An antiques price guide

Some of us have basements that double as a potential tag sale. Whether you're in the suburbs or out in the sticks, in the city or the country, you'll always be able to find a packrat who's kept seemingly every knick-knack they've ever seen. Whether it's from the past half centry or the past half hour, these folks fill up every nook and cranny available to make sure they don't lose "valuable" momentos - which more often than not, are just pieces of junk.

But sometimes these packrats will put aside something of value that collects dust for decades until it accumulates value. This is why, if you're the type of person who goes to flea markets or tags sales, it's important to have an antiques price guide handy.

A typical antiques price guide will have listings for everything from paintings to pocket knifes to picture frames to porcelain china. The idea is to always be as comprehensive as possible, and put together a well realized picture of the value of various items within a given genre. The value of antiques can obviously vary quite broadly based upon make, model, year, et cetera. It's best to have a comprehensive knowledge of what you're looking for and what you should expect to pay before you take the plunge into any particular purchase.

Of course, one of the great antique price guide resources is on, believe it or not, television. The PBS show "Antiques Roadshow" is more than just good TV, it's a fairly complete reference guide for how to price the antiques you own, as well as the ones that you want to own. Antiques Roadshow is on all the time in every market that PBS reaches, so check your local listings.

One of my favorite episodes was one I saw when I was studying abroad in London. Bored and unwilling to exit my dorm room for the evening - probably because of yet another rainstorm - I was flipping through the channels and stopped on the British version of Antiques Roadshow. Seeing as everything there is old, I figured I might see something special, so I cracked a beer and ended up watching.

Some old lady - herself an antique - brought up a bassonnette. It didn't look like anything remarkable, but the expert (I forget his name) nearly fell out of his chair.

"This," he said, "belongs in a museum. I can not put a price on it." Turns out it was from the 1000s, and was very likely the bassonnette from Henry Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England before the Norman conquest.

You won't find that in your antiques price guide, but should you ever come across it... good luck finding it at a reasonable price!

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