Guest Expert – Walt Kolenda “Auction Wally” on Vintage & Antiques Today

Vintage Indie would like to welcome the author Walt Kolenda aka Auctionwally blogs at
  Auctionwally.com
  where he conducts online antiques appraisals. He’s a licensed MA
  auctioneer  and professional appraiser, there are  over 200 archived
  articles and appraisals on his site, all are free to view. He also blogs at
  Myweekonebay.wordpress.com

It wasn’t that long ago that vintage collectibles weren’t taken very seriously
at all in the collectibles marketplace. In the last 5 years items in the 20 to
40 year old range have exploded in value and demand. It’s a good thing too
because the business is in much need of new blood. There’s a lot of whispers in
circles that ‘you just don’t see enough young people interested in antiques
anymore’, so anything that draws new recruits into the fold is a good thing.
Vintage collectibles are fun, quirky and like just the thing to attract newbies,
at the same time, getting some of the stuffed shirts to take things in a lighter
manner.

As a veteran seller it’s been interesting to watch things rise from the bottom
of the totem pole to the tops of the pops in prices and demand. Here’s my take
on a few of the revered collectibles of today that were dogs 25 plus years ago
when I broke into the business.

Syrocco Wood: I remember this being the butt of many jokes at auctions in
the 1980s. Back then you would want to get the phone # of the ‘sucker’ who was
foolish enough to purchase a box of this junk for $5.00 or $10.00. After all, if
they purchased this fake wood product, you could probably sell them anything,
yup, this would be a good person to try to dump that crate of left handed
pencils you got stuck with at the last auction. No one’s laughing at Syrocco
Wood any more, at least not me. Last month on eBay, I got $331.00 for a
Franciscan Monk made from this vintage material. Now where is that phone #…

If you hunt the fleas, yard sales and country auctions, you can find Syrocco in
the form of ashtrays, thermometers, wall plaques, covered boxes and many other
common household items. It’s not all that rare, but it’s rare to find anyone
laughing at it or pricing it at giveaway prices.

Orange
Carnival glass and Indiana glass: This would go right into box lots with
Avon bottles and those dime-a-dozen white milk glass vases you got free from the
florist. If it wasn’t old Carnival glass,  no one wanted it. It was
considered a horrible reproduction back in the day. The most common pattern
among Indian glass was the grape pattern. In fact Gus William, who’s auction I
pushed for in Westmoreland NH used to call it ‘that damned grape pattern’. It
was useless, no, actually back then it was worse than useless because if you had
a box full if it, you couldn’t get anything for it, but you still had to get rid
of the box! The Orange carnival glass was the barely a little better. If you had
10-12 pieces, you might get a $5.00 bill for it,… make sure to get that
phone#!  Now I see these things bringing what the Older pieces like
Northwood and Fenton used to bring back then. If your lucky you can get between
$15 -$35 on eBay now for the right piece, which is about what an average old
Northwood dark purple carnival bowl would bring in the mid 1980s.

Pyrex Good clean Pyrex was always salable in the old country
auction houses, but 20 years ago it was a good seller because people wanted it
to use in the kitchen, it wasn’t collectible by any means. The primary colors
sets would always sell, but at about $1.00 per bowl and not much more. The clear
Pyrex would bring almost as much as the colored, it was all about function. I
have a dealer friend who has a wonderful large collection of Pyrex in her
personal collection. She’s got tons of colors, every serving and mixing piece
you could imagine in Pyrex, but she mixed her cake batter in Tupperware, she’d
NEVER use her good Pyrex for something like that. Early 80s price for a set of
Pyrex matching colored bowls. $5 to $10. Today, I’ve gotten from $35 to $65 a
set at my
live
auctions.

Old Photo Albums:  If you were an auction runner with an old family
photo album in your hands, standing in the auction block line, the pusher or
auctioneer might scold you telling you to ‘put that down and get something good,
it’s too early in the evening to be selling the junk!’ Old photos were only
salable if they had an unusual subject or theme, IE: A train conductor, a ship,
an Indian. Parades were good and scenes of General Store as well, but if the
subject were just your average American Family on vacation, forget it. Now
people are very interested in these old albums and will pick them up at the
right price, especially if it includes a soldiers photo journal of WWII. Unless
there are some interesting and unusual photos, they won’t hit the stratosphere,
but will get you a steady $25 to $50 each on eBay. Back in the day, $2-$5 each,
if you could even sell them at all.

Ah, the good old days. Of course there are a lot more examples of items that not
so long ago were worthless and now sell well. Perhaps a better question is
‘what’s selling for low prices now that will be worth a small fortune
tomorrow?’  Now where are those phone numbers?