Finding a cheap antique Tiffany Studios lamp at an estate sale is a collector’s or reseller’s dream! What easily is a once-in-a-lifetime find, it did happen to me, but instead of being the buyer, I was the seller. In my case, the lamp did not slip under our company’s radar and sell for pennies on the dollar. Who knows how many times that has happened!
A diamond in the rough
Treasure hidden in plain sight
It was in the summer of 2022 that I managed an estate sale in a suburb outside of Chicago. At first glance, the job appeared to be average: mid-century furniture, fine china, vintage Christmas decor, knick-knacks, and a lot more. Nothing to call home about, or so it seemed. Before my crew began researching and pricing objects, I took photos of the sale and uploaded them online. That’s when the fun started.
A potential buyer called my boss asking about a desk lamp in the upstairs master bedroom. With a bronze base, it had a wavy green glass lampshade, which I thought was rather funky. I did not upload any close-ups of this lamp, but it did appear in several overview photos of the bedroom. The caller was overly excited and was asking several questions about the lamp, like its price and if we could sell it before the sale — which is against our policy. Why the interest?
The next time I was at the house, I took time to closely examine the lamp. I checked the bottom of the base and, lo and behold, there was a Tiffany Studios stamp! After further research, I identified the shade as being original favrile glass.
Although someone else tipped us off to the treasure first, we would have caught it anyhow during our slow research and pricing stage. We would go around as a team and work on rooms together. Another company, however, may have not caught on!
How did the family acquire a Tiffany lamp?
It came as a surprise to our client and her family once we told them about their Tiffany Studios lamp. How did it come into their possession? The parents emigrated from Poland following World War II, sometime in the 1950s or 60s — I cannot recall which. The lamp dated to the early 1900s and obviously was older than the family’s American experience. Some extended family, however, did own some sort of business, possibly a hotel or tavern, which the lamp could have possibly come from. If the Tiffany lamp was in fact free, then the parents did quite well!
Selling a Tiffany lamp at an estate sale
Determining a reasonable price
Even though the provenance of the object was unknown, it did not matter. The market for Tiffany Studios lamps at that time, as it is now, was strong. It has been steadily growing over the past two decades and at auction, Tiffany lamps command high, and sometimes exuberant, prices. The auction house Christie’s publishes sold prices of their high-end lamps, and a quick look is very revealing. Values depend on the type and condition and fluctuate considerably.
Our example was a damascene favrile glass desk lamp. On the lower end of the market, this type is relatively affordable for new buyers entering the world of Tiffany Studios glass. Still, they are a considerable investment, going for thousands of dollars. Fontaine’s auctioned off an identical lamp in excellent condition in October 2018 for $4,000. A year before, Simpson Galleries sold a similar lamp, the shade green but with a different design, for $3,250 in June 2017. These prices were typical at the time and were what we based our initial value on.
As an estate sale company, our goal was to sell the lamp within days and not sit on it for weeks or months. Some estate sale companies have a storefront and are able to do so. We did not. Our price had to be attractive for a quick sale while also good for our client. After speaking with the family, we agreed to have a reserve of $2,000 on the lamp and to take bids, with it going to the highest bidder at the end of the sale.
Condition is everything!
Ultimately, we had no buyer for the reserve price. We tried our best, advertising the lamp on three different estate sale websites, taking close-up photos, and going as far as to take out-of-state bids. There was plenty of interest and several serious offers to be sure, but nothing close to $2,000. The lamp had a couple of condition issues affecting its value. One area on the side of the glass shade had unsightly scratch marks. Then at top of the shade along the rim, improper handling had chipped away at the glass. Our company disclosed these issues online.
What happened to it? After discussing the matter, our company decided to go with the highest offer. It was somewhere between $1,200 and $1,500 with shipping costs. The exact figure escapes me. In the end, all parties concerned, our company, client, and customer, were happy.
Below you will find the exact images of the lamp as they originally appeared on Estatesales.net:
