Yes! And free appraisals if the collection is for sale and I can have an opportunity to make an offer :)
It's a balance of time investment for me. If I know someone has no intention of selling and just needs an insurance appraisal, then that would be a paid service since I'm simply selling my time and expertise (which I'm more than happy to do). If there's an opportunity for me to purchase the collection, I'll usually put the bid together at no charge since that's a sales & marketing expense on my internal brain books.
A lot of dealers will try to split the difference -- they'll offer the appraisal at no charge if they get to purchase the collection, and if they don't end up purchasing then the appraisal fee comes into play. I actually think that's a reasonably fair model and may adapt that.
Doesn't that make for a tricky conflict of interest? (No offense intended).
I mean if you're paid for the appraisal then there's no incentive for your number not to be honest.
On the other hand if you are valuer, then buyer, then it pays you to err on the low side. Not "wrong", just "low".
I don't mean to impinge your ethics of course, but as a model (which I'm sure the whole industry follows) it seems to leave the seller open to abuse from folks with imperfect motivations.
To be sure though, I can't suggest a better alternative. The best people to value it are dealers. Short of more-or-less auctioning it to multiple dealers at the same time.
I think this is true for most collectibles. And especially true for the collections of those who have passed. My suggestion to any collector is for them to sell it themselves before they die.
No you're absolutely right -- it's a great point and I was imprecise with my response. The key is really to differentiate a "how much is my collection worth I kinda want to sell it" request from a more formal "I'd like an appraisal" request.
I conflated the two but they really are separate requests and are to be treated distinctly.
The former (which is much more common) is what most dealers hear. It's a request from folks who happen upon a collection and want to sell it and turn it into cash (or gold or silver or whatever near-cash equivalent they desire). That's where a call to a dealer isn't so much a request for an "appraisal" (in the formal definition) but more "how much money can I get for this collection now". It's implicit that the number the dealer offers is what they'd pay for it, which also happens to be the number the dealer believes it's worth. I don't have any moral qualms about that.
(Side note -- speaking of "not wrong just low" -- one of my favorite old-school dealers who's been doing this for 40 years and is appropriately salty lives by the mantra "I like to pay on the low end of fair".)
The second type of request - which is for a formal, written, insurable, usable-in-court Capital-A "Appraisal" is where there might be more potential for a conflict of interest, but if we as dealers are clear this is the job we're being hired for then we're going to issue a valuation which is based on published price guides (and the appropriate disclaimer that is is retail replacement value, not necessarily the price a dealer will pay).
Hope that clears it up - and thank you for the comment.
