By Clyde Noel

When seniors go into nursing homes, they are faced with the daunting prospect of liquidating their household effects. When a person clears out their house before putting it up for sale, they find they have several things they don’t need any more. That’s where Judy Johnson enters.

With 25 years of experience in antique collection and custom estate liquidation, Johnson’s mission is to salvage things that people don’t think are valuable.

She told the Los Altos Rotary last Thursday that she gets calls from people saying they’re putting up their house for sale and the Dumpster is coming the next day. “Can you help us clear out the house?” they ask.

“You would be surprised what you can find if you know what to look for,” Johnson said. “I found this Boy Scout sash with merit badges. This one had a coin collection badge, and that raised the value of the sash from $300 to $1,000.”

On the other hand, just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Johnson referred to hand-painted cups from 1905 for which you’d be lucky to get $8. Cut glass is wonderful, but because young people are not collecting it, it has little value. There is a large supply and little demand.

“People tend to collect things from their childhood,” Johnson said. “It makes them feel good. Men will spend money when they find something they like. Women don’t - they prefer jewelry. There is a demand for cars, motorcycles, wooden boats, because when a man wants it - it will bring more money.”

Condition of an item is vital, especially in the case of ceramics. A chip in glassware or a nick in porcelain reduces the value considerably.

Johnson said that sets of china are not as valuable as they were years ago, because young people don’t buy them - they can’t put them in the microwave. But serving dishes from the sets do sell and have a better value.

It’s the same with silver plate from the early 1900s. Young people don’t like it because they’d have to polish it.

“When you check out a house, go to the kitchen first,” Johnson said. “You look for California pottery, Ball canning jars and thick, heavy pots and saucers. Martha Stewart mentions these items each week, and people start looking for them.”

Johnson said eBay has had a tremendous impact on collecting. Many items in demand are showing up on the online auction, at cheaper prices for collectors.

The biggest collectors’ items are those connected with Christmas or Halloween. Sewing patterns that used to be 25 cents are now over a dollar; anything from Hawaii dated before 1960 is valuable.

Women are starting to collect old aprons with hand embroidery, and older children’s books dated before 1945 are becoming valuable.

During her 25 years of museum and antique experience, Johnson has developed a broad network of contacts who appraise, restore, buy and sell antiques and collectibles.

At estate sales she sits down with the principals and identifies items of potential value. She then makes a plan for their disposition that matches the principals’ requests.

The famous last words an appraiser hears are “Oh, by the way …” They are usually said after a professional organizer has gone through all the items being prepared for disposition.

During the question-and-answer period at last Thursday’s talk, Rotarians were inquiring about items in their possession that could be valuable.