b'CJOLLBOTORrS CJORNBR HOWPROFESSIONALSDETERMINEVALUE By Jim and Bobbi Jeen Olson,WesternTradingPost.comW e have talked about value before. About how the true value of an item,We need to remember that just because we have a at any given time, is what a seller is willing to sell it for and a buyer ispretty good idea of what the market should be for willing to pay for it. How that can change from region to region anda particular item, you never know for sure what time to time. But have you ever wondered how a professional determinesthat is until you put it up for sale and exposethe value of collectibles? it to a broad audience ofFirst, lets define what we mean by professional. For the purposes of thisinterested buyers. article, we would be talking about appraisers, gallery and auction personnel (dealers), or professional collectors who have been at it a long time. Folks who generally know what they are talking about. Next, we need to clarify that for this article, we areitems. Just remember, asking and getting going to talk about market value, not a replacement orare two different things. Anyone can insurance value. Market value is what an item mightask whatever they want. You are most bring in a sales setting. Reasonable expectations for ainterested in the solds when determining buyer and seller. Its what we as collectors need to knowmarket value. when buying or selling. Whereas replacement or insurance value is almost always higher. The reason for this is the appraiserYou can also do the same thing on eBay. Type in the needs to factor in what it would take to replace the actual item in a shorttitle of what you are looking for, and then narrow your search period should something happen to it. Sometimes this can be nearlyby selecting only sold items. Feel free to look at what others are asking impossible unless a larger amount of money is involved to make it happenso you can see what you are up against when selling yours, but do not pay right away.attention to the odd seller who is asking the moon. This is a mistake we often see sellers make. They come in to sell an item and say, I saw one on On the other hand, market value is a less pressured situation. A seller haseBay going for $_______, and then think that is what theirs is worth. Like decided to sell and is looking for a buyer who is in the mood to buy it. Thismentioned earlier, asking and getting are two different things. Generally buyer is not under pressure to make a deal at all costs like an insuranceyou can search the actual sold items and find a big difference in price company would be if they had to replace an item tomorrow. Sometimesbetween what one odd seller is asking for, and what others have actually there is also depreciation (or appreciation) involved. Therefore, marketbeen bringing. Once you find several examples of similar items which have value and replacement value are usually different numbers. sold (preferably recently) then you can take an aggregate of those sales to determine a median price range. Dont pay too much attention to an odd Now that we have that out of the way, the main thing to remember whenhigh saleor low sale. There could have been extenuating circumstances researching the market value of an item is to find out what similar itemsinvolved which are not obvious to us at the moment. What we are most have sold for. Not what asking prices are. Not what someone has it insuredinterested in is the average, day in - day out.for but actual recent sales of like-kind items. Solds are your comparables. What others are asking for similar items is pure speculation. To findSo that is it. You now have our secrets on how we estimate what the market sales results, we use services such as Worthpoint, askART, subscriptionsvalue of a particular item might be. However, there are a couple of things to to various auction sites such as Proxybid, Live Auctioneers, Invaluable,keep in mind. First off, make sure you are truly looking at a like-kind item. iCollector, Gun Broker, and other sites as well. We also search our websiteIn other articles, we have discussed various factors which play a big part for past sales of like-kind items since there are thousands of examples ofin value. Condition is one of the most important. Make sure the one that previous sales there. There are numerous such sites online where you cansold on such and such site is comparable, and in similar condition, like the find actual sales results. Some areone you are trying to value. Other factors such as free, some require a subscription. age, availability, and authenticity should also be considered. Professionals generally have a pretty If you do not want to sign up orgood eye for this because they have looked at pay for such services, a helpfulhundreds or even thousands of examples. But you hint you can use to find results iscan also gain this feel for like-kind items and to google what you are lookingvaluations with practice. Pretty soon, you will be for and type in the words forconsidered a professional.sale at the end of the item title. For example, if you are lookingIn closing, finding an estimation of true market for, Oscar Crockett inside markedvalue is not all that hard. Look for the actual sold spurs, add the words, for sale at theitems, find an average price range and make sure end. When you google it, you willyou are comparing apples to apples. However, get a lot of websites selling spurswe need to remember that just because we have a that pop up. However, if you go topretty good idea of what the market should be for the images tab on the top of youra particular item, you never know for sure what browser and just look at pictures,that is until you put it up for sale and expose it you will find images that lead backto a broad audience of interested buyers. That is to a mix of both sold and items for sale. Clicking on the out of stock oneswhen you truly determine what a seller is willing to sell for and a buyer is in red will let you see sales results from various sites. By clicking on oneswilling to pay for it. Since this number does change from time to time, it is that say in stock in green, you can see what others are asking for similargood to do the research and be updated regularly. * 46 March 2022'