An unidentified painting can be one of the hardest items in an estate to evaluate. Sometimes the artist’s signature is easy to read. Often it is not. Some paintings are unsigned. Others have signatures that are faded, partially hidden, difficult to decipher, or added later. And sometimes the most useful information is not on the front of the artwork at all. Before selling an unknown painting, print, drawing, or other work of art, it is worth slowing down long enough to gather

Antique and vintage lamps can be easy to underestimate. A lamp may have been sitting on the same table for decades, passed down through a family, or stored away because nobody particularly liked it. Yet some older lamps were produced by important American lighting and decorative-arts companies, while others may have valuable glass shades, bronze bases, unusual construction, or identifiable maker marks. At the same time, appearance can be misleading. A floral leaded-glass shad

Estate-sale shoppers often begin making decisions long before they reach the front door. A recent St. Louis Magazine article interviewed an experienced vintage reseller who attends roughly 10 estate sales a month and described how she studies listings, photographs, line procedures, payment rules, discount schedules, and even the apparent contents of individual rooms before deciding how to approach a sale. For buyers, those are shopping strategies. For homeowners and estate-sa