How to Sell Grandma’s Tea Set

In the days before teabags and instant iced tea, the ritual of making and serving tea was an important part of life in any genteel home. Silver, china, porcelain, pewter, and earthenware tea sets are one of the most popular collectible categories on eBay – and they’re also one of the most common kinds of inherited clutter in American households.

If you’re thinking about selling grandma’s tea set, the first step is to take it out of its hiding place, and take a good, hard look at it. Condition matters, and even small flaws can have a big impact on price. Do you have a complete service – teapot, creamer, sugar or waste bowl, and 6 or 8 teacups and saucers? If you have related pieces (a cake plate or other serving pieces) in the same pattern, list them at the same time for collectors who want to bid on complete sets.

Here are the things that the experts at Easysale look for when they’re considering a pre-auction value on teacups and saucers, tea pots, and tea services.

Material: What’s it made of?
Maker: Who made it?
Age: When was it made?
Pattern: Is it a well-known pattern name?
Condition: Are there chips, cracks, repairs, or other signs of damage?

Bellek Irish Teacup Not all old pieces are valuable – and some more modern tea sets are worth more than the antiques. For example, the vintage 1950’s Belleek Shamrock Pattern teacup and saucer pictured here sold on eBay for $62.25. A Victorian teacup and saucer with hand-painted shamrocks on it from another factory sold the same week for $12.95. Why? Because Belleek collectors bid up the hard-to-find 1950’s example, which was made in a very small quantity, while the pretty Victorian piece is readily available because hundreds of thousands were made in one Staffordshire factory.

To find out what kinds of china and glassware are hot right now on eBay, check the helpful eBay Guide to China and Glassware.

Sometimes it’s more profitable to break up a large tea set, or china service, and sell the pieces individually. That is true when a particular set contains particularly valuable pieces, or a pattern is particularly popular. For instance, a Fiestaware teapot in one of the rarer colors can sell for $75-125 by itself – while a complete set (teapot, cups and saucers, sugar, and creamer) will sell for the same price. So breaking up the set and selling them separately may get a higher price for the seller.

To find out whether the teapots, tea sets, and cups and saucers hiding away in your china cabinet or attic are worth selling on eBay, contact one of the auction experts at Easysale for a free evaluation. For more information on consigning items to Easysale for resale on eBay, check out the “What Sells on eBay” tutorial.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75976921@N00/ / CC BY-SA 2.0