We are often phoned by people who have items to be valued which is fair enough as we are restorers and valuers of antiques and fine art.
Very often people will say, we have some antique items to value and we are not sure what is there, which again of course is fair enough as you cannot expect the average person to be able to value antiques correctly in any sense.
The third thing they say very often which is the item of this discussion, is we have got rid of most of the rubbish which has been sold to the house clearance people.
My heart sinks at this stage as generally but not always the house clearance people will of course know rather more about what they are buying then the people they are buying it from.
Which means they will often clear everything leaving the rubbish for the client to phone us about after telling them they have left the best things.
When they get to the client’s property they will often say it’s mostly rubbish and charge the client to clear the property instead of paying the client for items they might sell at great profit.
Very often house clearance people will come to us with a van load of stuff including antique items which might include grandfather clocks paintings etc mixed in with toilet seats and the like as their knowledge is very limited.
They come to us to ask the value of antique items because they simply just do not know as their business is clearing rubbish not valuing antiques.
The emphasis of this story is to try and encourage people who require to know if there items are worth anything to contact a competent valuer.
A house clearance person came to us recently with such a van load of rubbish with a few items of great value including an oil painting which we valued and sold on their behalf for £15,000 through a major auction house.
Even though we were acting for the house clearance person as our client I cannot help feeling that the person whose house the item came from should have received the money rather than the house clearance person who apparently charged to clear the house.
It doesn’t cost much to contact a house clearance person but generally you get your house cleared and that’s about all and you might even have to pay them.
On the other hand you if you have to pay a competent valuer such as ourselves a small fee to be told whether your items are of value or not, you then can sell to the house clearance people if you wish and at least you will know how to proceed.
When we are asked to undertakea valuation which is simply to value items because the client does not know the value of them, we will charge a small fee for travelling to the property and a small fee for the valuation to cover our time.
If an item is found of great value we can advise the client on how to sell the item and which auction house to sell it from, if the client wants us to sell it on their behalf we will try and do so, of course this will often involve quite a lot of work as we want to sell the item for as much as possible therefore we will charge a commission agreed upon with the client.
Recently two plates were found in a property prior to a house clearance which we sold on the client’s behalf for £20,000 our commission to the client for doing this and going to the house and valuing the items and selling it at auction was £1000.
If you wish to us to help you with your valuation please contact us on our business number. (01462) 790646
By e-mail to contact Green and Cockburn restoration and valuation
e-mail. gxc@freeuk.com