What I Told a High Schooler About Finding Value in Antiques

By Jason R. Roske

Over the weekend, we received an email from a high school student named Adeline.

She has been going to estate sales, buying a few things, and trying to figure out what they are worth. She sent us photos and asked a simple question: “I need to figure out if I’m going to keep it, sell it, or auction it.”

I was excited to see a young woman ask these questions and I have seen that exact moment play out hundreds of times.

This is how it starts. This is how the KC Auction & Appraisal Company started.

If you have ever wondered how to make money at estate sales or what to look for at thrift stores, this is where it begins.

Before This Was a Business, There Was Curiosity

Long before this was a business, I was around it in a much different way.

My mom liked depression glass. She was not a collector in the formal sense, but she liked it and she liked finding it at a good price even more. Her choice of shopping venues were the garage sales in the neighborhood. Like I said, mom liked a deal. My brother and I had a choice when she stopped at garage sales. We could sit in the car and bake in the heat, or we could go inside and try to get her to buy us something fun while she looked for deals.

We went inside.

That was the exposure. Not structured, not intentional, just being around it.

Years later, that curiosity turned into something else when I started buying and selling baseball cards in high school. That was my first real world experience of trying to find deals and make money with them. 

Adeline is at that same early stage right now. She is looking, asking questions, and trying to connect the dots.

If You Want to Do This, You Have to Experience This

There is no shortcut here. If you are thinking about making money with antiques, even as a side hustle, you have to put yourself in the environment where things are constantly moving. Estate sales, thrift stores, antique shops, and auction previews are where people learn what actually has value. Put yourself in the places where the business happens. Experience the rush of an estate sale, the excitement of a fresh cart of merchandise at the thrift store, the curated selection of a good antique shop or the accumulated collections of an auction. Touching, seeing, smelling, and asking questions is the first thing I’d suggest.

And not occasionally. Regularly.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is going once a month or less and saying, “I never find anything.” Of course you don’t. The turnover in these places is constant. Thrift stores bring out new items several times a day.

When you go regularly, two things happen. Your odds go up because you are simply seeing more inventory, and your eye gets trained. You start to recognize what looks right and what does not. You also begin to understand the environment. Where things are placed, how they are priced, and what might be sitting in the wrong category.

That is where opportunity starts to show up.

Most Value Is Found in What Doesn’t Quite Fit

The majority of what flows through estate sales and thrift stores is the stuff of everyday life. That is what fills the shelves.

The opportunity is usually not in the obvious. It is in the piece that does not quite fit where it is sitting. Something that looks slightly different from everything around it. Something that has a detail most people miss.

I have found Navajo rugs mixed in with towels because they were fabric and roughly the same size. I have found incredible quilts hanging with blankets for the same reason. To most people, it is just a bedspread.

One of those “bedspreads” is still one of my favorite finds. It was a pictorial quilt from the 1940s with a teepee, Cowboys, and Indians. The pricer knew it was different, maybe even special, and had it marked at $100. The cashier thought I was crazy for spending that much on a blanket. Two days later, I sold it during setup at a flea market for $1,500.

That is how this works.

You are not looking for what everyone else sees. You are looking for what does not quite match the rest of the shelf.

I talked about this in my Three Tips to Make Money at Thrift Stores Behind the Gavel with Jason video from a few years ago, and it still holds true.

I picked up a piece of glass that most people would have walked right past. It honestly looked like a glass bedpan at first, but a couple of small details stood out. It had a rolled lip and there was a stamped mark that identified it as a piece of Riedel glass. After just a minute of research I realized that it was a Riedel “Escargot” Wine Carafe. The retail price for this at the time was $350. I paid $6.99 for it and I sold it at auction for $115.00.

It is usually a small detail that makes all the difference.

You Are Not Trying to Know Everything

Every thrift store and estate sale has someone pricing items.

They know a lot, but they cannot know everything. They are going to recognize what they are familiar with and miss what they are not.

Your goal is not to know more than them across the board. Your goal is to know something different. Study your areas of interest and get to know what details matter and why the market will pay a premium for it. Find the gap between their knowledge and yours.

Fenton Glass was mass produced and is commonly found. But hens on nest and fairy lamps are extremely popular right now. So if that piece of Fenton is a hen on nest it might sell for $150-200 today. If that fairy lamp is Fenton and vaseline glass it could be worth $350-500 today! Notice how the most valuable pieces of vaseline glass that we’ve sold have all happened in the last 2 years. Trends can make a big difference in value. Even in antiques!

That gap is where money is made.

Quality Has a Look to It

This is one of the hardest things to explain, but once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

Well-made furniture has better proportions. It feels right. The materials are better. The construction makes sense. Mass-produced items have a look too. Particle board, thin veneers, shortcuts.

There is an old phrase that applies here, champagne taste on a beer budget.

Most people have an innate sense of quality, even if they cannot explain why. When I had my antique shop, 90% of customers would ask about the most expensive items in the store. They did not always know what they were looking at, but they were drawn to it. A lamp, a piece of jewelry, a painting. Something about it just felt better.

The same idea carries across categories. A higher base material often points toward better overall quality. A 10k gold ring will often be mass produced and have synthetic stones. An 18k gold ring is more likely to have real diamonds or rubies and be hand crafted.

A simple rule that helps more than you think is this:

If something was expensive when it was new, odds are it will be expensive used or antique.

People also tend to come back later in life for the things they could not afford earlier. That aspiration helps support the value of higher quality pieces.

Books, Repetition, and How Knowledge Compounds 

One of the biggest advantages you can give yourself is studying.

Not just online, but through reference books.

I have nearly 1,000 books covering everything from sterling silver to fishing lures to mid-century modern design to Bakelite radios. I also have auction catalogs from specific sales. I do not read them for the prices anymore. I read them to understand what makes something interesting.

Most of that information exists online somewhere, but you don’t know what you don’t know. It is nearly impossible to research details you have never been exposed to. Spending time with reference books brings those details to your attention and builds a framework in your mind.

What starts to happen over time is that knowledge begins to compound. You learn something in one area, and it carries over into others.

A good reference will show you things side by side that are hard to piece together online. You start to see subtle differences. The clay used in Van Briggle pottery changes over time. Zippo changes how they stamp their lighters. Levi’s used a Big E at one point and a red line in a specific place. All of these details seem minor, but they could mean the difference in passing on an item and making $1000s on an item.

History plays a role here too, sometimes in ways people don’t expect.

Tariffs have been in the news a lot recently. My most popular blog post is about them, but tariff laws from over 100 years ago can help you identify when something was made. The 1890 McKinley Tariff Act required imported goods to be marked with their country of origin. The Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 required items to be marked “Made in” their country of manufacture.

That means if something is simply marked “Germany,” it was likely made between 1891 and 1921. If it says “Made in Germany,” it was likely made after 1921. You will also see markings like “US Zone Germany” (1945-49) or “Occupied Japan” (1945-52) which point to very specific time periods.

It sounds like trivia, but it can make a real difference when you are trying to understand what you are looking at.

At the same time, repetition matters. When you go to thrift stores and estate sales regularly, you begin to notice how common most things are. You see the same items over and over again.

When something different shows up, your brain immediately flags it.

That is your signal to stop.

Even visiting retail stores helps. I recognized that Riedel piece because I had seen similar forms at places like Williams Sonoma. Without that exposure, it just looks like another piece of glass.

The more reference points you build, the easier it is to recognize value.

This is the stage Adeline is in right now. She may not realize it yet, but she is building the foundation that everything else comes from.

Wins, Misses, and Tuition

And then, at some point, you start acting on what you think you see.

Early on, I found a small set of sterling silver flatware at an estate sale in Kansas City, Kansas. It was not priced. The seller told me, “It says sterling silver, but I don’t think it is. How does $25 sound?” I bought it and sold it a few hours later for $175. There was still profit left in it, but I was happy with the quick flip. That was a confidence-building moment.

On the other side of that, every dealer has the one that got away. Mine was a Gio Ponti stainless steel flatware set I saw at an estate sale in the DC area. I picked it up, read the markings, and hesitated. It was $200. I walked out, immediately realized my mistake, and went back. Less than a minute had passed and it was gone. That same set later sold for around $5,000.

The difference between those two moments was not just knowledge. It was trusting what I knew.

And then there is everything in between and the deals that do not work out. Did you spend too much on something? We call that tuition.

Can You Develop a Good Eye?

“You have a good eye” is a compliment given to better dealers regularly.

At some point, if you stay with this long enough, something changes. You will develop your own good eye, and things start to get interesting.

You start to see things other people walk right past.

That is not luck. That is hours, days, and years of exposure and experience. It is a trained skill. Exposure, research, trial and error, rinse and repeat and you will get there too.

A Final Thought

Whether this turns into a side hustle, a business, or just something you enjoy on the weekends, this is how it starts.

Curiosity. Exposure. Repetition.

Adeline is there right now.

If you are reading this and asking those same questions, you are already closer to the beginning than you think.

Common Questions About Making Money with Antiques

How do I know if something is valuable at an estate sale?
Look for quality, materials, and anything that stands out from the surrounding items. If it does not match the rest of the shelf, it is worth a closer look.

What should I look for at thrift stores?
Focus on items that feel different from the rest. Better materials, unusual design, or recognizable makers are all good signs.

Can you really make money flipping antiques?
Yes, but it requires consistency. The people who succeed source regularly and build knowledge over time.

What antiques are worth money?
Items made with quality or uniqueness in mind, including fine art, jewelry, sterling silver, coins, and well-designed furnishings, tend to perform best.

If You Want Help Along the Way

At KC Auction & Appraisal Company, we see this process from both sides every day. I have lived this, and I still see it day to day.

We work with people who are just starting out and people who have been collecting for decades.

If you come across something and are not sure what you are looking at, or what to do with it, reach out.

We are always happy to take a look and point you in the right direction.