When you're ready to sell, call, text or email us. Give a brief description of the items. Don't worry about size, type of wood, etc. We'll ask you a series of questions about age, condition, the "look" of the items and by your answers, we'll know if it's something we'd like to see.  If so, then we’ll make an appointment to come see the items and if we agree on a price, buy them on the spot.  Small items we will mostly likely remove at that time and come back for the bigger items within a few days.

If you prefer to email or text photos, even better. You don't need very detailed, close-up photos, just some general photos of the various rooms or pieces is sufficient.

To send an email please go to our contact page. Please include your name, phone and, most importantly, the location (town and state) of the items you’re selling.  If sending photos, please know that if the file sizes are too big or there are too many photos in the email, it may bounce back. If that happens, you might try either reducing the size of the photos (1mb max) or just limit it to 3 or 4 photos per email.  You can also send the photos in a word doc, PDF, or zip file. 

You can also text photos to:  914-312-8622.  Again, don't forget to tell us the location (town, city, state) of the items.

We usually respond to emails within 24 hours.  If you have not heard back from us, it’s possible we did not receive your email so feel free to follow up with a phone call.

Glad you asked.  We are not interested in any of the following:

• big entertainment centers and TV cabinets (although we do buy some vintage wall units from the ’50’s, ’60’s & ’70’s)

• sectional sofas (unless unusual from the 1950’s-70’s)

• sofa beds, massage chairs, lift-up chairs

• contemporary sofa & love seat sets

• anything from Ikea, Bob’s, and Raymour & Flanagan

• mica & lacquer furniture from the 1980’s or later

• kitchen cabinets from your recent renovation job

• exercise equipment (except for Concept 2 rowing machines)

• appliances (stoves, refrigerators, washer & dryers, microwaves, ac's, toaster ovens, etc.), although we do buy vintage stereo equipment

• pots & pans

• fur coats

• hospital beds, walkers & wheelchairs

• pot belly stoves

• mattresses & box springs, futons

We tend to make appointments only a few days to a week or so in advance.  Sometimes, if our schedule permits, we’ll come over the same day you call.  We always come ready to buy and remove items on the spot or within a day or two.

No, we prefer to come to you.  Often, while we’re there looking at the pieces you called us about, we see other items of interest to us that you may not have even considered would be of value.  But, if you prefer to bring things to us you’re more than welcome.  Please make an appointment before coming.

Short answer: no.  Long answer: As a rule of thumb, you don't need to polish anything, whether it's furniture, silver, etc.  You don't need to dust anything, repair anything or clean it.  We'd prefer to see the items in as-found condition.  And sometimes, you might hurt the value by trying to make it look nice.  We will buy all the sterling silver you have, no matter the condition or amount.  

Searching the internet for values can be difficult and often misleading. Difficult if you don’t know exactly what it is you have or what it’s called; misleading because what you might find is a price that someone is asking for a similar item rather than what it actually sold for. Resellers can ask whatever price they’d like. But that's not necessarily the true value. The asking price is often way more than market value.  

Think of it this way. You’re selling your home and you’d like to ask 2 million dollars. Well, go right ahead. No one will stop you. But if all the recent comparable sales in your neighborhood are in the $400,000-$500,000 range, then that’s what your house is probably worth and no one in their right mind will pay your price.

Most antiques and second hand dealers rely on auction records that show recent, actual sales prices for similar items to inform their buying decisions. And it’s best if these sales results are within the last 2-3 years. Markets are constantly changing. An item’s sales price 10 years ago has no relevance to its value today. So, it’s best to look at auction records when doing your own price and value research. If you find similar items, try to match size, condition, details, quality, manufacturer, etc. These all affect value. 

One auction venue often consulted is eBay. Caution: many sellers tell me they found their item “selling” on eBay for X price. But these sellers neglect to look at eBay's "sold & completed sales" section. This section is where you’ll find items whose auctions are finished with actual sold prices. Often, these prices are much, much less than the “asking” or “selling” price people first see. 

If you do find a similar item to yours offered at a retail shop, remember that the shop has other costs besides the actual item: rent, utilities, personnel, advertising, maintenance, insurance, trucking, labor, and, often, refinishing and repair of the piece before it can be sold. And, the longer a piece sits in inventory, the more it actually costs the shop. Furthermore, asking prices for antiques are almost always negotiable so it’s rare to see an item sell for its list price. 

There is no formula. Every situation is different and there are many factors involved. The more labor required and the more time it takes to sell an item combined with whether there is a high or low demand are all taken into account when we make offers. Sometimes we might only make 10% on a very small, quick sale, while other times we may need to make 75% if we need trucks, extra labor and months to sell. We use auction sales and a data base of values to guide us as to what we can pay for items. Given that we have little to no price control when selling at auctions, we never really know how much we’re going to get for an item. It’s a guess. Sometimes we guess right, sometimes we guess wrong. It’s our risk. When we're selling items individually on-line, it requires a great deal of time and labor to photograph, write up descriptions and then pack and ship items once sold so we have to take all of this into account.

Our Hawthorne, NY location is just a warehouse, not a retail showroom. The vast majority of the items we acquire get sold at auction, through various on-line venues or at our warehouse to our network of buyers, both wholesale and retail. Given that we’re often buying large quantities, we get way too much inventory to refinish, clean up and sell in a retail setting. We would be drowning in inventory.  And we use auction sales and values to guide us as to what we can pay for items. If you’re looking to buy something specific please give us a call to see if we have it in stock. 

We recommend you give some thought to how much you’d like to get for your items.  It’s helpful to both you and us if you have some figure in mind.  But we understand that it’s sometimes difficult for people not “in the biz” to come up with a price.  So, we’re always ready to make an offer but we ask that you, as the seller, be ready to either accept or decline our offer.  And, if you don’t like our offer, we would appreciate you letting us know how much you would accept.  We try to avoid coming out to your home, spending time examining items, making an offer and then having people tell us they’re just not sure or ready.  If you’re only trying to get some idea of what something might be worth, you might want to consider getting an appraisal first. We can often make you a ball-park offer based on photos you might send us as well.

Many people innocently use the term "appraisal" incorrectly. They want to sell something and ask for an "appraisal" when what they really want is an estimate of how much we would pay for the item.  When we come to give you an estimate, there is no charge assuming you are ready to sell. 

But sometimes people really do need an appraisal, usually for one of three reasons: they’re getting ready to sell the items; to settle an estate; or for insurance needs. A formal appraisal is when we come to your home, examine your items, take measurements, photos, etc. and then write up a report detailing the items' pertinent information (age, material, type of wood, artist, etc.) along with a fair market value.  When we're doing an appraisal, we are not buying anything as this would be a conflict of interest. We charge $450/hour (one hour minimum) to do appraisals. We bill for time spent on-site and also for time spent off site researching and preparing the appraisal. Payment for the on-site portion of the appraisal is due at completion of that time when meeting on-site and we will invoice you for the balance of the time spent doing research and preparation. Sometimes we must charge for travel depending on location.

Don’t be fooled.  What these dealers are offering is instead a free estimate; an estimate of what they would pay for your items.  That is not an appraisal.  You will only know what that dealer wants to pay for an item.  If you want to find out its true value, hire an appraiser.

Yes.  A fair market value appraisal is defined as “what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller.”  Fair market value appraisals are based on current and recent sales of similar items.  Such sale information is culled from auction houses and other markets that we’re familiar with.  These types of appraisals are typically done for estates and/or for people who are selling off their belongings due to downsizing or moving.  Keep in mind that even though we may assign a value to an item, there is no guarantee that you will get that price when you try to sell the item.  But it is a good starting point.

An appraisal done for insurance purposes is known as a replacement value appraisal.  These values are typically much higher than those in a fair market value appraisal.  Here we assign a value to an item based on what the owner would have to pay should they need to go out and replace the item due to a fire, theft, damage during a move, etc. 

The short answer is “no,” but there are exceptions (we’ll get to that later). The person doing an appraisal should not be the same person buying your items.  It’s a conflict of interest.  When you hire and pay an appraiser he/she is working for you and you alone.  But when you ask a buyer to come and make you an offer, that buyer or dealer is working for himself, not for you.  If you ask a dealer to appraise items that he might want to buy, he might be tempted to assign a less-than-accurate value to the item.  A good appraiser will make it clear in his appraisal report that he has no interest in the items.

Now, back to the exception.  In some instances, several weeks or months after we’ve done an appraisal, we’ve been contacted by the customer asking if we might have any interest in buying any of the items.  The owners had sold or dispersed some items but still had some things left.  In some of these situations we have bought some of the items but usually for less than the appraised value since we have to make a profit.

Sure.  We realize there are times when people might be contemplating a move down the road or getting ready to liquidate an estate but need some time to figure out what to keep, how to distribute items to heirs, etc.

People like to have some idea of our potential interest and some idea of what we might pay.  Often, we can tell you over the phone based on a brief description or photos if we might have any interest.

But if you’d prefer that we come to look at your items even though you may not be ready to sell, we offer a refundable “paid estimate” service for $100 in Westchester. Other areas a bit more depending on our travel time.  Here’s how it works: assuming it sounds like there are things that we might be interested in, we’ll come to your home, look around, and give you some potential offers.  If you sell us anything at that time, there is no charge.  But if you don’t, we charge $100.  If you call us back within a month offering to sell us anything we saw at the first visit, then, assuming we can still use it, we’ll come and buy it and refund the $100.  As most people realize, time is money and we just can’t spend all day driving around looking at item when people aren’t ready to sell. 

Keep in mind, there is no guarantee we will buy the item(s) down the road.  We often buy based on our current inventory.  It’s possible that something we wanted to buy a month ago is not of interest to us 4 weeks later because we are overstocked with similar items.   Also remember that this service is not an appraisal, only an estimate of what we might pay for an item. 

We buy outright.  A consignment shop will take your items and sell them for you.  They do not buy the items.  Once the item sells, the shop takes a commission.  Consignment shops usually don’t take much furniture as they have limited space.  They also very often will charge you to transport the items to their shop.

On occasion we sometimes will manage an auction consignment for clients. We will consign your item with an auction company where we get a preferential industry commission rate. We then oversee the transportation, manage all paperwork and communication and then take a fee once the item sells.

If we’re interested in it.  Sometimes, people selling furniture or other collectibles realize that the tax deduction they can get by donating is way more than the amount they’d realize by selling outright. We work with a charity and can occasionally arrange a tax-deductible donation for you.  It’s a three-way transaction.  Here’s how it works:  the charity has no interest in getting furniture or other donations, all they want is money.   If we are interested in your items and you prefer to donate them, we will write up a receipt from the charity with a value you’re comfortable with, take the items and send the charity money.  You get a deduction, the charity gets needed funds, and we get merchandise.  We will not take furniture that we cannot sell.  We strongly recommend you first consult with your accountant to know if a tax deduction will benefit you and what forms you may need to fill out. 

We do not have a tag sale service but we can help:

If you'd like to run the sale yourself but need help with valuations we can advise you on pricing and set-up.  We would charge our standard appraisal fee ($450/hour) and then you would keep all the proceeds.