Every so often, I channel surf across Antiques Roadshow on PBS, and am usually transfixed by the objects and stories, and particularly by the show’s experts who can so easily expound on the obscure 19th Century cabinetmaker whose davenport some grandmother happened to drag in.
When the experts pronounce the value of an antique, they will often point out that the valuation that they are giving is the object’s “auction value”, “retail value”, or “insurance value,” or some similar term (“value at auction”).
When I hear that, I wonder what is the difference between those valuations, and why the expert might to use any of these particular valuations.
AFAIR from watching, the values are usually N for auction value, 2N for retail values and 3N or 4*N for insurance value.
Auction value is the value you would get if you would put the item up for an auction. People who come to auctions do not come there to pay the same prices they would in a store, in fact often they are store owners who are buying items for resale in their store. Add to that the auction buyer’s premium of 15% or so and the seller’s fees of anywhere up to 30% and you’re left with a pretty low amount.
Retail is what the guy who buys it at an auction would sell it for. Remember, he paid the buyer’s premium for it, and he wants to make a profit on it as well. Double what you got from the auction for the item is about right.
The even higher insurance value is explained because the insurance exists, supposedly, so you can replace the item if it is destroyed or stolen. So not only will you probably pay retail, but you will probably have to pay extra because the item is rare and extremely hard to find.
I think he’d start with $500 and settle for $600-$650 (since he wouldn’t have to pay buyer’s fees as he would have at the auction and the seller wouldn’t have to pay the seller’s fees, it’s a win-win).