Guides
Identifying and valuing antiques
What a dealer looks at, why a valuation is a range and not a number, and when an estimate from photographs stops being enough.
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Can you trust an AI antique valuation?
What an AI valuation from photographs can and cannot know, how to read the range it gives you, and when to stop trusting it.
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When you need a professional appraiser instead
The situations where an app, a forum or a dealer’s glance is not enough, and only a qualified appraiser who has handled the object will do.
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How to photograph an antique for identification
The shots that let anyone — a dealer, a forum or an app — identify a piece: the mark, the construction, the wear and the damage.
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How to tell a reproduction from a period piece
The tells that separate a period piece from a later copy: construction, wear in the wrong places, marks that are almost right, and surfaces that are too clean.
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About Trove, and how it works
Who publishes Trove, what the appraisal is actually built on, what it is allowed to claim, and where its limits are.
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A plain glossary of antiques terms
The words dealers and auction catalogues use, defined plainly: hallmark, backstamp, provenance, marriage, crazing, patina, foxing and the rest.
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What actually moves the value of an antique
Condition, rarity, provenance, completeness, maker and market — what each one does to the price, and which one people consistently underestimate.
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Auction, retail and insurance value are three different numbers
Why the same antique has three legitimate values at once, which one applies to selling, buying and insuring, and how far apart they usually are.
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How to read a British silver hallmark
What each punch in a British hallmark means — standard, assay office, date letter and duty mark — and how to date a piece to the year from them.
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How to date antique furniture by how it was made
Dovetails, saw marks, screws, shrinkage and finish — the construction evidence that dates furniture far more reliably than its style does.
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What condition grading actually means
Mint, excellent, good, fair — and the vocabulary underneath them. What crazing, a hairline, a marriage and a restoration each mean, and what each one costs.
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How to research an antique yourself
The free museum collections, auction archives and mark references that identify what you have — and how to search them so the results mean something.
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How to read a British registered design mark
How to date a British diamond registration mark, what an Rd number can tell you, and why both date the design rather than the object itself.
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How to read Staffordshire pottery marks
How to identify Staffordshire pottery from its backstamp, trading name, pattern number and registration mark without trusting any one clue on its own.
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How to read an antique porcelain backstamp
How to identify antique porcelain marks, factory symbols, date cyphers, and country-of-origin wording like Made in England to date fine china correctly.
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How antique provenance is documented
What counts as genuine antique provenance: auction labels, receipts, wills, exhibition catalogues, and how to verify ownership history without being misled.
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Coin silver vs sterling: how to read American silver marks
How to identify American coin silver versus sterling, read silversmith marks and pseudo-hallmarks, and spot silverplate before assuming scrap or antique value.
More guides are being written — valuing estate collections, and identifying antique art glass.