Those antiques may include items like:

• Estate jewelry and/or vintage jewelry (diamond, gold, and silver)
• Coins (particularly gold coins and silver coins)
• Sterling silver
• Antique toys
• Musical instruments
• Historical photographs and antique or vintage cameras
• Art pottery
• Antique paintings
• Antique cars
• Advertising signs
• Antique & Vintage Advertising Signs
• Folk art, including antique weathervanes, cavings, business signs, and gameboards
• Transportation memorabilia (railroad, nautical, motorcycle, and other collectibles)
• Trade cards & broadsides
• Holiday collectibles
• And many other items.

We work with clients throughout Massachusetts – including Western MA and greater Boston – elsewhere in New England, and beyond.  If you’d like to get the maximum return for your item(s) at an antique auction, please contact Central Mass Auctions today.

What is the definition of an “Antique,” and how likely is it you have one?

New England is rich in history and antiques and we often hear of something being found in a home that is worth in the tens of  thousands or even more. You may not have something worth that much but there are collectors actively looking for everything from comic books and fountain pens to pottery and toys.

With millions of collectors worldwide there might be something in your home that will help you buy a new car or help with college tuition for your children. To determine whether you are sitting on a gold mine though, a little background on antiques and collectibles will be helpful.

An antique means different things to different people. Some consider it to be from prior to 1830 when items were handcrafted before mass production. The U.S. Customs Service allows items more than 100 years old to be brought back in the country duty-free. So, the 100-year rule is often used as a guideline. Massachusetts considers a 25-year-old car to be an antique.

Defining a collectible is even more difficult. Merriam Webster defines a collectible (collectable) as “suitable for being collected.” Princeton University’s Worldnet lexical database of English says collectibles are “things considered to be worth collecting (not necessarily valuable or antique).” Other definitions say that it is a mass-produced item from 1830 or newer than 100 years old.

So, with disagreement on even how to define an antique or collectible, determining what you have can be a formidable task. There are many factors that determine the desirability of an object with some exceptions to these rules.

Age is an important factor. Typically older items are more appealing to collectors and will command a higher price; but not always. A bowl that the seller stated was from Thailand in the period between 900 BC and 300 BC didn’t even get a bid for $90 on an online auction while our auction house sold a Roseville Sunflower pottery wall pocket from the 1930s for $2,200.

The materials used to make an item are important. With precious metal prices being very strong, Sterling silver and gold jewelry, coins, and serving pieces are selling very well at auction.

Condition is very important. A toy collector always wants the toys to look the way they did when they were first produced. If you have the original box, the value can be greatly increased.

The style and form are very important. For example, there are many decorators and collectors buying items from the Art Deco period. Art Deco originated in Paris in 1925 and spread to the U.S. The Webster Merriam dictionary describes it as a period “with a popular design style of the 1920s and 1930s characterized especially by bold outlines, geometric and zigzag forms, and the use of new materials (as plastic).” A colorful plastic radio from this period might fetch a sum in the high hundreds or even thousands while an older wood-cased radio could be worth well under $100.

These are some of the factors involved in determining an item’s value but it all comes down to the desirability of an item. If there are many collectors who want your item and there’s a limited supply of those items, your item should be valuable.