posted on July 3, 2003 07:03:49 PM new
I am going to order the Kovels New Dictionary of Marks off Amazon. If I order $25 I get free shipping, so I was thinking of adding another book.
Is there any particular Kovels book you would recommend as a general reference for estate sale finds?
posted on July 3, 2003 07:13:18 PM new
The other Kovel's book we have is "Kovel's Antiques and Collectibles - Price List for 2003"
Can't say I'd recommend it much though. It's not easy to use, but it does have a lot of stuff in it.... The pricing isn't reliable because eBay has changed things so much - they tell me...
Wayne
Trying to Make a Difference - One Satisfied Customer at a Time....
posted on July 4, 2003 04:40:19 PM new
Right now collectibles and Antiques are only worth what someone will pay you for them,books saying what their worth doesn't mean anything.
posted on July 6, 2003 06:39:37 AM new
If you use a price guide as one of many information sources, it can be useful.
If you use it exclusively (and worse, fail to account for regional differences that may skew the prices realized), it can be a problem.
When you buy an antiques price guide, it's worth looking into the research methodology. Kovels are generally the least-useful since they're just a list of sale results.
Schroeders, on the other hand, has topical sections written by authorities in the field. This can be both good and bad. Say that you're the biggest vintage Franciscan ware dealer in the U.S. and you're asked to write that section for the upcoming edition. Are you going to price everything high? Of course you are! Because then your wares will be such terrific "bargains". Hey, look, I'm selling at less than book price!
This actually happened, by the bye.
Back to the subject at hand.
Kovels "Know Your Antiques" is not a price guide; it's a general quick-and-dirty identification guide rife with rules of thumb like, "if the piece has such and such on it, it was made before 18xx". It too can be useful as one tome on your long bookshelf of reference works.
I am not a bathtub full of brightly-colored machine tools on Vendio.
I am not looking for price guides, just very reasonably priced reference books. I don't have any space to store a bunch of reference books, or the $$ to spend on ones that I will seldom use. So far I have reference books for: Marx toys, Fisher Price, Tomarts Action Figure 3 book set, UFO/Alien Toys, Spy Toys, Smurfs, Trekkers, Toy Rings and Transformers. I also have a number of ID websites bookmarked.
I use the Transformers and Tomarts Action Figures all the time, but the others I find hard to use. I don't want a book that you need to know what the item is to find out information on it. I especially dislike the books that are just price lists.
I think maybe I will get the Know Your Antiques, just for the little tips. Since I will save the shipping fee, the book will only really cost $5 or so.
