Setting a Price for Selling Your Antiques
HREF="http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/anti...">18th Century American Furniture Styles; Biedermeier - the Comfortable Style and their links, to be helpful in recognizing periods. Other popular furniture styles are Colonial or Early American, and Eastlake.
Your furniture may have originally been bought from a Sears catalog, and it is fun to look through the old ones to see the prices.
Once you have determined the style and wood, you can also look up the current value in the library or bookstore in the most recent Kovel's Price Guide or Warman's Price Guide - the antiques dealer/collector's bibles. Because your set is complete and in good shape, it should run on the high end of the recent sales prices.
If you are willing to sell outside of your local area, try eBay or other online auction. I would not recommend it because you will have the problem of shipping such a large and bulky item.
If you find that the value of your set runs over $1000 (very likely) you might contact a reputable auction house in your area to sell it at auction. You will have to pay them a commission. But I have found that only exceptional furniture brings its true value at auctions. Likewise, selling to an antiques dealer or shop won't bring full value, because the dealer needs to factor in his mark-up.
If all this seems like too much work, you can make an appointment with a local appraiser or antiques dealer whose integrity and reputation are well-considered, and tell them you need an appraisal for insurance purposes. You will pay a fee for this service, but you can ask all the questions you want. Ask for both replacement cost, and what they would sell it for. Ask for their opinion of its workmanship, condition, and popularity of style today. In other words, some furniture that was very popular in the 1970's like Eastlake, is no longer much sought after. Other furniture, like 1930's Art Deco, is very popular. Mission-style furniture, from the turn of the century, is incredibly sought-after and very expensive.
This will only take an hour of your time and theirs, and you'll have a very good idea of how much your furniture should be priced. If you indicate that, reluctantly, you are forced to part with the furniture, you might get an offer on the spot...but remember what I said earlier, they have to leave room for profit so you
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