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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

What is that old thing and what is it worth? 

Antique appraisals, collecting tips offered by Minnesota Picker

Keith Vandervort
Posted 8/17/16

ELY - Tim Stouffer of Ely Minnesota Pickers presented an Antique Appraisal day this week at Tuesday Group.

Several participants brought small antiques to the gathering and Stouffer did his best to …

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What is that old thing and what is it worth? 

Antique appraisals, collecting tips offered by Minnesota Picker

Posted

ELY - Tim Stouffer of Ely Minnesota Pickers presented an Antique Appraisal day this week at Tuesday Group.

Several participants brought small antiques to the gathering and Stouffer did his best to offer a current value of various pieces, and added a short historical description. 

Stouffer has been in the business of buying and selling antiques for the last 40 years.  His mother and father were antique dealers in Illinois and Ely.  He and his sister Rebecca are opening “Fox and Hen Antiques” on West Sheridan Street in Ely this coming September. 

“I hope to add a little education as I study the value of antiques,” he said, “because that is part of the fun. I really love my day job, working at Piragis Northwoods Co., since 1997, but everybody should have a hobby and this hobby teaches you a lot of things about history and you can also recycle stuff.”

The first item Stouffer appraised was an old glass bottle brought in by Steve Piragis. “I grew up in back east in the 1950s and 1960s and it was a popular thing to go looking for old bottles in weird places,” Piragis said. “My mom found this tucked into a stone wall between rocks. She was just walking along looking for old dump sites and pulled this little flask out from between the rocks.”

Stouffer described the corrugated, diagonal pattern in the greenish-brown colored bottle that was about the size of his hand. “Green is a pretty sought-after color,” he said. “You can see the air bubble in the glass, and that the mouth of the bottle was put on by hand. You can see that this was not manufactured, but made by hand.”

He said the bottle was used as a flask to store booze. “Here in Ely, the comparable thing would be snuff bottles and things like that.” He said the green bottle has held its value over the years. “At one time it was probably easily appraised at about $1,000. This bottle today would go from $800 to $1,000 just like it is. Don’t drop it.”

A similar-sized bottle in a burgundy or deep red color could go for $1,800 to $2,000, he said.

The next item he looked at from a member of the audience was a carbide headlamp. “This is made of brass, and would have had a rubber bumper on the bottom to fit into a hard hat worn by a miner,” he said. “These gave out a better light and was an easier white (color) on the eyes than the new LED headlamps that we have today,” Stouffer said. “This particular item was found in Colorado. There are a lot of them around here and it could still be used in the same way for mining today.”

He said the utilitarian piece is a good example of what Minnesota is known for, and valued it at about $20.

Stouffer said the formation of eBay changed the world of antiques. “It changed everything. When I appraised things years ago I used a pile of books and looked up the information by hand,” he said. “Everything seemed more rare. As soon as eBay hit, prices on stuff plummeted. All of a sudden we found out that there are not a hundred of those things, there are a hundred-thousand of those things. But it makes the playing field more fair.”

He held up a round tin canister full of graphics and words. “This was a cool way that you got potato chips,” he said. He took guesses as to its value. Values of $37 to 37 cents were shouted out. “This has a value of $15 to $20,” Stouffer said. “There is a lid for it. It has some rust. The cool graphics could value this a bit higher.” He guessed the New Era Potato Chip brand was from the 1950s.

He provided another tip for judging the value of antiques. “If you see a bar code on it, you know that someone faked it,” he said. “When did we have bar codes, in the 1930s? No. People do that with all sorts of things, especially signs. Just because there is some dirt and rust on it doesn’t make it old.”

Stouffer went through several more on-the-spot appraisals for the audience.

A tobacco box said to have come from the old Ely saloon in the current Mealey’s building was valued at about $4. “It is a nice keepsake and has a nice story with it,” he said.

He valued a copper-headed mallet at about $5. “It likely has a greater melt-down value,” he said.

A black box with mother-of-pearl inlays might get $25. “It is hard to find a value of some items from foreign countries,” he said. “Right now, somewhere, someone is making one just like this.”

Stouffer looked up the value of a folding ruler that could have been made from ivory or bone, and took a guess at $9.

Elton Brown brought in a smoking jacket from his tycoon uncle who lived in Rhode Island. Value: $75.

A leather pouch that a woman received for a wedding present 25 years ago “is probably authentic, but it is not old, and worth about $50,” he said.

A miniature sewing machine, made in Germany, could be worth as much as $700 if it were a working model. “This is a child’s toy and may be worth about $125 if it was in the original box,” Stouffer said. “As it is, it might be worth $65 to $85.”

Autumn Cole brought an old tin toy. “This is a Felix the Cat wind-up toy,” she said. “It belonged to my dad who is 96 years old, and was one of his few toys. He was from a family of 10 and they lived on farm and they didn’t have many toys. This was his favorite.” Value: $330.

A homemade spear gun was valued at about $50 to $75. “This is a wall hanger,” he said.

For more information, contact Stouffer at timstoufferpiragis@gmail.com or call 218- 235-8739.