Tiny vase bought for £2.50 in Surrey expected to sell for £9,000 – BBC News

You have to be pragmatic about these things. A vase bought for £2.50 in a charity shop is expected to sell for £9000. I have been buying, amongst other things, boxes of bric a brac from auctions I have been attending weekly since, sad face emoji, 1984. When I was 18. I have in all probability bought ten a week equating to 17,500. I would estimate 250,000 objects. Also, probably 5000 paintings, pictures etc.

A third have ended up in my various historical High Street shop and online. A further third I have ‘knocked out at antique and boot fairs and about a third has been put back into auction or I have given away, ‘buyer collects.’

I’d love to say I have never made an enormous mistake and sold something valuable for nothing. I’d like even more to say I haven’t done it several times. But I almost certainly have.

With researching items so easy these days with the dawn of the internet checking is easy. But the sheer number of items makes that impossible and many things have no real identifying feature. Maybe the people with the vase in question googled ‘oriental vase.’ Millions of options would be available so that is not practical.

The pragmatism is basically good luck to the person who finds it. You can do nothing about it. You can tear yourself apart in mortal fear of being outmanoeuvred but it is like thinking you can avoid death. It is going to happen. Happily, over the years, I have heard of lots of instances within the antiques trade of someone making a killing on a gem they have bought from another dealer and offering to share the spoils. It is generally a close and friendly trade. Realistically if someone buys something from you for ten pounds and sells it for a thousand you just cross your fingers and hope they keep schtum because a) you’d sooner not know and b) more importantly you don’t want lots of sorrowful glances at the auctions and fairs, ah bless he made a right old gaffe!