“I hate having him at home.
I want to get rid of it.
» Anna, retired, is determined.
She came to drop off a mummy necklace to auctioneers from Rambouillet (Yvelines), gathered for the National Appraisal Days.
A golden opportunity to search your attic, open your old drawers and have your old items valued.
“The west of France is the region most preserved from wars and destruction,” notes the auctioneer of the Galerie de Chartres, Pascal Maiche, traveling to Rambouillet.
The region is rich in old houses that have lived from generation to generation, sometimes since the 18th century.
People don't know what they have, because we live with objects.
The great classic is a bowl that serves as an ashtray, even though it has value.
»
Some people (re)discover their treasures when they move.
This is the case for Anna and Michel when they left Asnières-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) to live in Gallardon (Centre-Val de Loire), three years ago.
Both have traveled a lot, thanks to Club Med, accumulating memories of all kinds.
Like these statuettes of Hindu gods unearthed in an antique store in Malaysia.
“My children don’t want it,” regrets the retiree.
“In Yvelines, people have heritage”
Anna found an old memory... The famous stone mummy necklace, offered by an archaeologist friend.
“The Egyptians wore them to pay the gods for passage to the afterlife,” describes this Egyptology enthusiast.
It will be worthless, the provenance remaining unknown.
But it is not the sentimental or family history of an object that makes it expensive.
Camille Dutot, an expert auctioneer for around fifteen years in Yvelines, advises first looking to see if the object is signed.
Read also Period furniture from the Château de Grignon sold off at auction: “A monumental blunder”
“In Yvelines, people have heritage,” notes the employee of the Million auction house.
I regularly have paintings pre-empted by the State, then sold to the Croissy (Yvelines) or Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) museum.
Now they belong to all French people.
» She is holding free clinics by appointment in Montfort-l'Amaury on January 23, in Rambouillet on January 25, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on January 30, but also in Villennes-sur-Seine.
An expertise is possible on photo, before the trip.
Old paintings and contemporary art
For these National Expertise Days, Éléonore brought her deceased father's car games and gold coins... Still too recent to have any value.
“I’m going to keep them under the bed and I’ll come back in twenty years,” says this resident of Auneau (Eure-et-Loir).
It's going to be worth it one day or another.
»
She also came with a giant candy: a “Red Wrapping” by artist Laurence Jenkell.
A work estimated between 4,000 and 6,000 euros… which will remain on the sideboard in his living room.
However, she got rid of a large painting of fish by Emmanuel Chapalain.
“My father went to an auction in Drouot,” she remembers.
He fell asleep and woke up and bought it.
» The painting has not increased in value, it is still at 500 euros.
“You have to take the risk that it sells for less so that it costs more,” exclaims Caroline Rivière, an auctioneer for ten years.
That’s the magic of auctions.
People go looking for Proust madeleines.
» Current fashion is for furniture from the 1950s to 1970s, jewelry but also… Barbie dolls.
“The real price of an object is the moment we sell it,” adds his colleague, Pascal Maiche.
Before the auction it has another price and after too.
» The Chartres gallery appraises every Wednesday, like other houses in Yvelines, at Éric Pillon Enchères in Versailles or at Versailles auctions every first Thursday of the month.