Another very common question, and the answer is yes we can. It's something we do every day for ourselves and of course for customers who need a value for insurance, probate or maybe they simply want to sell them on, but we do make a charge for this service as it can take some time. 

That said, its not as simple as it may seem....... 

First, to be able to put a value on any signed item, we need to be sure it's authentic, and we can only do that if we have seen it with our own eyes. The reason for this is two fold. First, most images sent to us are simply not good enough to work with and are often out of focus, blurred, too dark etc, and secondly, its not possible to know if an item is actually signed (it may be printed for instance) or even exists, and there are many unscrupulous people who might ask a dealer for a value on something that is not what it seems to be simply by sending them a scan, then they can try and sell it on by saying that Dealer XYZ said it was worth £500 ! 

Then we need to be sure the signature is authentic and not a forgery. In some cases this is fairly simple and in others it can take a considerable amount of time, and time is money which is why we do not offer this service for free!

Once we have confirmed that the signature is authentic, then we can move on to value, and again it can be very simple or in the case of rare or unusual signed items, it can take some time while we search through past sales and auction values. This is again something that you can do yourself by searching backwards on eBay for sold items rather than items for sale, past auction sale prices on auction sites such as Sotheby's etc. 

And that is why why we do not offer free valuations on items we have not seen ourselves !

"We do of course offer a valuation and authentication service for almost any signed item"

You can easily check values for items by using the advanced search facility on eBay for similar sold items, but remember, they must be similar items as there is no use comparing your signature on the back of a cigarette packet to a pristine condition 10 x 8 colour image, as the value will differ greatly. By going backwards on eBay to find sold items you will get a reasonable feel for what that signature will sell for, as opposed to the often much higher value that many people ask for items, but never sell! Then again, searching on eBay will mainly bring up fake signed items anyway, so they are not really representative of their true value, so be careful when checking prices against those on eBay, as it can be very misleading. 

If you need our Quick Opinion service, then you can find it here.

Copyright. Garry King 2017.