Wanna buy a chandelier?

July 25, 2007 11:38 AM

Anyone know anything about selling chandeliers?

I have acquired some chandeliers, three each of the types pictured here. I am cleaning them up and hope to sell them, but I know nothing of chandeliers. Can anyone help with a description, or possibly even an idea of value. They are brass, one with glass, and weigh a ton. I don't think they are old, and the electrics look quite recent. The one with glass, in the drum shape is 1 to 1.5 feet wide by about 2 feet tall. The other is about 3 feet in diameter.
I'm not expecting them to fetch a fortune, but I would like some idea of what to ask. I don't think I will ebay them as posting would be a nightmare. I am in the UK if it matters.

posted by aisforal to shopping (3 answers total)

Even if you don't want to use eBay to sell them, it can be a decent way to do a little "market research" to see what simiar items are selling for.

Due to the hassle of shipping a chandelier, you might actually get a higher price selling it locally, so you might want to factor that into what you see eBay items selling for.
posted by altcountryman at 2:04 PM on July 25, 2007

I couldn't possibly price these, but chandeliers (of the average 19th century house variety) fetch from nothing to hundreds of dollars.

What you need is an appraiser. Talk to a local antiques dealer and you will probably be able to find one (get a second opinion, too, as you don't want to be low-balled). For particularly good ones you may want to put a classified ad in a house-restoration magazine so it can find just the right home.
posted by dhartung at 2:09 PM on July 25, 2007

if you're in a big metro you could do eBay w/local pickup and probably be ok, there's always a demand for these sorts of things in the big city...obviously you're not getting the kind of exposure as you would if they were small and you could ship them anywhere you wanted....the pic you showed doesn't seem all that fantastic, seems like run of the mill sort of stuff you could by at a lighting store today

craigslist maybe?

the classifieds?

Some people prefer the old patina so it may be best to not polish them if you haven't done them all already, and if they were old i would say don't polish at all because then it can become difficult to tell them apart from news ones, pushing down the price if they are very old...but they don't look very old

you can probably price yours by heading to a light fixture store, look around, write some prices down and then mark yours down by maybe 10-20 percent for condition and the fact that they are not new, and you're likely to have them sold in a jiff in the classifies or on craigslist
posted by Salvatorparadise at 2:36 PM on July 25, 2007