win.

All of this surprised me because, like the Trash or Treasure event, I felt that unless you had purchased something at Christie’s no museum would want it — or want to help you. But collectors shouldn’t hold this opinion. We should keep in mind what we have and contact the right professional, be it a museum or an appraiser, but we shouldn’t be intimidated by the museum or the high-end auction house. While contacting either museum or auction house isn’t a guarantee that your object will fit either of their goals, not contacting them certainly brings you no closer to yours.

So don’t be intimidated by professionals. Don’t limit your collection, your collecting, out of the unnecessary anxiety that the object won’t be loved or appreciated. Like parents with children, we have to accept that not everyone will love our objects as much as we do. But information from, and contact with, the world outside our doors isn’t a bad thing.

This fall, the Plains Art Museum will be presenting Trash Or Treasure, a series of events for those who collect, buy, sell and/or enjoy collectibles. Derek and I will be attending (and reporting on) the events because we qualify as those who collect, buy, sell and enjoy collectibles. However, one thing has thrown me for a loop…

Part of this event is a Road Show-esque event where you can bring in your items and receive verbal evaluations by experts — and I have no idea what to bring.

See, I don’t collect for fair market values. (I don’t even typically buy to sell at such values. I just stumble into stuff I like and figure I’ll help find it a new home where it will be appreciated — sort of like adopting a pet.)

This means that, on one hand, nearly everything I own could or should be brought in as it ‘needs’ a value put on it. On the other hand, I’m not sure what one item is worthy of such attentions — or at least won’t embarrass me with the appraisers!

This situation got me thinking — thinking in that sort of rambling way I am already want to do — about my collections. Again.

Since this article , I’ve thought lots about what my collections mean to me. It’s quite clear that most of what I buy is a part of something larger — and it’s that intrinsic collective value which appeals to me and keeps me obsessively looking for more pieces to add to it. So, if one adds up the value of each book in my collection, well, the total may seem grand — at least until you break that down per book.

While it’s true that a limited budget prevents me from going after the large price tag items, but my budget doesn’t dictate my collection either. I truly hunt based on what fits in the bigger picture.

The bottom line: Most of my collecting is about the collection itself, the value of the group, the sum of it’s parts rather than the value of the individual pieces.

But this sort of collecting is not what Trash or Treasure is about, at least not for the appraising event. Certainly no one appraiser is going to appreciate being tied up with my 500 books for the entire night. (And I can’t imaging the Plains Art Museum wants to truck all those books in either!)

So what do I bring along?

I’ve looked at my walls, buckling bookshelves, assorted oddities and wondered, “Who should I bring?”

Should I bring in Big Toe Joe? Oh, I’d love to see the appraiser’s face as he or she struggled not to laugh and referred to my delightful new friend as “Folk Art”… Double irony points if they deemed my $1 find worth 99 cents.

But would that make my eyeless poodle curler keeper jealous? Or what of my mod holiday caroler?

When confronted with the possibly of looking like I have a favorite, I tried to be more pragmatic about it: Pick something I want to know more about.

Education on the item or category is really important to me. I have the stories on how I got all this stuff, but I’m always fascinated to learn more about the history of the items. So what do I want to know more about?

I’d love to know if the vintage ceramic figurines with rabbit fur applique have a ‘real name.’ But again, we’re back to which one do I select to bring along?

Then again, this is about money — should I pick something I feel has a hefty price tag?

But what if I’m wrong and I look like an idiot?

I’ve got nearly two months to figure this out… Maybe by then I’ll have some idea.

Then again, that’s two more months to accumulate more junk to choose from. Will any of it be good enough to take along?

This is beginning to feel a lot like prom…

Every collector is faced with the same question — “What’s it worth?” Whether it’s to sell a part of the collection, or to know what’s a reasonable price to pay for a new addition to the collection, collectors need to have some idea of what each part of a collection is worth. For some, it’s a matter of pride: the more zeroes, the more they’re satisfied with their collection. For others, it’s just a matter of figuring out how much insurance to buy. No collector, however, has the luxury of a ‘money is no object’ attitude. The value of a collection is important, no matter what.

Figuring out a collectible’s worth isn’t always that easy. I remember, in my youth, looking up a comic’s price in the Overstreet book — GI Joe #1 — and spending the bike ride to the comic shop figuring out what I can spend that $50 on. I knew my comic was mint (I had bought two for that very reason), and it was printed on the rarer paper. The comic shop operator didn’t dispute that fact, however, but his offer of $20 fell a little flat to me. I learned that day that appraisals, price guides, and market value are quite a bit different.

First of all, the market value is the price a reasonable customer would pay for the item. Demand and rarity are a significant part of this price, because the combination of the two establish the retail price. A rare item without demand won’t be any more expensive than a high-demand item that’s easy to find. The simplest way to determine this is to compare identical or similar item’s sale on the open market. eBay is an excellent resource for this, but it can be spotty depending on whether the right buyers happen to be online when the auctions are running. Traditional auctions can be a good source of prices, provided the right items appear. Comparing prices in your local antique shops can provide a good idea of reasonable prices, but an overpriced item might be more likely to sit unsold on the a dealer’s shelf than the reasonable priced ones. Price guides tend to approximate the retail price, but tend to range a little higher. Some people consider price guides unreliable, because they’ve seen items sell for far different prices than those cited in the guide, but each guide is based on research and compilation of a variety of sources, doing a lot of the ‘footwork’ for collectors.

The insurance price usually tends to run high, but not always; an insurance appraisal is an estimate of the cost of replacement, based on the item’s condition at the time of the appraisal. As such, an insurance appraisal is a realistic guess at, if the item were stolen, lost, or destroyed, how much it would cost to replace it, without the benefit of comparison shopping or getting a ‘good deal.’ It is essential to find a reputable and credentialed appraiser when looking for an insurance value. Although they are an estimate, insurance appraisals usually come with official documentation to certify or verify the appraised value, in the event of loss. However, collectors generally cannot expect to receive the insured price of an item at a sale.

The lowest price to expect is the equivalent of a ‘wholesale’ price, like what I was offered at a comic book shop. Antique dealers can act as an appraiser, but if they are being offered an item to purchase themselves, they will base their offer on how much profit they can reasonably expect based on a retail price. Often, this will be quite low — a third or half of retail price — but high enough to make the seller feel they’re not being ‘taken’. Quite often, this is similar to a rummage sale price, or a starting bid on eBay or at an auction. It is also what a collector can expect to receive if they ever find themselves urgent to sell any part of their collection.

The internet, of course, gives an amazing resource for collectors to find and compare prices of every item imaginable. While some online guides might not be very clear on how they arrive at their valuation, the speed of browsing can give a collector a number of prices to give a ballpark idea of value. eBay and Froogle are both sites devoted to collecting various items and their prices, and both have dedicated searching capabilities. Technically-skilled collectors can even use modern wireless technologies and cellphone web browsing to compare online prices with items found in antique shops, without having to stop home!

For official or more detailed pricing, an appraiser is needed, and that person will generally have to see the item or collection for themselves. Local auction houses often know exactly who locally is able to appraise a particular type of collectible, if not the auctioneer themselves. Furniture restorers and owners of antique shops are also likely to know the right person to appraise items. While I hate to sound like the internet has all the answers — it often does — and extremely specialized appraisers, such as posters or ephemera, might be found wither from their webpage or a message board devoted to their particular specialty.

Finding the right price for a collectible might not be easy, but collectors stand to learn more from pricing an item than just some dollar value. In the process of figuring out the value, a collector will learn why the item has the value, giving them an advantage when shopping in the future. Many appraisers started as collectors, eventually becoming an expert and offering their services to others. What could be more fun to a collector than learning more about the items they love? Discounting pricing with a “I’m not selling” or “gosh, that’s a lot of work” is to pass up valuable time spent with your collection. Take some time, look at everything through an appraiser’s eyes, and expand your expertise about your collection.

Did you hear about the painting that was dropped off at a Goodwill store in Portland and wound up fetching $165,002 on the organization’s auction website? It turns out it was an original work by watercolorist Frank Weston Benson. The Goodwill organization provides job training and other services designed to put people to work, so the money will surely go to a good cause. There’s some question, however, whether the anonymous donor who left the painting in the store’s collection bin knew what he or she was giving away. The same thing happened a few years ago in one of the Chicago burbs.

So Grandma’s scaling down to a smaller place and asks you to help get rid of some of her stuff. You wonder if that oil painting that hung in her upstairs hall for 50 years is worth anything, but how do you find out?

A good place to start is the internet. Try to find out more about the artist who created the painting, if the artist’s signature is legible. Simply typing “Frank Benson artist” into his or her favorite search engine would have told the painting’s owner that it was a good idea to find out more about the painting.

The obvious choice is to contact a professional appraiser, however the appraiser will likely charge a fee even if the piece if worthless. If you’re willing to hold onto this painting for a while, you could call around to local art museums and galleries to find out if any host an appraisal day where people can bring their art in to have a professional take a look at it for free or for a small fee. Another alternative is to take the painting to an auction house that frequently deals with fine art and ask their opinion of the piece and how much they believe it would bring at auction.

And if you discover the painting isn’t going to net any cash for Grandma, go ahead and take it to the Goodwill where someone might pull it from a bin, dust it off and enjoy it for another fifty years.

More info:

Here’s a site that will provide free online appraisals when provided with a photo and description of the piece, but only responds to “interesting” works of art

Superficially, it’s easy to tell a collection of Ming vases or classic oil paintings. They look old and they look valuable, and the collector knows it. However, anyone who’s played The Price Is Right when watching Antiques Roadshow knows value isn’t always on the surface. The appraiser may go into great detail about an artist, where he was born, what he did during his life, what he was known for, and the drops the valuation bomb: the original work of art is worth $2,000. The next guy, bringing in an unremarkable wooden trunk from the 1700s, design and construction common for the times, walks away with a cool $25,000 appraisal. It’s the collectors who know what something is worth. Those prices are based on what a reasonable buyer will pay, and those buyers are collectors.

Take Scott Travers. Last month, he went shopping in Times Square and bought a hot dog, bottled water, and a pretzel. None of the transactions warranted big bills, so he spent the change in his pocket. Little did the retailers know, Travers wasn’t spending just any pocket change: three of the pennies he spent, mixed with the rest of his change, had a combined collector’s value of over $1,500. Of course, wise numismatic enthusiasts don’t carry their collection around in their pockets. Travers deliberately put the coins in circulation to draw attention to his hobby. He hoped that somewhere down the line, someone who got change at a restaurant would notice the rarity of the coin that had passed unnoticed through the pockets of others. His experiment banks on the unseen value of collectibles: at purely face value, a penny is a penny: value, 1/100^th of a dollar. However, in the eyes of a collector, a much different valuation is constructed. The date says 1904, the artist’s intials “VDB” are clearly visible on the reverse, and that 1/100^th of a dollar increases millions-fold.

There is, however, a third value, that all collectors can evaluate but find it difficult to describe to their relatives, friends, and critics. It’s the valuation level in between retail pricing and the number collector’s guides print. With a unique collection, it might be the only valuation ever assigned to the collection. What I’m talking about is what a collection is worth to its owner.

This valuation is most important to the kinds of collections profiled in the Entertainment section of the newspaper on Tuesdays. They’ve got a yard full of push lawnmowers, or they built a special building to hold their collection of vacuum cleaners. They’ve got drawers full of flattened milk cartons, or archives of airplane vomit bags. And, if you ask any collector (strange or no), the percieved value is more important than any other. Far too often, the items with the best stories on Antiques Roadshow are the items you can tell will remain in the family: being less valuable than a wooden box means nothing to a family who loves their rare painting. Scott Travers, however, figured his rare coins had a far greater value if they surprised some sharp-eyed stranger someday. For the rest of us, our collection is the reason we spend reckless amounts of money simply to own whatever it is. We know that the money we spend doesn’t come close to the value of adding it to the collection.