Buying and selling, or collecting antiques for your own personal pleasure, can be very rewarding and a lot of fun. The antique business has always been around but with the popularity of the television series, "The Antiques Roadshow," the interest in antiques and collectibles has skyrocketed.
In almost every city, large or small, and in rural areas, there has always been antique shops found along streets and highways, in malls, and in shopping centers.
Antiques can be found at garage sales, warehouse liquidation sales, and most importantly, around your own home. Sometimes, a look in the attic or the basement, in the garage or barn, or right in your living room or bedroom, can yield a surprising amount of interesting items, some that may be worth more than you might think.
What may appear to be worthless or mundane to you, may have a lot of value to someone else and vice versa since antiques and collectibles can be almost anything. The most valuable items may depend on how old they are or how rare they are, how they were made, who made them, and the material they were made of, or who wants them.
If the item was made by a particular company, or by a famous individual, the value may be significant. On many items, a signature or an initial, a number or grouping of numbers, an emblem, or some other identifying mark may determine what an antique is worth.
Old and rare baseball cards come to mind when you think about collectibles, and rightly so, because some of them sale for hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially if they are autographed by the player and the signature can be authenticated.
You may have an old car, let's say a 1971 Plymouth Cuda or a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, just rusting away in your garage or parked in the back yard or in a field. It may be worth a lot to someone who would like to restore it.
Toys such as a "Barbie" doll can be priceless, especially if it is in mint condition, which means it has been handled very little or very carefully and show little or no sign of wear and tear.
The antiques market is so varied and extensive that no one person can know everything about it. Those who buy and sell antiques as a business usually know what the market values are on what they are looking for and they develop a keen sense of what is profitable and what is not in a particular niche and that is what they focus on.