Most people who want an antique appraised are not trying to insure a collection or settle an estate. They have one object — something from a grandparent’s house, a car boot sale, a box in the loft — and one question: is this worth anything, or is it just old? Paying a professional appraiser £150 to answer that is absurd when the honest answer might be “about twenty pounds”. That gap is what a free antique appraisal is for.
Upload a photo and check free — takes 10 seconds
What a free appraisal can actually tell you
A photograph carries more information than people expect. The shape of a handle, the way a foot was turned, the colour of a glaze, the wear pattern on a base — these are the same signals a dealer reads across a table, and most of them survive a phone camera. From one clear image you can reasonably establish four things.
What the object is. Not “a plate” but “a transferware dinner plate in a Willow pattern”. Category and specific type matter far more than they sound, because value tracks type closely: two objects that look similar to a beginner can be separated by a factor of fifty.
Roughly when it was made. Construction gives away date more reliably than style does. Machine-cut dovetails, moulded seams, a transfer print that breaks at the curve, the particular yellowing of early plastics — each one narrows a window. An era estimate of “c. 1890–1910” is genuinely useful; it tells you which market your piece sits in.
What condition it is in. Condition is the single biggest multiplier in antiques, and the one owners are least objective about. A hairline crack, a re-glued handle, crazing across a glaze, silver that has been polished until the detail is soft — all of these are visible, and all of them move the number.
Whether it is worth pursuing. This is the part people actually need. Most household objects are worth less than the cost of finding out, and knowing that quickly is a real service. The minority that are worth something deserve a proper look.
What a free appraisal cannot tell you
Be clear about the limits, because anyone promising more is selling something. A photograph cannot verify a maker’s mark that is not in the frame. It cannot detect a skilled restoration under raking light. It cannot weigh silver, test a hallmark, or tell you whether the signature on a painting is genuine. And it cannot give you a defensible figure for insurance or probate — those require a qualified appraiser who will put their name to a document and carry professional liability for it.
What it gives you is a fast, informed read: enough to know whether the object deserves a proper look, and enough to stop you selling something good for nothing at a boot sale.
How our free antique appraisal works
You upload one photo. The image is resized in your browser before it is sent, analysed, and then discarded — it is never written to disk and never kept after your result comes back. There is no account to create and no email address to hand over. Within about ten seconds you get the identification, the era, the category, a condition score out of ten and a short note on what the object is and why it looks the way it does.
One scan per person is free. The full value range is unlocked in the Antiqly app or through a detailed written report, depending on what you are trying to do with the object.
Getting a photo the analysis can actually read
The quality of the answer depends almost entirely on the quality of the photo, and most people take a bad one on the first try. Four things matter.
Fill the frame with the object. A piece photographed across a room is a piece nobody can read. Get close enough that the object occupies most of the image.
Use daylight, not a flash. Flash flattens the surface and hides exactly the wear and texture that carry the information. A window on an overcast day is close to ideal.
Put it on a plain background. A patterned tablecloth competes with a patterned plate. A sheet of paper or a plain worktop is enough.
Photograph the base separately if there are marks. Maker’s marks, hallmarks, impressed numbers and paper labels are the difference between a guess and an identification. If your piece has one, that is the shot worth taking.
When to go further than a free check
If the free read comes back with a meaningful range and reasonable confidence, it is worth going further. That means either a detailed written report, or an in-person appraisal if the object might be genuinely valuable — anything in the low thousands and up justifies a professional who can handle it, weigh it and check it under magnification.
If it comes back as a common object in ordinary condition, you have your answer, and it cost you nothing.
Check what yours is worth — free
Related
- Free antique identifier — identify an unfamiliar object from a photo
- Free antique valuation — the valuation side, in British terms