About Valuation Desk

Valuation Desk exists to answer one question for the things people inherit, find and collect: what is this, and what is it worth. It does it the way a specialist at a saleroom does, by reading the marks, knowing the names and looking at what similar things have made.

The guides are written from auction records. Where a figure appears, it is a hammer price from a sale, not a catalogue value or an insurance replacement. Where the evidence is thin, the guide says so.

Independence

The Desk does not buy, sell or broker. Free valuations through partner salerooms are planned for 2027, and when they arrive the arrangement will be stated plainly on every page it touches: which saleroom sees an enquiry, and what they pay for it. Until then, nothing on this site is for sale and no reader's details go anywhere. Salerooms and dealers who want to be part of it can join the waiting list.

The photographs

Objects on this site are photographed by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and published under its open access policy, or come from Wikimedia Commons in the public domain. Each is credited where it appears.

Corrections

Marks, dates and registers are checked against the standard references, but the field is large and the Desk is small. If a guide is wrong, say so and it will be corrected with a note.