Glassware -- Collectors and collecting; Glassware -- Great Britain; Glassware -- Prices
Then there is the eternal question of price. One point should be always
before the collector’s mind: In the event of my being compelled to
realise my collection, what price may I hope to get for it? To the
collector the buying price and the selling price are intimately
connected. There is so much capital to be locked up, so much time
employed, so much skill displayed, and there should be a fair recompense
for all three. And, further, there is the ever-present risk that fashion
may change, and articles once greedily sought after may become
unsaleable because they are “out of fashion.” Of course, one obvious
way of purchasing to advantage is when others have to sell at a
disadvantage; when collections come into the market because of the death
or misfortune of their owner. At such sales I have known many bargains
picked up, although it is again necessary to emphasise the need for
wariness. Bogus sales are not unknown, and it is a common practice for
genuine sales to be “salted,” and often pretty liberally, by the
introduction of inferior imitations, in the hope that, among much that
is undoubtedly genuine, they may escape detection.
I may, perhaps, be permitted to say a word as to the prices which should
be paid in the ordinary way at such sales. An old Waterford cut-glass
jug is, provided its cutting is perfect, certainly worth a five-pound
note. A very common dodge is to sell an old Waterford jug with a cracked
handle, the crack being where it is least likely to show, _i.e._ at the
top or bottom of the handle close to where it joins the body. For an
ordinary spiral wine glass 7s. 6d. to 10s. is a fair price, but glasses
with baluster stems are easily worth a guinea. Most expensive of all are
the real “Fiat” glasses: £9, £10, £15, and even more may be paid for
one. I saw one sold a few months ago for the record price of nineteen
guineas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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