How to Shop for Inexpensive Antiques

This article will show you some ways to shop for antiques that won't pull too hard on your purse strings. Many people love to shop for antiques, but only the very few (and the very rich) don't mind paying high prices.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Determine what collectibles are most reasonably priced and will hold their investment value. Items such as musical instruments, toys and dolls, clocks and watches, hardware items, sporting and gaming implements, war memorabilia, industrial type machinery, items providing architectural details of a specific era, prints, landscape paintings, proprietor signs and posters, artifacts of transportation, communication and industrial periods over 100 years old.

2. Select the collectibles that hold the greatest interest for you. You now have a starting point for shopping.

3. Determine what antique stores have your selection of memorabilia. If you have some knowledge in shopping for antiques, this step may not prove too difficult. However, if you have not been afforded the pleasure of making antique shopping a habit/hobby in the past, you will want to make a list of several shops/stores in your area or the surrounding areas in order to determine what establishments carry your brand(s) of antique collectible(s).

4. Once you've compiled a reasonable list of shops within your area, you are ready to go shopping. The next suggestion is intended to offer you the best possible way to shop for the collectible or antique item you are seeking.
   
   The first thing you must realize however is that there is an enormous variety of antique shops. The more urbanized antique shops are vastly different than the countryside or small town antique shops. Some antique shop owners run establishments handling only the highest end in antique furnishings and accessories; then there is a mass amount of shops comprised of thrift stores, second-hand shops, architectural salvage stores, theatrical prop shops all handling the discards of our prior years' history.
   
   Additionally, there are antique shops found on country roads. Here the prices may be a bit more encouraging and the stock somewhat more extensive. The country dealer is able to offer more reasonable pricing as he/she can generally afford the storage costs as well as deal in antiques.
   
   Since the roadside dealer must generally work within a fairly tight radious of his or her location, it may be advisable, should you decide to make a habit of shopping at a particular location, to build a nice collection of regional specialties.

5. Make sure you plan on visiting several shops, because at this juncture you are merely becoming acquainted with certain shops and dealers as well as their offerings. The first thing you must learn to do is use your observation ability. You should always walk into the shop with a cynical mindset. This means you must always question, in your thoughts, the authenticity of a piece.

6. Until your eye tells you otherwise, you must continue to doubt the genuineness of the article in question. After you have walked the length of the shop, turn around and review your findings. If you have not found anything interesting enough to buy, there is no more to do but exit the store.

7. Practice the type of visit as described in Step 6 to a host of antique shops. In doing so, you will develop your instincts regarding the items you will find in certain types of stores and at particular locations.

8. After visiting several antique shops, begin purchasing and enjoying your collectibles. It is an avocation you will, in time, learn to fully appreciate.

Tips & Warnings

• When buying from a country roadside dealer, remember that many of the items you find are representative of the region's manufacturers and tastes for a particular era or eras.
• Only if the shop is large or more spacious will there be any chance the shop owner handles larger furniture items such as a horse hair sofas, wing chairs or china closets.
• It is wrong to believe that a painted antique furniture item should be stripped and varnished in order to bring back the original finish. This concept has ruined more good pieces of painted country antique furniture than one would like to think. Therefore, when purchasing painted country antique furniture, do not make the mistake of stripping the piece to the wood and shellacking it. In doing so, you will de-value your purchase.