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Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr
We have some paintings that are of some value and would like to sell them. We need an art appraiser to tell us what they are worth. Recommendations would be appreciated.
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You have my respect because I think Beatlemaniacs is great fun. Everyone should go hear them.
As for art, I don’t know what you have, so I’ll address this to most people who have art but don’t know much about it.
1. A lot of what people have on their walls has no value for resale.
2. Prints are usually machine printed and worth less than the framing cost.
3. Signed and numbered prints MAY be more valuable, but not if the artist’s work isn’t sold at reputable auction houses like Christie’s.
4. Oil paintings that are copies of someone else’s work and were painted in China are worth essentially nothing. An auction house that sells everything might get a few bucks from people who think the paintings are big and pretty, but no good auction house will sell them. You may have bought them at a furniture store for $1,000 each, but they are still Chinese fakes and worth nothing to good dealers. For example, all the paintings on the walls at Savannah Center of flowers and plantation mansions and such are Chinese fakes. When I bought my first home in The Villages, it came with a pleasant painting six feet long, painted in China. I advertised it online and gave it away. It cost over $1,000.
5. Some prints are high enough quality that they look like watercolors and have to be examined carefully with a magnifying glass to find out. I’ve been fooled by them a couple times. But they are only worth maybe $50.
6. Art bought at galleries for $5,000 twenty years ago might bring only $100 today. Tastes change. Galleries charge what they hope to get, not what the art is “worth.” A lot of galleries selling recently-painted art by local artists are looking for those suckers we are told are born every minute. If you like it, buy it and put it on your wall. Don’t buy it expecting its value to rise. That’s not likely, though it does happen at times. I’ve seen some pretty paintings on cruise ships, at arti festivals like the Laguna Art Festival with thousands of paintings available and the artists standing there, at our local craft shows. Sorry, but these aren’t pieces that will go up in value or even be worth more than a tenth of what you paid,
7. I have about fifty oils and water-colors on my walls. I actually bought most of them on eBay at prices between $10 for a signed Picasso drawing that looks real but is certainly a fake to $2,000. I knew my budget and stuck to it. I also knew quite a bit about good art from spending a lot of time in museums around the world. Most are original paintings. (I’ve also collected old painted copies of the sort museums allow art students to do.) Some are dated etchings that were hand-colored over 200 years ago. Few of them are less than a century old. Some were painted by members of the Royal Academy or the Royal Society of Water Colour Artists. Most are done in England or Scotland, Germany, France, or Denmark. Often the artist is unknown today, yet really nice work. I have receipts for all of these, but not “Certificates of Authenticity.” Those are worthless. The quality can be seen in the work itself by someone who knows art, whether or not it is trendy. They give me a lot of pleasure. I’ve purchased some old paintings that looked great on eBay but that I didnt like in person. Some I’ve resold, but I usually lose a lot of money on them. Some cost hundreds, but I disliked them so much when they arrived that I gave them free to a used furniture store. I probably looked at a couple thousand paintings on eBay for every one I purchased, and that was when I narrowed my search down to originals from specific periods and certain styles. There were some amazing pieces available for $5,000 or so, but that was way beyond my budget. I no longer collect because I have no more wall space.
8. Some appraisers will give you accurate appraisals (and you might not like them) and may charge you $1,000 or more. Some are gallery owners hoping to find something nice among all the dross they expect to find. If they are giving an appraisal for insurance purposes, you can expect them to say the work is worth much more than anyone knowledgeable would actually pay for it. It can help if you take good photos of what you have and send it to the appraiser so he or she can decide whether you have anything worth seeing in person.
9. There are some collections of objects that may be worth quite a bit, other than art. Some coins are worth a lot, but most aren’t. Things like Hummel and Lladro figurines and Beany Babies are often no longer salable to collectors, so they are worth nothing. A few may be worth more. I had a friend who collected 18th and 19th century hand made marbles. Who knew?