A professional antique appraisal costs roughly $125-350 per hour as of October 2026, usually with a minimum of a few hundred dollars, and a qualified appraiser never charges a percentage of the value. One Atlanta appraiser who is an accredited member of the American Society of Appraisers, for example, publishes $150 per hour with a $450 minimum. Auction houses will often estimate pieces they might sell at no charge.
Before you pay anyone, decide what you need the appraisal for. An insurance appraisal, an estate appraisal and a donation appraisal on the same chest of drawers can produce three different numbers, all of them correct. If you want to work out a value yourself from marks and sold prices first, our guide on how to find the value of antiques covers that. This page is about hiring a professional: what kind, how to check them, what it should cost and what to bring.
Quick answer
- Cost as of October 2026: roughly $125-350 per hour for an independent appraiser, with minimums of about $300-500 common.
- Fees must be hourly, per item or flat. A percentage of the value is a conflict of interest, banned by the ISA code and by IRS rules for tax appraisals.
- Look for membership in the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), the International Society of Appraisers (ISA) or the Appraisers Association of America (AAA), and a report that follows USPAP.
- For selling, an auction house estimate at no charge is often all you need.
How to get an antique appraised, step by step
- Name the purpose. Insurance, estate tax, division among heirs, divorce, a charitable donation or a sale. The purpose decides the type of value, and the appraiser must state it in the report.
- Make a list. Walk the house and list the pieces that might matter: furniture by known makers, signed paintings and prints, sterling silver, art pottery, Asian ceramics and bronzes, clocks, jewelry, rugs. Leave out ordinary household goods; an appraiser billing by the hour should not spend it on kitchen chairs.
- Gather what you know. Receipts, earlier appraisals, family letters that mention a piece, auction catalogs, insurance riders. Provenance can change a value.
- Find two or three appraisers in the right specialty. Use the directories of ASA, ISA and AAA and search by specialty: American furniture, Asian art, silver, fine art, and so on. A generalist is fine for a household, but a single important piece deserves a specialist.
- Interview them. Ask about their society, their designation, their USPAP training, their specialty, whether they buy or sell antiques, how they charge and the minimum. Ask for a sample report.
- Agree in writing. A letter of engagement should state the purpose, the type of value, the effective date, the items, the fee and the delivery date.
- Be present for the inspection, answer questions about history, and let them photograph and measure.
- Read the report. It should describe each item in enough detail to identify it, state the value type and date, explain how values were reached, and include the appraiser's signature, qualifications and a USPAP compliance statement.
Which type of antique appraisal do you need?
| Purpose | Value used | Relative level | Document needed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insurance | Retail replacement value | Highest: what it would cost to buy a comparable piece from a dealer | Yes, for a scheduled policy |
| Estate tax return | Fair market value on the date of death | Middle, close to auction results | Yes, under oath when over the IRS threshold |
| Division among heirs, divorce | Fair market value | Middle | Usually yes |
| Charitable donation over $5,000 | Fair market value | Middle | Yes, a qualified appraisal |
| Quick sale or liquidation | Marketable cash value | Lowest | Rarely |
| Deciding whether to sell | Auction or dealer estimate | What it should bring now | No; a verbal estimate is enough |
For a federal estate tax return, IRS regulations require an expert appraisal made under oath when household and personal effects with marked artistic or intrinsic value, including antiques, paintings and jewelry, total more than $3,000. For a donation of property worth more than $5,000, the IRS requires a qualified appraisal by a qualified appraiser.
What does an antique appraisal cost?
Fees in this field are set by time and difficulty, not by what the piece is worth. Typical ranges as of October 2026:
| Service | Typical cost | Speed | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auction house estimate, in person or online | No charge | Days | A pre-sale estimate range | Deciding whether to consign |
| Auction house valuation day | No charge | Same day | A spoken estimate on items you bring | One or two portable pieces |
| Verbal consultation with an appraiser | Roughly $125-350 per hour | Same day | An opinion, no document | Sorting a house before a written report |
| Written appraisal, single item | Roughly $250-600 | One to three weeks | A USPAP report on one piece | Insuring or donating one important piece |
| Written appraisal, household or estate | Hourly, often $1,000 or more in total | Weeks | A full report on many items | Estates, divorce, insurance schedules |
| Specialist for one category | Similar hourly rates, sometimes higher | Varies | Depth on Asian art, fine art, silver and the like | One important piece |
Travel time is often billed on top. Spalding Nix Fine Art, run by an accredited member of the ASA, publishes $150 per hour, a $450 minimum for most appraisals, a $750 minimum for donation appraisals, and a note that fees are in no way related to the value of the items.
Why the fee must never be a percentage of the value
A percentage fee pays the appraiser more for a higher number, which is exactly the bias an appraisal is meant to remove. The International Society of Appraisers forbids members from charging a fee based on a percentage of the appraised value, on the financial outcome of the appraisal's use, or on whether the member will buy the item. For donation appraisals, IRS regulations say the fee for a qualified appraisal cannot be based to any extent on the appraised value. An appraiser who quotes a percentage, or offers to appraise at no charge if you sell through them, is not acting as an independent appraiser.
Who is a qualified antique appraiser?
There is no state license for personal property appraisers in the US, so anyone can call themselves an appraiser. The real check is membership in a society that tests members, requires USPAP education and enforces a code of ethics.
- American Society of Appraisers (ASA). A multi-discipline society with a Personal Property discipline. Members hold the AM or the senior ASA designation, tested by specialty.
- International Society of Appraisers (ISA). A personal property society with the AM designation and the senior CAPP designation. Its code bars percentage fees.
- Appraisers Association of America (AAA). A society focused on fine and decorative arts, with members in many specialties.
USPAP, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, is published by The Appraisal Foundation. A report that states it complies with USPAP has to meet minimum rules on disclosure, independence and the stated type of value, which matters to insurers, courts and the IRS.
Auction house valuation days
Auction houses hold valuation days and accept online estimate requests because they want consignments. You bring a piece or send photos, and a specialist tells you roughly what it would bring at their sale. It costs nothing and the specialist often knows the current market better than anyone. The limits: it is a spoken or emailed estimate, not a document; it is the price at their sale, which may not be your best channel; and a house will be less interested in pieces below its minimum lot value. Use it to decide whether to sell, not to divide an estate.
What to bring to an appraisal
- The piece itself, or for large furniture, the appraiser comes to you.
- Photos of every side, including the back, the underside and inside drawers.
- Every mark you can find: signatures, labels, stamps, silver hallmarks, pottery marks and paper labels. Our guide to reading pottery marks helps.
- Provenance: receipts, old appraisals, letters, photos showing the piece in a family home decades ago.
- Condition history: repairs, refinishing, replaced parts. Tell the appraiser; they will find it anyway.
- Your list, with the items you care about most at the top.
Say you need an estate appraisal
Say your parents' estate includes a Victorian walnut chest of drawers, an oil landscape signed in the corner, a sterling flatware service in a chest and a Chinese blue and white vase, and three heirs want to divide it fairly.
You hire an ISA member with a furniture and decorative arts background at $175 per hour. She spends three hours on site and four on research and writing, so the fee is about $1,225. The forks and spoons, weighed without the hollow-handled knives, come to 1,800 grams of sterling, which holds about $3,100 of silver at $58 silver, and the pattern is a common one that sells close to melt. The chest is a common Victorian form with replaced pulls and sells at regional auctions for $200-500. The painting is by a regional artist with a modest auction record of $800-1,500. The vase has a reign mark but she judges it a 20th century piece, worth $100-300, and suggests an Asian art specialist confirm it before it is sold. The heirs now have fair market values to split on, and a single follow-up question for a specialist.
Common mistakes
- Hiring a dealer who wants to buy. Their appraisal is an offer. Hire an independent appraiser, then sell separately.
- Paying a percentage of value. It is a conflict of interest and a sign the appraiser does not follow professional standards.
- Using an insurance figure to sell. Retail replacement is the highest value and no buyer pays it.
- Refinishing or cleaning before the appraisal. Refinishing can cut the value of antique furniture sharply, and cleaning old silver or bronze patina can too.
- Paying an hourly appraiser to look at everything. Sort first and list the pieces that matter.
- Relying on a television estimate or an asking price online. Use sold results and a documented appraisal.
How WorthPic reads antique photos
WorthPic runs on the newest and most capable AI model available, tuned for exactly this kind of identification. From clear photos of a piece, it reads the form and style that place it in a period, the construction details such as dovetails, saw marks and hardware, the marks and labels, the signature on a painting, and visible condition. It gives an honest value range in US dollars with a most likely figure, explains what drives the price, and says which extra photo would settle a question. That is a quick way to decide which pieces deserve an appraiser's time.
What it cannot know from a photo is what the wood or metal is under the surface, whether a mark is genuine, or how much of a piece has been restored. It identifies and estimates. It does not authenticate, grade or appraise, and its estimate is not a document for an insurer, a court or the IRS.
When to get it looked at in person
Hire an appraiser when someone needs a document: an insurer, an executor, a court or the IRS. Ask an auction house for an estimate when you only want to sell and the piece might bring more than a few hundred dollars. Bring in a specialist for single pieces where the gap between a copy and the real thing is large: Asian ceramics and bronzes, signed paintings, early American furniture and important silver. Our guides to whether a painting is worth anything and where to sell antiques cover the next steps, and if the whole house needs clearing, see how estate sales work.
Sources
- American Society of Appraisers: the Personal Property discipline, AM and ASA designations and the appraiser directory.
- Spalding Nix Fine Art: appraisal fees: a published hourly rate of $150, minimums and the statement that fees are not tied to value.
- 26 CFR 1.170A-17, qualified appraisals: IRS rule that a qualified appraisal fee cannot be based on the appraised value.
- 26 CFR 20.2031-6, household and personal effects: the expert appraisal under oath required above $3,000 for estate tax returns.
- Gem Guide: appraisal fees: why percentage fees are considered unethical across the appraisal profession.