Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of the items that they own. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started.
Here are this week’s questions:
Question:
I just bought a lady nutcracker at a yard sale and it has a tag on the back of her saying “Philippines” with a number 8f-435. Is she worth anything?
Answer:
She’s not worth very much. I have a wooden female nutcracker, which I blogged about some time ago because I found the image distasteful. There apparently are some brass ones with just the legs and no torso.
The nutcrackers are pretty easy to find on eBay, where they generally sold for about $3 to $30. Those described as “Made in Phillippines” went for $15 to $20.
Question:
Was wondering what the value is on the 1 in 500 made replicas of the turntable used in the movie “Clockwork Orange.”
Answer:
Lucky you to have one of those. I didn’t know the turntable was a prop in the movie until I came across a similar one at auction last year. It looked like a work of art rather than an item so practical. The turntable at auction was a Transcriptors Skeleton designed by the founder of the company that produced the one seen in the 1971 movie by Stanley Kubrick. The one in the movie was a Hydraulic Reference turntable.
Googling, I could find only one for sale by a gallery, and it wasn’t easily divulging the price.
I found a similar turntable selling on eBay. It had five bidders and sold for $425 – so it’s a very desirable item. “Clockwork Orange” memorabilia was pretty popular on the site and appears to sell very well.
The next question came to me early last year after I wrote about some Mutoscope cards that had been tucked in a box lot I bought at auction. They were girlie or pinup cards, and were sold for 2 pennies each in vending machines during the 1940s. The ones from the auction were demure compared to some of the risque cards I saw on the web.
Question:
I’ve been collecting antique & vintage postcards for about 25 years, have started a storefront, and recently purchased several Mutoscopes, including the famed “Diver’s License.”
I came upon your article while searching the history of pin-up/arcade Mutoscopes, and enjoyed reading your article. I can’t find much on the value of these cards but have read that “Diver’s License” is rare. It’s hard to know which sites online are true to “at auction value” … and I would appreciate any info you have that would help me arrive at that point.
Answer:
Just as you found, most websites said the “Diver’s License” card was rare. I’m not an expert on the cards, so I’m not sure how rare it is. But I have found in my many searches that people who collect specific types of items become experts because they learn as much as they can about the items they collect.
You have to be careful, though, because many of the experts are also sellers. If you ask any of them to appraise your card (by sending them a photo, of course), I’m sure you know not to sell to them.
I wrote a blog post outlining how people can go about determining the value of their items before paying for an appraisal. You’ve taken the first step by Googling.
By the way, one of my cards – “Free and Squeezy” – was labeled as rare by at least one site. I recently found only a handful of “Free and Breezy” on eBay, and they sold for $62 to $84. I came across three “Divers License” cards: One with a starting bid of $1,275 did not sell. The two others – which had multiple bids – sold for $65 and $157.
