Fair Market Value for Mugs (et al)

I went to an antique consignment store this weekend. I found three Fireside (Wisconsin) Moai mugs for $35.00 each. Another booth had a Trader Vic's green seahorse mug (listed as a seahorse vase) for $32.00 with 20% off. I've seen the seahorse mug sell for well over $100.00, so I bought it right away for 27 bucks.

I really want to add the Fireside mug to my collection, but is it really worth the $35.00? (Any yay or nay votes from the Ohana?)

I'm sure others use some method to evaluate fair market value for mugs and other tiki-related items (e.g. skip the $30.00 Tiki Leilani mugs but buy the $30.00 Tiki Bob mugs). I try to average prices from those listed in Ooga-Mooga and often infrequent listings on Ebay. But is there a better way? Some price guide perhaps?

Apologies if this has been discussed before in another thread.

my first stop to check recent price sightings is Ooga-Mooga ~ the awesome site created by the lovely Humuhumu.

here's the price for the fireside moai

heck, you might as well buy one, since you saved a bundle on that TV Seahorse!

I personally feel that $35 is a little high for that mug but if its a mug that you've been looking for for a while and really want to add it to your collection then it may be no big deal.
If its been said once its been said a million times... A mug is worth what you're willing to pay for it. Some people might say that I've paid too much for some peices but in the end it's up to you what feels right and what price you're comfortable with to build your collection.
You can always see if you talk them down.
Aloha,
:tiki:

"FAIR" market value depends on if you are the one buying ,or the one selling.

That mug is on Ebay right now. Watch and see what it's "worth." There won't be a price guide ever. The market is simply too small. A few mugs have a standard value. But there are still new mugs emerging. And a new mug gets a high dollar. You can only know your mugs. Research on Ebay. Post sales info on Ooga Mooga. I try to add price sightings every time I am there. It's very quick and easy to pick a mug you can easily search for with few or no price sightings and find it on Ebay and add some data. That's the closest we'll get. BUT! If I find a $100 mug for $1, that skews the data and the "value" of the mug. It's still a $100 mug, but the Ooga Mooga value is now perhaps $50 instead of $100 ($1 + $100 / 2 = ~$50) It might be a good update to show a market price for mugs on Ooga Mooga. Ebay pricing only.

I agree 100%. The garage sale price does nothing to inform the average tiki mug collector. Unless one lives in a tiki rich state, they will never find a given mug at a baragain basement price. The real market is Ebay for most people, like it or not.

One of the things I consider is whether the convenience of getting it an antique shop is worth the extra price-- what I call the convenience mark-up. It happens whenever you buy from a person who's trying to earn a living-- antique stores are a great example.

Here's an example of a recent purchase of mine--
I just bought an Orchids of Hawaii X-Eyes Ku mug the other day--
http://www.ooga-mooga.com/cgi-bin/all/mug.cgi?mode=view&mug_id=62
average going price on Ooga Mooga is about $13. I don't know if that includes people's shipping expenses. I assume that it doesn't. Figure the shipping and insurance would cost at least $5. Assuming that the Ooga-mooga prices don't include shipping, if you add that to a $13 price, you're up to $18.
The mug I bought the other day cost me $20. Compared to $13, I overpaid quite a bit. But if you figure in shipping, I really only overpaid about $2.

But I also figure that you're paying for the convenience of having someone else locate and purchase the mug from whatever estate/garage sale they found it at. All I had to do was go to the antique store. I didn't have to drive all over California trying to find one at a garage sale, and I also didn't have to spend time looking for it on Ebay. Not that searching Ebay is hard, but it's one less thing to worry about.

Like everyone else has said too-- it's only worth what you're willing to pay. For a Fireside Moai, it's a cool mug, maybe a little pricey at your local store, but I always ask myself how much will I save by purchasing on Ebay? The other question I ask myself is how much Ebay hassle am I willing to endure to save some cash? What are the chances I'm going to have problems with this seller? I take a look at feedback and consider the following: What if the seller stiffs me? What if the mug arrives damaged? Based on feedback, what are the odds of those things happening?

The other thing I always consider now-- am I going to have buyer's remorse after buying this item for x-amount of money? I know it sounds crazy, but I pass on stuff I know that I have no use for. If it's not a great addition to my collection, I think twice about it.

I guess the best advice I can give is not to be too impulsive. Think it through. Determine how much you really want a particular item before you run up to the counter and buy it. Some things, like the seahorse, are no brainers. A $30 Fireside? Maybe give it a second thought.
You ultimately need to decide whether the price is more than you're willing to spend. Sometimes it is. But that's where you have to make your own decision.

Speaking of vintage mugs only,

It depends on where you live and what's available. I don't think very many vintage mugs are actually worth more than $30, since they originally sold for so little, or were given away. Bowls and decanters would be an exception.

E-bay and antique shops have skewed the value, because it forces people to fight over items that they could normally find for $1-$9.99 at a garage sale or thrift store, which is where they all should be found, in a perfect world :wink: but we all know you can't be a collector without craving something that's inaccessible to you.

Tiki Leilani is maybe worth $10 to someone who can't find one in the wild, but worth 50 cents or less to someone who has 10 or sees them all the time.

New mugs are in a completely different catagory.

Josh you make a great point. Time is money.

E-bay is a great service to people that can't find locally what they'd like, or just plain don't have the time to look.

I look at new mugs like Ty Beanie Babies. They should all be about $10, but there's some sort of value added by collectors that is a sort of fiction. A Shag mug is worth $8 as a mug. If you don't know or care who Shag is, it's worth $5-10. And the fact that you can buy it new off the shelf seems less valuable to me.

The only real way to do a price guide is to rate on rarity and imagine a price that way.

Yes! I found a pair of these(tiki leilani non-marked) for 9.00 each in the wastelands last week, but only bought one. I now may go back and get the other given I will save 2.00. Seriously this is the actual price i paid and may again. Just wait till june.

Keep in mind there's a hidden cost of searching for mugs and such "in the wild" and that is the high cost of gas these days. At $3 a gallon, I'm not going to drive all over town looking for stuff. It just jacks up the price of whatever you might find. So, for the most part, it's gonna be Ebay for me. Of course, for those of you who go thrifting often, I'm sure you get nearly as much fun out of the searching as you do in the actual finding. So there's something to be said for that.