How Much is this Spoon Worth?

Tough question. Of course it depends on what the spoon is and what condition it is in, but it also depends on a number of variables in the marketplace that are difficult, if not impossible, to predict.

Commonplace spoons such as the plated presidential series by Wm. Rogers or the sterling "eagle" state series by Manchester are not the subject of this article. These spoons are so ubiquitous that even at $5 apiece they might not sell.

The large number of very nice spoons showing state capitols or other common landmarks, such as the Library of Congress or the Garden of the Gods, also are not the topic here. These are plentiful enough that most buyers realize that if they don't like the price quoted for any particular one of these, it won't be very long before they will find another one, probably at a lower price.

This simple fact tends to drive the price for such spoons to a fairly stable figure in the $15 to $40 range.

Old sterling souvenir spoons with some special quality to them (scarcity, enamel, unique engraving, etc.) are the spoons that are difficult to assign prices to. Consider the Hawaii spoon shown above. It was made of sterling silver around 1900 by George C. Shreve of San Francisco and it has a Hawaiian coin as its bowl.

How much is it worth? Well, the honest answer is, whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

But different sellers determine asking prices in different ways. A collector might set a price based on his perception of the artistic value of the spoon. An antique shop might base its price on the amount he paid when he bought it. A flea market vendor might set different prices as the day wears on.

Something all sellers have in common, though, is that the number of antique souvenir spoons bought and sold each year is very small by almost any standard. The souvenir spoon marketplace is not a robust one with constant buying and selling by thousands of people. There's just no similarity at all with marketplaces for baseball cards, postcards, coins or stamps, for example, where there are thousands of sellers and buyers.

Serious spoon collectors number in the hundreds, not thousands. This means that the results of any one transaction can be very misleading if used as an indicator for the future. It is essential to understand this point, so let me provide some examples.

The Honolulu spoon illustrated above is highly prized by many collectors (and frequently, heirs of collectors) and it might be that only one such spoon appears on the market in any given year. Depending on the market in which it was offered (eBay might attract bidders who are not spoon collectors but to whom a Hawaii spoon has special significance, for example), this spoon might sell for as much as $1000. On the other hand, if the spoon were offered in a shop by someone who found it in the bottom of a silver chest, mixed in with ordinary place settings, it might be offered for as little as $50. In neither case would it make sense to ascribe that value to the spoon as an indicator of future sales.

Here's another case in point. This spoon, with its terrapin bowl, was cast in sterling by Gorham prior to 1892. It is probable that most visitors to this web site have never seen this spoon first hand.

How much is it worth? Well, it has not been offered on eBay or in a mail auction or for direct sale on the web recently (I've been looking) so there's no hint there.

Does the fact that it is very heavy mean that it should be priced dearly? No. The value of the silver in this spoon is less than $10.

Would the similarity of its theme (sea shells, etc.) to other spoons sold more frequently suggest that its price should be pegged to them? Not really; it might define a "ballpark" for you, to within a couple of hundred dollars, but it wouldn't tell you what this spoon would bring in the marketplace today.

A collector with similar spoons might want this one, or someone who collects turtle objects might want it (even though they've never bought a spoon before), or a collector of interesting Gorham serving pieces (but not souvenir spoons) might want it. Each person might have a significantly different notion of what he should pay for it.

And what if this exact same spoon had sold recently on eBay last week for $500? That's probably not very  meaningful, either, because you don't really know the circumstances of the sale. Was the spoon in perfect condition as this one is? Did the buyer "fall in love" with it and decide that he had to have it, no matter the cost? Is there another such buyer out there and can you find him? Did the sale conclude while eBay was having technical problems, excluding some potential bidders?

You just don't know.

So the answer to the questions, "What is this spoon worth?" is in two parts for a prospective seller and a prospective buyer.

If you are a seller, any spoon is worth whatever dollar amount would make you want to part with it, because you have a better use for the dollars than the spoon.

If you are a buyer, any spoon is worth whatever dollar amount you're willing to sacrifice to add the spoon to your collection.

Selling Spoons on the Internet

I don't know everything, especially about selling silver items via the Internet.

But to help spoon collectors use this new selling medium, I assembled a group of Internet spoon buyers who might shed some light on the subject for us.

Let me introduce the panel. They're using their Internet names*.

iBuyNbuyNbuy
SueTsniper
clicknbuy
ag2au.

Q: Good morning, panel. I want to sell a spoon on eBay; what's the most important thing for me to do?

A: Describe the spoon completely and accurately. Tell us what length it is, what metal content it has, what condition it is in and who made it. We won't even consider bidding without this information.

Q: Alright, I've described my spoon meticulously, now what?

A: Display it well. Use a plain background for your image. Nothing is more infuriating than wasting 2 minutes watching a lace table cloth download, only to barely see an out-of-focus tiny shape. (Chorus: I skip these kinds of ads after about 10 seconds of tablecloth.)

Q: You mean there's a trick to imaging?

A: Not really, just use common sense. We want to see the goods, not your kitchen wallpaper. We want to see the spoon quickly, because we're reviewing lots of spoons. Whatever software you're using with your camera or scanner, it will let you "crop" the picture which you should do as tightly as possible. Then compress it to as small a file as you can.

Q: I found the prettiest "wallpaper" with little cherubs and kitties. I know that I can use this as a background for all my advertisements. Customers will then recognize my ads. What do you think?

A: Don't do it! It will work against you. We want to see the spoon and will move on to someone else's rather than wait for your fancy background to download.

Q: And I've got this really neat music...

A: (interrupting in chorus) NO, NO, don't! If we wanted music, we'd slip our favorite CD's in our computers and listen to something we like. Remember, you're trying to sell a spoon, not play with your computer, and we're trying to buy spoons, not play with our computers.

And forget all those cute little animations, too. They just annoy us to the point that we might click away your ad rather than  considering bidding on your spoon.

If you need an outlet for your creative juices, put up a personal web page instead of needlessly complicating your eBay ads!

Q: OK, so I imaged it twice to get a good picture, listed all the pertinent facts, used your boring plain background. Now what?

A: Tell us, your prospective buyers, why we might want the spoon. Give us some information about the topic. For example, if it is a Civil War battle spoon, say who the opposing generals were. A hotel spoon? Say when it burned down, how people got there in 1895, etc. A college spoon? Say what building is shown, when it was built, if it is still being used. Remember, we cannot possibly read all the ads on eBay, so we search for specific key words. You want us to find your ad.

Q: Good. Someone bid. Now what?

A: Support your auction. Expect to get questions and answer them quickly. We probably found your spoon by searching on a topic, not the phrase "souvenir spoon." We might not know anything about spoons and might have questions such as "when was it made" or "how many of these are there out there?" or "how did they make that picture in the bowl?" Respond right away, being as honest as possible. If you don't know, say so.

Q: I finally sold a spoon. What do I do now?

A: Send a bill via email right away, specifying shipping charges and giving your mailing address. We buyers really appreciate getting a bill within minutes after the closing of an auction; our adrenalin might still be pumping from the excitement of bidding, and we want "closure". Besides that, the sooner you send me a bill, the sooner I'll send you a check.

Q: Wow! I got a check in the mail.

A: Package the spoon well. You're proud of it or you would not have offered it for sale. Protect it well and also send me a message. Wrap it in clean, new tissue, then foam or bubble-wrap, then put it in a sturdy box. If you really believe that a padded envelope works well, put your favorite spoon in one, staple it shut, then step on it. See?

Q: Well, this certainly has been interesting, but I think you folks are the lunatic fringe. It can't be as complicated as all that, selling on the Internet. Where did you guys and gals come from?

A: [iBuyNbuyNbuy]: I'm a compulsive buyer; I grab everything that interests me.

[SueTSniper]: I'm a spoon collector, but I only buy at the best possible price.

[clickNbuy]: I just "do my thing".

[ag2au]: I'm a dealer, looking for good stuff and willing to pay for it.

I haven't addressed the mechanics of listing your spoon; there simply are too many variables involved that are specific to your particular setup. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is a good source of advice on exactly how to upload your images, advertising copy and boilerplate. Also, the various auction services (eBay really is where all the customers are) have very helpful step by step instructions on how to put up an advertisement. If you need help at this level, contact your niece or nephew.

*The names are fictional and were not being used on eBay at the time this article was written.

(An earlier version of this item was first published in the Cauldron, the quarterly newsletter of the Northeastern Spoon Collectors Guild)

Buying Spoons on the Internet

Imagine a spoon auction that presents scores of spoons every day, mostly accompanied by descriptions and full-color pictures, some with enlargements of details (engraved bowls, for example) and interesting information about the theme of the spoon.

Imagine bidding at any time, day or night, never receiving a busy signal or paying long-distance charges, and checking the status of your bids at will.

Dream of Gorham round-bowls (Bar Harbor, shown at right was purchased on eBay), FF Indians, uniquely engraved bowls, American enamel bowls, Blacks, skylines, etc. all being presented continuously, day after day. Dare to think that sometimes you find bargains that go unnoticed by others.

Utopia? Maybe, but Ebay Internet auctions come a lot closer to this vision than any other source of spoons.

With an $800 computer and the software that comes with it, you can cause a cornucopia of spoons to flow endlessly onto your desktop. You can see pictures and descriptions that are usually full-color and frequently show the spoon front and back, with enlargements of important detail. There is sometimes a bewildering volume and variety of goods, though, so here's a few tips on "cyberspooning".

Foremost, make sure you know what you're bidding on. If you're used to mail auctioneers who generally speak in your vocabulary, are at about the same knowledge level as you are with respect to manufacturers, metals, spoon condition, etc., and have a very real stake in honest representation of their goods, then eBay presents some real hazards.

Spoon sellers on Ebay frequently know postcards or fishing lures, but not spoons. They might fail to mention the manufacturer or length of a spoon, or assess its condition far differently than you would.

Get answers to your questions by email, or move on to the next item. Remember that pictures sometimes do lie; a 3" plated spoon can appear to be 6" long and sterling on your computer screen, and wear almost never shows up, even on badly worn spoons that the seller is trying to illustrate honestly.

Be especially careful of any enamel items. Some sellers never even look at the spoon closely enough to see major damage unless you ask them to look at it very closely, with a magnifying glass. Some sellers don't know how to recognize damage so you might have to give them some hints.

eBay sellers often misuse spoon collecting terms when describing their goods. Words such as "figural", "skyline", "full-figure", and "old" that have very specific meanings to folks who have been spoon collectors for 10 years or more are used with abandon on the Internet and can mean almost anything.

"Rare" frequently seems to mean "I've never seen this spoon before in my 20 years of collecting cow bells," or something similar.

Subjects often will be misidentified (Washington Monument instead of Bunker Hill, Ben Franklin instead of Wm. Penn., etc.) so you, the prospective buyer, have to take care to ensure that the spoon is one that you really want. Very few sellers are actually trying to trick you; most of them simply are uninitiated to the spoon collecting world. Use email and get answers or don't bid.

Secondly, use the search capabilities on eBay. If you want Gorham spoons, execute a search for "Gorham Spoon". But remember that not everyone identifies spoons completely in the title, so you might have to scan a bigger list than you want, just to make sure you don't miss anything. Search on the text as well as the titles; it doesn't take any longer and eBay's relational database does a super job of indexing every word in every ad.

 Save search commands that work well for you as bookmarks (Netscape) or favorites (Internet Explorer) so that you can reuse them easily.

Thirdly, plan your bidding strategy before you bid. Some folks can't resist the adrenaline rush of "sniping" (bidding in the last 15 seconds of the auction) but this is risky. If eBay has problems, or the Internet is slow, or you mistype your password (I've done it myself!), you'll lose your chance to bid altogether.

Another approach is to decide what the highest amount is that you'd be willing to spend for the spoon, then bid that amount well before the auction closes. Ebay will hide your maximum, but remember it, and bid for you as necessary against other bidders, up to your maximum.

Lastly, read the fine print. Add the shipping charges to your bid price to determine your true cost for a spoon, for example, and consider any special terms such as "money orders only". Be very wary of any seller who doesn't offer a full money-back guarantee.

If an ad says that buyer will pay "S & H", you should email and get the charges before bidding. I've seen sellers who charge $7 to mail a 3/4 ounce, $19 spoon. That's pretty expensive "handling". I've also had dealers explain to me at shows and shops that on eBay they can make money on shipping, "throwing the spoon into a padded bag, mailing it for 77 cents, and charging the customer $4 or more." Really, I'm not making that up.

I remember a brash young man at a national spoon collectors convention about 10 years ago predicting that soon we'd be trading spoons by computer. Well, his hair has a bit of gray now, and it took just a bit longer than expected, but here we are. Spoons already are moving out of traditional markets onto eBay. I personally know of shops that have closed in favor of eBay selling.

Spoons are an almost perfect eBay item, relatively easy and cheap to image, list, and ship and I've been in some shops where the spoons have been taken off the shelves to be sold exclusively on eBay.

Don't miss out on the fun and the opportunities. Join the "cyberspooning" action now.

(An earlier version of this item was first published in the Cauldron, the quarterly newsletter of the Northeastern Spoon Collectors Guild)

Interpreting eBay Feedback

An eBay feedback rating is quite simple, and if you know how to read it, the odds that you'll be happy with eBay trading will improve.

For each transaction there is a buyer and there is a seller. Each person may leave a one-line description that he thinks describes the other person's performance in the transaction. He also checks one of three boxes: positive, neutral, or negative.

The number of negatives is subtracted from the number of positives automatically by eBay software and the resulting number is always listed next to the eBayer's name.

The number is an indication (not an exact count) of the number of transactions the eBayer has been party to as either a buyer or a seller. Unless you examine the data behind the number, that's all it tells you. To understand whether the feedback pertains to buying or selling and to understand what it really might mean, you need to spend a minute or two looking at the specific feedback.

Clicking a feedback rating number on eBay reveals a wealth of useful information.

EBay feedback tends to be highly inflated; that is, it almost always paints a rosier picture of the seller or buyer than is realistic. There are several reasons for this. One is simply human nature: most folks have a strong inclination to be positive, not negative, especially when they're writing something about a specific individual. Thus unpleasant or defective transactions tend to be under-reported in feedback.

Second, someone who buys and sells on eBay might fear a retaliatory negative feedback if he leaves one. In order to protect his own feedback rating, he might decide not to leave any feedback at all for an unsatisfactory transaction.

With that background in mind, here's how to "read" eBay feedback to learn a little bit about the eBay trader with whom you're considering doing business.

Examine the feedback to see if it is a result of buying or selling. You'll need to read the actual feedbacks, many of which will be ambiguous. But it would be foolhardy to conclude that an eBayer is a trustworthy seller if all his feedback is based on his performance as a buyer, and vice versa. Many of the individual feedback items will contain clues such as "fast payment" (buyer) or "great item" (seller).

For sellers, look for a spread between total feedback and counted feedback (all feedback is recorded, but each buyer-seller pair will only have their first feedback counted towards the overall rating). The higher the spread the better, because that indicates repeat customers. Thousands of positive feedbacks but no repeat customers might indicate problems or might indicate that the seller sells so many different types of items that he gets few repeat customers. Remember, the feedback numbers will be "inflated", but people's actions speak loudly; repeat sales are a very positive indication.

Many sellers who have concluded a lot of transactions on eBay might have a negative feedback or two from "lunatic fringe" buyers, so don't over-react to a tiny percentage of negatives, but a ratio of negatives to positives that exceeds 1% is a real danger signal, given the general inflation in feedback.

Look for "faint praise" in the feedback. Many times a "positive" feedback note will actually contain a negative comment, intended to warn prospective customers away.

Check out any comments left in the feedback of the other party (eBay allows a seller/buyer to insert a comment in any feedback pertaining to him/her). Sometimes they will explain away a simple mistake. Other times, they will betray an attitude that you would not abide from a shop keeper.

The comments usually give a clue about the type of merchandise the particular seller usually handles. If he doesn't appear to have sold any spoons before, you'll want to be especially careful with your email to ascertain the spoon's true condition. The seller might be scrupulously honest but might not know how to look at souvenir spoons critically.

If you check with the Consumer Protection division of any of the 50 state Attorney Generals offices, they'll all offer similar advice that pertains to any purchase, whether in a store, by mail, by telephone or over the Internet:

make sure that you know what you're buying, do business with someone you know and trust, and make sure you understand all the terms and conditions that apply.

On ebay, critical reading of the feedback items behind the feedback score will give you some clues about a stranger you're thinking of dealing with and the extent to which you should trust him.