Help! Late night antique dilemma!

[Stellasartois]

Hi all this is my first thread. My partners work has a storage container on their site and told him to go through it today as they’ll be clearing it soon and to take what he likes.

Well I went with him and found an oriental tea set that has ‘foreign’ marked on it. I’ve threw it on gumtree for £50 and had a message from someone asking me to ring them- at this time of night! Seems very desperate making me think I’m putting it up for a bargain. Can anyone help me know a bit more ?

No help with the antique but a bump and if you're new you cant post a photo for 24 hours. You could post it on imgur to show other more knowledgable MNers

You don't have to call them back now! Sleep on it and then do some research.

If it were me I would remove it from the site and have it valued before selling it.

What is the process with getting things valued? Has anyone done this before?

Just Google your nearest auction house, call them and either ask for a valuation.

They might be open for appointments. If not they'll probably ask you to email photos of the set and marks on the bottom and maybe able to give an auction value from that.

• I used to work in an auction house, people used to do this all the time. Hope it goes well!

Have you even tried a bit of self help by googling the mark or other similar items?

You can PM me if you like with a photo.
I buy and sell antiques so can probably give you an idea. I mainly do mid century modern but I've picked up a lot of knowledge so might be of some use.

But it does sound as if a dealer/collector has found a bargain and wants to pin it down.

Just be careful about ringing an unknown number.

Please check it's not a premium rate number designed to take £5 a minute from you!!!!

So the plot thickens. I’ve woken up to a message from a lady who says she can’t in good conscience take it for £50 but offered £200! I don’t want to get greedy but now it seems it’s worth a lot more !

@Stellasartois I've replied to your pm. Yeah, you want to get it off gumtree and get it valued. It won't make you a millionaire but you'll make a tidy profit and it would go for more than £200

It's absolutely beautiful, I'm very jealous!

I’ll keep you all updated. Seems my family may have a nice Christmas after all!

OP please post a photo as soon as you can, it sounds lovely!!

'Foreign' means it's made in Japan probably, after the ww2 and they were stamped 'foreign' as were worried that if they were stamped with the actual country of origin no one would want it.. so probably it's late 1940s / 1950s of Japanese origin.

Does your DH’s company know that you’ve got the set now? You might find that whoever owned the set knows it’s likely value and won’t be too happy about you selling it and keeping the money.

Can also be between 1890s and 1923 with a foreign stamp - very common to see Japanese tea sets made for the western market c1900.

How do I link? 😂

They do know we have things from the container and are selling. They honestly don’t care as they can’t be bothered to do it themselves. They own the business and DP runs it. Long term friends of many years.