A sold comp is a finished sale of a comparable piece. A live listing is an asking price. Only the first belongs in a fair-market range.
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Most pricing mistakes start by mixing these standards.
What a willing buyer and seller actually finish at on the open secondary market — auctions, estate sales, sold online comps. This is the number AntiqID aims at.
What it would cost to replace the piece quickly from a dealer. Insurance riders often sit here. It is commonly far above fair market.
What a dealer pays to take inventory risk today. Usually well below fair market. Useful for a same-day sale, not for quoting the market.
These are the places that show finished sales, and the limit of each.
The free check for anything that sells often. Search the mark and the form, then turn on Sold items. A green price sold. A red or plain price ended with no buyer. Include shipping in what the buyer paid, and match condition. A “new” comp does not price a repaired piece.
Limit: About 90 days of sold history. Fine for a common spoon or printed plate. Empty for a piece that comes up once a year.
The longer free view if you have a seller account. Keeps sold comps and sell-through for up to about three years.
Limit: Use it when the 90-day filter has two results and you need a pattern.
The free auction archive for estate and specialist sales — hammer prices across decades. Search by maker or mark, then narrow by material and period. State whether you used hammer or hammer plus buyer’s premium.
Limit: Right source for Meissen, silver, and furniture that never appear on eBay. Premium is extra — say which figure you used.
The same job for decorative arts and jewelry. Past lots are searchable. A free account is often required for older prices.
Limit: Use as a second auction check, not the only one. Open window is shorter than LiveAuctioneers.
Paid archive aggregating auction and online sales over 15 years or more, with an optional marks add-on. You still need the mark before you search.
Limit: Worth it when the piece is rare and free searches return nothing. Not worth it for a plate with ten eBay sales this month. It does not identify the object.
Past-lot archives for the top of the market.
Limit: A local auction hammer and a Christie's hammer are not the same room. Do not average them.
Asking prices unless the listing is marked sold. Patina and similar tools may claim completed sales from both.
Limit: Treat an unmarked dealer listing as retail replacement, not fair market.
Condition does not add a fixed dollar amount. There is no public table that says every antique loses 30 percent for a chip. The sold record splits by category.
Collectors pay for a perfect surface, so a hairline is not a small deduction from a perfect comp. Dealer and auction practice often treats a hairline as keeping roughly 15 to 25 percent of the perfect price on ordinary tableware, and a small rim chip as keeping 30 to 50 percent. A declared professional restoration usually keeps 20 to 40 percent.
Crazing is judged more kindly on earthenware than on porcelain. Rarity softens the cut. A common 19th-century plate with a crack can lose half or more. An imperial or very early piece still sells with damage, because undamaged examples are not the comp set. A hairline on the display face is worse than one on the foot.
Unsigned, damaged, or monogrammed flatware often sells near melt — spot price times weight, minus the refiner’s cut. A signed piece from a collected maker sells as an object, and a dent or a removed armorial can drop it back toward melt.
Over-polishing is its own damage. Collectors pay for the original skin. A bright dip can make the photo look better and remove the premium, because any piece can be polished and the patina cannot be put back.
Age and use are assumed, so scratches and an old repair move the price less than they do on a plate. A refinish is the expensive mistake. Collectors pay for the original surface. Conservation — a reversible glue on a loose joint — holds the price. Stripping and a new shine spends the originality premium.
A common piece built for use can take a refinish without much change. A signed or rare one cannot.
The worked pair has to be the same object in different condition, or it is not a condition story. A perfect Meissen plate at one hammer and a hairlined plate of the same form at another is the comp. A perfect plate against a different pattern is not. If the only sold results are damaged, the range is the damaged range. Do not scale a mint comp by a guessed percent and call it fair market.
Auction houses do not publish a condition multiplier. The report is an opinion, the lot is sold as is, and the hammer already includes whatever bidders did with that opinion. The useful part is the wording.
Attitudes a 1–6 grade on many luxury and online sales. Grade 1 unused; 2 nearly new; 3 light use (“good”); 4 frequent use (“fair”); 5 heavy use; 6 needs repair. The grade is a summary. Their conditions say it is not a full description, images may hide faults, and every restoration may not be listed.
For an antique, grade 3 is the normal clean-ish comp. Grade 1 almost never applies to an 18th-century object — a grade 1 note on an “antique” is a reason to read the lot again.
Will write a free report on request, then disclaim it. The report is their opinion of general condition, not a guarantee that every repair was found. A covered frame or upholstered seat is unseen by definition.
“Wear consistent with age” means ordinary use is not being treated as damage. “Restored” means someone has already intervened. The report will not say by how much the price should move.
On furniture, the heading is often the report. A commode headed “Louis XV, mid-18th century” is their opinion that it is of the period without major alteration. The same form without the date usually signals significant restoration or alteration. That missing date is the condition note.
On jewelry they say the opposite in print: silence is not a clean bill. Absence of a wear note does not mean the lot is perfect.
The numbers that look comparable belong to different rooms. A silver lot at Bonhams usually has no number at all. Do not convert them into one antique score.
Used on luxury and online sales, including handbags. Grade 1 is a modern-goods grade. An 18th-century object that arrives as grade 1 needs the report read again. The grade is a courtesy; the lot is sold as is.
Mint to unsellable on printed surfaces — not furniture. Restoration sits in their moderate faults with foxing and mat burn. Graded comics can jump wildly between grades; that gap is not a license to halve a chair.
Three codes: case, dial, movement, each with its own list, plus polish and later-parts codes. A repolished case is stated because on a watch the edges are the condition.
No furniture number. A date in the title means period without major alteration. Without the date means significant restoration. “Style” means later reproduction. “Attributed to” is weaker than the name alone.
Prose only: wear consistent with age, chip, hairline, restored, later mounts. Coins, comics, and cards are the exception — third-party 1–10 grades where the grade is the product.
A Christie's 3, a Heritage 7, and a Sotheby's dated heading are three different sentences. The comp is the lot whose report uses the same sentence, not the lot with a nearby number.
Illustrative method — not a live quote for your object
Source class: eBay Sold items (common sterling teaspoon)
English sterling teaspoon with a readable lion passant and town mark. Form and maker class matched before any price search.
Search mark + form, filter Sold items. Keep green sold prices. Drop ended-unsold and still-open listings. Include buyer shipping in the paid figure.
Keep only comps with the same sentence class — readable punches, no replaced handle, no bright-dip “new” look if your spoon still has skin. A mint listing does not price a dented bowl.
The fair-market range is those sold figures, not an average with Christie's or 1stDibs. If only three sold comps in 90 days sit in a tight band, that band is the range. If 90 days is empty, move to LiveAuctioneers or a longer archive — do not invent a percent off a mint asking price.
For a marked Meissen or furniture form that never sells on eBay, swap the source to a LiveAuctioneers hammer of the same form and condition class, and state whether the figure is hammer or hammer plus premium.
Asking prices are what a seller hopes to get. Fair market tracks finished sales of comparable pieces in a similar condition class. Open listings stay out of the range.
eBay Sold for common objects. LiveAuctioneers for marked porcelain, silver, and furniture that rarely appear on eBay. WorthPoint only when free archives return nothing.
It changes which comps you may use. Match hairlines to hairlined sales, not to perfect ones. If only damaged comps exist, the range is the damaged range.
No. A photo-based range is a first read for ordinary resale. Insurance, estate, tax, and disputed authenticity still need a person.
Name the mark, match the condition class, use finished sales. Photograph the piece, then check the sold record — not the asking price.
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