Topic: Inherited paperweight collection - UK.

[Redmoon]

I am in the UK and have inherited a collection of paperweights mainly from the 1970s, they were valued in 2003 at over £7000 for insurance purposes. I know that is not a value necessarily for resale, but any advice on whether to sell them to a dealer in bulk, or to list them individually for sale on ebay, would be welcomed.  I know that dealers only ever want to offer the bottom line (and I understand why!) ... but there again it is a lot of time consuming work to list each one (there over 50) and take photos etc.

Names include Ysart (H cane, PY sticker, PY cane), Strathearn, Wedgwood, Whitefriars, Dartington,  Perthshire, Modern Baccarat, Webb Corbett. The highest price one was quoted for insurance valuation was £550 back in 2003.

Any advice on how to sell this collection? I have no knowledge of paperweights myself.

[chopin-liszt]

It does sound as if you have at least a few that would be worth your time and effort to list individually.

There are some sites which might be helpful, for example to check that your PY canes are correct - there are fakes around, they have a different, lower value, but are still collectable.

This would be helpful for any Caithness weights
http://www.scotlandsglass.co.uk/cms/index.php

and this for checking out Ysart glass
http://ysartglass.com/

paperweight are not really my area, I'm afraid, but there are plenty of others here who I am sure will be able to offer better advice.
Welcome to the board.
I do empathise with your problem. We have only recently remembered we have a massive collection of vinyl, some of which might be quite valuable, but we are clueless about it. The idea of having to go over each and every single one to check condition etc. and to find out if it's one only worth bending into a bowl  or worth £100 is mind-numbing. They stay in the cupboards.

[Redmoon]

Many thanks! I shall check out those links.

Re the vinyl, the magazine Record Collector is very useful for current value lists but like you say, you really do need to examine each one with a fine toothcomb and make sure they play ok too, I imagine!

[chopin-liszt]

My old Cream, King Crimson and Uriah Heep scare the cats too much to play them! Even my Two-Tone and Stiff stuff disturbs them terribly. 
They're fine with loud, clashing, atonal contemporary classical music though, which is odd.
Thanks, I wouldn't have even known there was somewhere to check values.

There are images of the fake PY canes on the Ysart site. In one of them, one of the letters is dropped a bit and the colour isn't correct. I can never remember which is real and which isn't.

To check the Caithness weights, click on the link to images at the top of the page of Scotland's glass, then on Caithness.

We do have a forum here called "The market place", where you can put links to your sales, or, if you wanted, simply offer them for sale there and come to an agreement with somebody over price.
We don't normally discuss values much - they are very subjective, but good paperweights do tend to find their own price in a widely advertised auction.

Another suggestion for you might be to do a search on the paperweights forum (link below) to see if there is the info you need is already written out and illustrated with images in our records.

http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/board,8.0.html

Apart from that, I'm afraid you may have to get the camera out

[Redmoon]

Cheers!

I also wondered if anyone knew the difference between valuation prices and selling prices.... the collection is valued at over £7K for insurance purposes, the valuer was a paperweight dealer but at the time my father did not want to sell them.

[KevinH]

Hi Redmoon, welcome.

As your request is currently about advice on how to sell the collection, I will move the thread to the Paperweight forum where it will probably get a wider audience than in the Market Place forum. I will also change the thread title to include "paperweight" and "UK".

[KevinH]

Having done my moderator bit by updating the title and moving the thread, I will take that hat off and put on my Paperweight Collector hat.

As Sue has said, there are some places to look for general confirmation on Caithness and Paul Ysart weights.

The GMB has a number of members who are also paperweight dealers, and perhaps some of them may contact you directly or may post a reply here with their own advice or questions.

Regarding the 2003 insurance valuation, that sounds as though the 50+ collection has mainly good condition "collector" items ranging from, say, £100 to the £550 upper figure. As you are aware, that valuation will have been higher than the then current "resale valuation" which is what a dealer would be considering.

Selling a whole collection through a dealer would provide less than the current market valuation (as agreed by the dealer). In general, some dealers would look to pay up to around 60 to 66% of their estimated market value. But as you have said, that needs to be balanced against the work needed to sell them individually yourself, either through eBay or similar, or perhaps through a local auction house (where fees can be quite high these days).

But what about that £7,000 insurance valuation of 2003 - would it be higher or lower now? In many cases, Caithness weights do not make the sort of money they did some years ago. On the other hand Paul Ysart weights have tended to at least hold their value with many showing a reasonable increase, and some, in the past few years, changing hands at unexpectedly high amounts.

Lets see what others have to say.

[paperweights]

Since you are in the UK and I am in the US, I can offer my suggestions without a dealer bias. 

When I buy collections, as I often do, I suggest the seller take some group pictures with about 20 paperweights per picture.  Put each paperweight on a piece of note paper (a 2"x2" sticky works well) and write a number on each.  Make sure the numbers are visible in the picture.  This will make it easier for the buyer to ask questions about specific weights.  For most paperweights, the first pass will be all that is required, but some paperweights will require more pictures.

I advise you to sell the collection intact unless you want to spend a lot of time on this.  Most collectors and dealers will be happy to pick the best items only.  That leaves you with a lot of work to sell the remainder. 

And, I think, it is optimistic to expect 60% of retail unless the collection is absolutely smashing. 

[tropdevin]

Hi.

I offer a free ID and valuation service (see my website).  It also sets out there the (big) difference between insurance valuation and what you might expect to get if you sell a collection (see the 'Valuations' tab).

Alan

[SophieB]

Hi Redmoon,

If you were tempted to list your paperweights on Ebay after all, I would suggest that you wait until after the summer holidays as the market tends to be quieter during this period. You are likely to get better prices in the Autumn and in the period coming up to Christmas. Also, as Sue said do not forget to bring the Ebay sales to our attention on the market place.

And whatever you decide good luck with it.

SophieB