Turn your clutter into cash - how to find out what your possessions are worth

My new hobby of household treasure-seeking began with a gold wedding ring of mysterious provenance that had lived in a jam jar for decades in my boyfriend Norman’s old house.

When Norman proposed after nine years together, he fished it out of its humble, button-filled home and ended up putting it on my finger at our ceremony in January 2023. When examined through a local jeweller’s loupe, the tiny inner inscription showed that it was 22-carat gold and therefore worth between £800–£900, much to Norman’s amazement.

That figure was later confirmed by private buying service Burlingtons Ltd – a company that offers valuations for heirloom-owning over-50s like myself – which had sent me a brochure advertising its services.

Daniel Ives, the company’s managing director, came to my home and not only confirmed how much the ring was worth but also estimated the value of my cherished 1960s Terence Conran coffee table with a laminate top depicting sketches of London landmarks, which I had snapped up for £100 from online vintage store Cha Cha Cha eight years ago. He says it could now fetch £500–£700.

After Daniel had valued my wedding ring and the Conran table, Norman showed him three of his own antiques as well: a crackleware vase inherited from an uncle who brought it back from the South China Seas, a 1920s table lamp in the shape of a girl holding up an electric-light globe, and a cromach, or Scottish walking stick, that he had inherited from his grandfather.

Sadly, their gorgeous looks were not reflected in their value.

Daniel identified the vase as one from Satsuma, Japan, and made between 1910 and 1930 for the tourist market – so only worth up to £100–£150. Had the table lamp been bronze, it could have fetched £3,000–£4,000 – especially if signed by leading Art Deco sculptors such as Josef Lorenzl, Demetre Chiparus or Ferdinand Preiss. But it was unsigned and made of humble spelter, so only worth up to £300–£400.

As for the cromach, the curved handle with a little smiling man’s head on the end was made of horn that Daniel said would be hard to sell these days because of a squeamishness around the ethics of animal products like horn.

All this made me wonder about the first editions of several George Bernard Shaw plays left to me by my first husband Liam, an avid book collector who had blithely assumed they would be a hedge against inflation. I certainly wasn’t going to cast his literary pearls before buyers on websites such as eBay or Ziffit.

Not when Forum Auctions, a specialist auction house for rare books and manuscripts, recently achieved £44,000 for the 1954-55 first editions of all three volumes of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and £14,000 for the 1949 first edition of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

So much for my daydreams, however. Daniel referred my Shaw query on to literary specialist John Loska of Colin Page Antiquarian Books, who told me that because Shaw has long since fallen out of fashion, Pygmalion is the only work worth anything now due to its association with the peerless musical version My Fair Lady. To complicate matters further, there’s even a hierarchy in first editions.

“The 1913 privately printed Pygmalion is rare and worth a few thousand depending on the condition,” John points out. But Liam’s prized 1916 first English trade edition, published by Constable? “Very common and of very little value, perhaps £10,” was his crushing verdict.

So if you are tempted, like me, to go hunting around in your attic or boxroom for overlooked antiques, what’s the best route for ensuring that you achieve the right price?

Aside from private services, auction houses such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams are a good option for potentially high-value pieces. Or contact your local auction house for less precious objects.

If you’d rather sell multiple items in one go, try websites such as Vintage Cash Cow. You can post a box of items to them for free or have it collected, and they will give you a quote and return them if you’re not happy with the price.

Alternatively, if you fancy being on TV, you could always apply to appear on shows such as BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow and The Bidding Room. But in the end, goods are worth only what people are prepared to pay for them. Something may indeed be rare and wonderful, but fluctuating fashions play a key part in the market. It’s always a gamble.

Brown antique furniture (solid dark wood, such as walnut, mahogany, rosewood and teak) is often passed down through generations but if you’re looking to sell, be aware it’s currently out of favour unless it’s very old.

Furniture makers such as Chippendale, Gillows of Lancaster and London or Hindley, Charles & Sons are still popular. Names really matter.

“It has to be special,” emphasises Andrew Blackall of the Wiltshire-based antiques boutique Blanchard Collective. But the retro market of mid-century wood furniture made by G Plan and Ercol is currently in hot demand, according to Blackall.

However, you shouldn’t necessarily “frown at brown”, he says, when you buy, sell or dump.

“Makers’ labels and provenance, a history of who, what and where, always add value, so look for those.”

That view is echoed by retired London auctioneer Andrew Jackson.

“When antiques go out of fashion and people dump them, it creates a scarcity, which is when collectors start sniffing around," he says. "You can still sell decent brown furniture for good money if it’s high quality, from the 18th or 19th centuries. The smaller, delicate pieces are what sell now.

"Although with a Waring & Gillow mahogany dining table and eight chairs, you’re still in business.”

One item that’s likely to prove a good investment is an historic rug, defined as between 75 and 100 years old.

They can fetch up to £2,000–£3,000, according to Jackson, who says, “Quality ones will last a lifetime, though Chinese ones are less fashionable now than they were up to the 1980s.”

Authentic antique Persian rugs can command even higher sums – sometimes up to six figures. There’s always a market for memorabilia and items sell for much more when the artist is dead because of the rarity value. The autograph of David Bowie on a photograph or record sleeve can fetch £200–£400, for example.

Current best investment bets include:

• Jewellery, as silver and gold prices are at an historic high.
• Solid silver tea sets and trays from the Victorian period and earlier.
• Wrist and pocket watches, such as Rolex, Cartier and Omega. In particular Cartier’s square-shaped Tank series; Ballon Bleu with its blue cabochon crowns; and Omega’s Seamaster Divers watches, such as the Planet Oceans and Acqua Terras. Rolex dominates the pre-owned market with classics such as Datejust selling for £7,000 or more.