Hurricanes and Appraisals

Gail Taylor sent this Miami CBS channel 4 post on appraisals and the hurricane season. It is short so I will take the liberty of cutting and pasting. Although the article is short and not really detailed, it is a good public service announcement for collectors in areas of potential hurricanes it does strongly state the need for an appraisal.

MIAMI (CBS4) ―When you are preparing for a hurricane, most of us have the basics, like boarding up the house, putting up shutters and stockpiling items like water, batteries, and canned food, down to a science. But there's still the issue of protecting your valuables, the ones you can't lock up like expensive furniture or antiques?

Porcelain figurines, ornate chairs, priceless decorations, these are the items on a new kind of hurricane check list. Phil Schlom is an antique dealer who is busiest before the storm.

"They should protect them and have it appraised every couple of years actually," Schlom said.

Phil runs an antiques and art appraisal and restoration business in South Florida. His clients go to him to make sure their valuables, no matter their value, are protected in the event of a storm.

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told CBS4's Jorge Estevez she doesn't want you to make the same mistake she did with her stuff which got ruined after Hurricane Andrew.

"My feeling was I really wanted to make sure that I knew what the appraisal value was, God forbid something should happen again," she said.

Ever since, she has had everything appraised and thinks everyone else should too. Phil says you can lose money if you don't appraise every few years.

"If something you appraised 4 or 5 years ago. It is worth a thousand dollars and now it's worth $12 thousand. If something happens, you want to the 12 thousand not the thousand we just spoke about."

So make sure and ask yourself before a storm actually begins to head for South Florida, are my antiques checked? An appraisal can cost a couple of hundred dollars, but it could help you save thousands in the future.