Book Resources and Price Guides
One of my pet peeves is when people will spend hundreds of dollars on their
collection, but are not willing to spend
money on a few books.
Does anything elicit more passion or response from collectors than finding a price guide that is more fiction than facts with values? Probably not. If the prices are too high, it's felt the author is trying to increase the value of their own collection. If the prices are too low, collectors complain that their collection is worth much more and the author doesn't know what they are talking about.
And since the world of collecting can sometimes be as up and down as the stock market, price guide books can become quickly outdated. That is why the best "general" price guides -- Kovels Antiques & Collectible Guide; Garage Sale & Flea Market Annual; Judith Miller's Antiques; Warmans and Schroeders are produced on an annual basis, prices are updated and different listings are shown.
The smartest buys a beginning collector can make are reference books. Spend $100 and get a selection of reference guides that will help you make educated and informed decisions about would-be purchases.
A good start would be buying one or two of the general reference guides. Then pick up a book specializing in your particular niche -- (e.g. glass or toys). Finally narrow it down further to the very specific guide for the collectible that is your true passion.
Specialized Price Guides
Even though the prices or values can be quickly outdated,
a good book specializing in your particular collection is still the most
important purchase you can make
-- reference material doesn't go out of date. So make sure the book you do
buy covers the history, background tips and reference information, not just a pretty picture book!
Online Price Guides
One of the more popular sections of this web site is the Price Guide area,
with numerous links to both popular and obscure collectibles.
<p>Some of the guides listed are text only and it will be necessary to know
what it is you have before figuring
out what it's worth. Fortunately for us, there are also a few passionate
collector/webmasters
who go all out and really do a terrific job of documenting items with
pictures, sizes and values. Browse the section to see if your stuff is listed online!
Always remember, it doesn't matter if a guide is book form or online -- price guides, with few exceptions, are NOT Bibles for their collectible. Prices can fluctuate widely, authors may be biased, have wrong information, be out of touch with the mainstream collectors, or live in an area of the country where prices are appreciably different. Being an author means doesn't automatically make you an expert! No doubt about it, many authors are experts in their field -- but unfortunately not all.
Taking all that into account, price guides still can, at the very least, give information concerning relative values, what items are rare or hard to find, dates of production and hopefully interesting tidbits of information that makes collecting all the more fun.
The bottom line: it just two people to decide on a value, the buyer and seller agreeing on a price.
