Its been quite a while since our last blog entry but we have been very busy valuing all your stuff and a pleasure it has been to do so!

We have found some interesting pieces and its great to see so many different items each day. Chinese works have been coming in thick and fast and its no surprise that their values can be quite high sometimes considering the strength of the market at the moment. You never know, that old lamp you have in the attic could be a Ming vase!

The Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art market is booming again with all the major auction houses seeing record sales. There was Munch’s The Scream at Sotheby’s which made $119.9m and Rothko’s Orange, Red and Yellow sold for $86.9m at Christies a week ago.

We are still amazed at the amount of high value works that are being discovered each day. An English collector recently bought an extremely rare Warhol sketch in a garage sale in Las Vegas for $5………it has since been valued at over $1m.

We hope you are enjoying your summer now the weather seems to be improving, a good time to get to those boot sales and antique fairs to find some hidden treasures!

We are always interested to hear about your experiences with Valuemystuff.com so let us know how you find using the site and how you think we can improve. Remember we want to keep you happy!

Welcome to our blog of this weeks’ episode. Funnily enough, when I featured on Dragons’ Den, it was exactly a year ago… Bank Holiday Sunday 2010, and gosh, what a ride it has been since then…

Firstly the Panto people were on. A very striking and eye-catching pitch which Peter Jones called the ‘best pitch ever in the Den’, which I agreed with. No investment here though, which I agreed with, as it is a very seasonal business. Lovely pitch though.

Kate Castle is next. A portable toilet. Bog in a bag. Nice pitch by the Winchester based mother of 2. What a lovely lady! I have to say I didn’t warm to the product, but as Peter Jones said, she is a very investable person.It looked at some stage that no investment was going to be made and then Wahw, she had an offer which Deborah withdrew…, followed by Hillary and finally Theo stepped in nailing the deal at 30%. Great person, great deal!

Steve Myberg (not sure about the spelling?), seeking a £70,000 investment. Hampshire based. Quite a scary exchange between him and the dragons. He sounded very naive and admitted he wasn’t a business person and was only now ‘ready’ to take his artistry as a business. The product itself was lovely, but he wasn’t investable… No investment followed.

Last investment pitch was Jog Post: posting leaflets whilst jogging. A neat idea and good pitch. Impressive statics delivered in an impressive manner. Peter kickstarted proceeding followed by Hillary who offered more money in a bid to secure the deal. Third offer from Duncan: 25% for £50,000. Last offer came from Deborah who undercut everybody else at 20% for the full amount of money (£50,000), and that was the offer they went with. Lucky guys, they got a fab dragon!!!

Great episode with a wide array of different businesses, i enjoyed it as ever…

The first three people that came up presented the dog ‘toilet’. Even though I warmed to the people (even though they did talk waaaaay to much!), i didn’t quite see the point of the product…. No?…

The second pitch demonstrated how much you need to get your figures right when you walk into the Den. I remember I went over my figures a million times before going into the Den, and actually now, I am actually hitting exactly the projections that I made into the den. However, with Duncan making the offer it shows, the dragons do look beyond also the purely financial and invest as much in the people as in the business… Am glad they got the deal (at 50%), they really deserved it, nice people.

Third pitch was the Russian chap. Nervous start… Remembering when I walked up those stairs, gosh what a nervous wreck i was too, a year ago now… Theo said that there are some “great inventions that never made money”… Do you agree?… I didn’t get the investment, but had a very good pitch I thought…

Last pitch was the fence protective sleeve to help premature fencing failure … Yes that sounds like a mouthful, but thought it t be a very interesting product. Peter Jones hit the nail on the head, saying they were ‘model pitchers’. Great to see the dragons fight over this one…Quite a bit of tension there, but hey, the entrepreneurs were sticking to their guns. Did they push it too far? Deborah mentioned that there is a moment in a deal and you have to take it, telling them they “made a poor decision”… You agree…

What a roller coaster of a last pitch…. They had 4 offers and walked out with nothing…. Still, a fantastic show!! What are your thoughts?

It is hard to say what the true reasons for lacklustre performances these last few auction seasons have been. With the economy being as troublesome as it is right now, buyers are more keen to spend the money on large ticket items of good quality and things that will survive to increase in value over the next coming years. The sales even saw some record-breaking lots due to their rarity, craftsmanship, and longevity. One prime example is Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait which was estimated at $20-30 million at Christie’s. The final price of $34m (£22.1m) helped to not only put Warhol back on the top but also achieve the highest price for any work from any sale so far in 2011.

When you look at the total lots sold and bought in for the three auction houses, the percentages actually look pretty good. Sotheby’s only bought-in 9 of the 58 lots, and Christie’s, only 3 of the 65 lots were unsold. The buyers are still alive and well in the market there are just more aware now of cost and of not overspending.

Photograph of Andy Warhol

Jeff Koons 'Pink Panther'. Another edition of this piece sold at Sotheby's for $15 million.

From the humble beginnings in Hollywood stages, the film auctions have really taken off. There are now specific auctions dedicated to film memorabilia. Bonhams holds an Entertainment Memorabilia Auction as well as Christie’s with their Vintage Film Posters and Film Memorabilia Sales.

With the introduction of the Internet, there has been a wide increase with selling objects such as these through eBay and other auction sites. There has also been an increase in social networking like MoPo, that has created a central place for people to stay connected to events and important sales coming up throughout not only the States but also globally.

One such event is the sae of Debbie Reynolds’ collection throughout the year of 2011. Some items will include, Marilyn Monroe’s ‘subway dress’ from The Seven Year Itch, a Charlie Chaplin bowler hat, Vivien Leigh’s Gone with the Wind dress made from drapes, The Wizard of Oz ruby slippers, Audrey Hepburn’s Ascot dress and hat from My Fair Lady and finally Charlton Heston’s tunic, and accessories from Ben-Hur. The sales will take place from June to December 2011 in California at Profiles in History.

Hollywood, California USA

MGM Studios logo.

But what makes a car an antique? Depending on where you are located the official age of a vintage car is 45 years old in the States defined by the Antique Automobile Club of America. European counties will differ with that age. An antique car is one that is rarely driven, show in exhibitions and shows, and usually has some sort of original restoration to show the authenticity and age of the car.

What are the most valuable cars? Well it is hard to determine that. There are periods of car making that are more sought after due to their rareness than anything else. The Brass Era (Veteran and Edwardian eras in the UK) deals with any car made from the 1890s until 1918. This era was referred to as the Horseless carriage era. The cars still surviving from this period are rare in number and tend to fetch high prices because of the little exhibition time they are given and rarely seen in public. The Vintage era, a period from 1920 until 1930s, showed over 500 car companies by the beginning of the Great Depression. After 1929 only 60 survived and continuing twelve years later, less than 20 were in operation. Cars from this time, made by manufacturers out of business will, although not as rare in number, will fetch decent prices.

1920 Hudson Touring Limo.

Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879-1933) and André Tardieu (1876-1945). Bureau and Chair "Tardieu". 1929. Sold for, €2,305,000

Christie’s three-day long sale closed on March 31^st with the auction house bringing-in a total of €35.1 million (£31.9 million). The sale consisted of 875 lots all from the Château de Gourdon collection in Paris. The majority of the items were of the French decorative arts and design, which was collected by Laurent Negro in the past fifteen years. The sale items have always been on view at the family’s château in the Southern French Alps.

The sale was conducted at the Palais de Tokyo in the Trocardero. The museum-style curated show was very impressive to many international collectors. The sale concluded with 84% of the works being sold as well as a complete total including premiums of €42 million falling within the presale estimate of €35-50 million.

A sale highlight includes the French designer, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann. His work “skis”, a chaise longue chair, sold for €2.5 million to a European collector being an auction record for the artist. Although the sale was considered a success, there were also many blue-chip artists such as Eileen Grey and Jean Dunand who sold either on the low estimate price or were bought-in and not sold. Those pieces that did sell, many records were reached as well as a hefty price tag for the auction house.

Jean Dunand (1877-1942): Assembly of Woodwork, "Palms", circa 1930. Sold for €2,193,000.

But a three-day auction is a long time. Would you consider following an auction that last more than one day?

Wine vaults before being bottled.

Earlier this month there was a phenomenal sale of wine at the Lafite auction in Chicago of high quality Bordeaux for $4.9 million. And later that same day, in New York, Acker Merrall & Condit sold $2.3 million worth of fine wines.

To understand the wine market, there is a Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 index, which tracks the growth of the market and collectors. From the numbers of the index, everything is going up with the index rising 41 percent at the end of February. In the first three months of 2011 saw sales totaling $46 million.

With cases of 1982 Chateau Lafite being sold at various auctions pricing from $51,425 to $71,700 the wine market seems to really be soaring. So store your bottle of wine for another few years and maybe one day your wine could sell for thousands of dollars!

Do you agree that wine is going to continue to do well in the market?

Andy Warhol, "Liz #5" 1963.

With the death of Elizabeth Taylor on March 23^rd, it seemed the whole world was looking to get a piece of the famous actress in the following days. The art world was of course no exception. Only two days later, journalists were reporting on the upcoming sale of an Andy Warhol painting of Taylor to be sold by Phillips de Pury on May 12^th in New York. The painting ‘Liz #5’ (1963) has been given an estimate of $20-30 million (£12-18 million). The famous silkscreen on canvas has an impressive provenance as well after being purchased in 2001 by the actor Hugh Grant for £2 million and was then resold in 2007 for £13 million at Sotheby’s. It has also been reported that this print will hopefully achieve a price threefold above the estimate due to the recent events of her death.

Along with the sale of this iconic work, throughout Southampton will be exhibitions of more than 200 works being showed at two prominent galleries within the city. To promote this event, Warhol’s 1965 portrait of Taylor will be projected at night on the side of the Skandia building. The exhibition will show work dealing with Warhol’s interest in fame and the celebrity culture of works from 1951 up to his death in 1987. Out of all the prints that are represented in the show, there was consideration to use an Elizabeth Taylor portrait to pay tribute to the late actress.

Myth always has it that the minute a celebrity sadly passes away, that values for their memorabilia shoots up. Is this the case in your experience?… Same with Michael Jackson memorabilia? In my view it really is dependent how much memorabilia there are around of that person. For example, Michael Jackson signed an awful lot of items and thus these items wouldn’t have gone up in value that much since his recent death. However, the rarer pieces would have shot up in value much more… So in my view it is the rarity combined with the  iconic status of the celebrity (possible enhanced by the death of the celebrity) that pushes up values….

TEFAF catalog cover for 2011

TEFAF, The European Fine Art Fair, as become an annual event in which the leading galleries from across the world come together in Maastricht, The Netherlands for a showcase of museum quality and outstanding works of art. In a fair with close to 260 galleries representing 17 countries, the value of works becomes enormous. With the total value of all works hovering around 1 billion Euros, this event brings in not only local dealers and patrons but international collectors and museums as well. The fair shows works ranging from 3,000-year-old antiquities through to contemporary works of all kinds. There are dealers specializing in paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, classical antiquities, illuminated manuscripts, jewelry, textiles, design, antique furniture just to name a few.

The fair runs for ten days (March 18-27^th) with a preview night before the fair opens for public view. Many museum representatives were in attendance as well as the high profile collectors from across the globe. The fair was founded in 1988 and will celebrate its 25^th anniversary next year in 2012. It’s advertisement states that TEFAF “is one of the most influential art and antiques events in the world. It is constantly changing and improving to strengthen its already pre-eminent position in the international market.”

In the last few years, TEFAF has made a point to allow classic modern, design, and contemporary dealers into the fair due to the ever increasing risk to old master markets. With the great and important works selling and being obtained by museums, it is never easy to find examples of the great masters that are recognizable. Because of this increasing shortage of old masters, fairs such as this are starting to include the new generation of old masters. More displays of Picasso, Monet, and even Warhol are starting to grace the stands at TEFAF spattered throughout the classic modern area. But of course, we cannot dismiss those stands that are displaying the amazing works of Rembrandt, Brueghel the Elder and Younger, Pellegrini, Valazquez, Rodin and many others.

After two days, the fair can be exhausting. But when surrounded by fresh flowers and gorgeous works of art, one cannot feel anything but joy.

Please let us know what you think! Is TEFAF worth all the hype?