How to Get Prices on Your Antiques

Search for your item in price guides at your local library, using the most recent guides available. Formed by collating auction results from the six months prior to publication, these guides have prices expressed as broad estimates - $40-60, $150-200 - usually printed in bold type. You can browse them by category or use a detailed index at the back to find your item more quickly if you have a clear idea of what it is. These guides are a useful starting point, but for more detailed, current information, you should move onto the following steps. (For more help with price guides, see Resources.)

Find items similar to yours on online auction sites. Do this either by typing in appropriate search terms if you have a clear idea of what your item is, or by browsing subcategories of the antiques and collectibles areas until you see an item that resembles yours. Use the site's tracking tools to follow a few of these items through to their conclusion. Ideally, choose items that match yours not only in type but in condition -- for example, if you are interested in finding the value of a particular toy car without its box, then don't track one that has its box. Collecting several of these auction results - known as "hammer prices" - will give you a very clear idea of the value of your item at that moment in time.

Browse the websites of traditional auction houses. Many traditional auctions now publish their sales catalogs online. A current catalog for a sale that has yet to take place will give broad sales estimates for the values of the items listed. On concluded sales, these are replaced by final hammer prices. As with Step 2, this step offers a way of obtaining the present value of an antique, but by focusing on the catalogs of relatively local auctions, you will be able to see how well that item sells in your part of the world specifically. (For more help with auction house websites, see Resources.)