Price of used furniture

Re: Price of used furniture

Mark Nowicki

Surprised it went for that much.

Re: Price of used furniture

Barry Irby

My friend follows auctions and estate sales. He points out you can buy whole houses full of antiques and fine furniture for nearly nothing. A few hundred dollars.

Not surprised....

David Weaver

....my grandmother's house full of furniture sold for a bunch of money, but it wasn't as nice as that. It was more like power tool era (neatly made and not blocky or cheap, but everything rounded over - 50s - and stained dark "cherry", but all solid wood) furniture that a local clockmaker made on the side.

A corner cabinet sold for $6k, and some other bits like chests of drawers sold for several grand each. I can't imagine it's for any reason other than local name and in another generation or two, it'll also be $50.

Plenty of listings on here of higher priced furniture and if the price is high, the listing just rolls for months or years.

It's the era of selling to the people who want to make things rather than selling things made to people who don't want to. (My grandparents viewed the furniture that they bought, which was probably priced adjusted for inflation for about what it sold, maybe slightly less, as a matter of buying something nice for themselves that would have permanence and make it so that they didn't look like "dirt farmers" inside the house. I can't think of a single person that I know who has any antique furniture like that (in my 40s, so are most of our friends). When the hire an interior decorator to do their houses, the decorator generally just goes with manufactured stuff to make a wider consistent theme (and is usually tied to furniture distribution). When I was a kid, the interior decorators generally imported antiques from europe and England (where they cost almost nothing) and then foisted those on their clients at high price.