What's selling right now
Every pick this week is a mark you can find with your hands. Not a trend, not a guess — a signature scratched into wet clay, four digits stamped on a watch caseback, a silver hallmark inside a compact lid, a number cast into the bed of a hand plane, a badge on the front of a camera. That is the whole difference between the common version and the one worth ten times more, and it is sitting there in the open at every estate sale this weekend. Turn the thing over. Here is what you are looking for.
Studio Pottery ~$30
Signed studio pottery is selling around $30 at the median — and that number is doing a lot of hiding. A signed piece by a collected potter clears $695. The tell is the mark on the underside: an incised signature, a pressed chop, or a stamped studio name. Learn five names and you will spot them for the rest of your life — Robert Maxwell, David Cressey, Bing Gleitsman, Richard Barrie Leach, Bill Campbell. A Robert Maxwell and David Cressey Earthgender piece sold for $695; a signed Bing Gleitsman face vase brought $450, and a 1962 Leach salt-fired lidded jar took $175. Unsigned or bottom-stamped factory ware stays at the median. Flip every handmade-looking pot at the sale and photograph the base — you can look the name up before you pay.
Vintage Seiko ~$57
Vintage Seiko watches run about $57 at the median, and the good ones clear $406. The qualifier is the four-digit caliber number stamped on the caseback — that number tells you if it is a mechanical automatic or a quartz commodity. The references collectors chase are the 6117 Navigator Timer, the 5606 Lord Matic, the 7005, and the H556 ana-digi. A 1972 Navigator Timer 6117-6410 sold for $406, an H556-5029 for $380, a 1969 Lord Matic 5606-7130 for $360. One honest note: this category's median has cooled roughly 15% in the last week, so the spread is the reason to buy here, not momentum. That cuts both ways at a sale — softer comps mean softer asks.
Vintage Compacts ~$28
Vintage powder compacts sit around $28, and almost every one you see at a sale is base metal worth exactly that. The ones that aren't are marked. Check the inside of the lid and the rim for a silver hallmark — sterling, .800, or 875 — or for true Art Deco enamel work. A gold-washed .800 silver and green enamel compact sold for $200, a USSR 875 silver-gilt shell compact for $175, a 1930s Art Deco enamel octagon for $150. And once in a long while the category produces a freak: a Boucheron 14k gold, silver and sapphire minaudière cleared $1,695 in this same window. Do not price on that one — price on the hallmark.
Stanley Hand Planes ~$43
Stanley hand planes are selling around $43, and the entire value question is the number cast into the bed just behind the knob. The common bench planes — No. 4 and No. 5 — are the median. The money is at the ends of the range: the small No. 1 and No. 2 and the specialty planes almost nobody recognizes. A Stanley No. 2 brought $375; a Type 1 No. 239 dado plane sold for $125. The ceiling on this category is genuinely absurd and genuinely rare — an antique No. 1 Sweetheart from the 1920–32 era sold for $1,600. You will not find a No. 1 often. You will find a mislabeled No. 2 in a $5 tool box, and that is the whole game.
Polaroid SX-70 ~$79
Polaroid SX-70 cameras run about $79, and the good versions clear $300. The tell is printed right on the front: Alpha 1, Alpha Executive, or Sonar SE beats a plain SX-70 every time, and the folding leather-and-chrome bodies outperform the later plastic OneStep shells. An Alpha 1 Model 2 with accessories sold for $300, an Alpha Executive in black for $250, a Sonar SE for $220. Check that the bellows are intact and say plainly whether you tested it — untested bodies still sell, but tested ones sell for more and come back less.
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