Antique price

[LovelyLadyLux]

Was out this morning doing my usually Saturday morning boot sale/garage sale tour about en route to have coffee. Stopped at one sale that was advertised as having antiques. There were lots of antiques but much more men stuff (aka tools) than anything I'd be super interested in however there was 1 item - a hand pump. It was a full size (like 1.2m high or so), painted green and had what looked like an axe handle for the downward/upward pump action. Should have had iron but it was gone or broken.

What I'm curious about is that the man was asking $1000 for this which, to me is SUPER expensive. He had lots of other stuff that seemed reasonably priced (to me) and it wasn't like this pump was featured prominently in his sale but $1000? Is that about what the price would be for one of these old pumps now?

People were looking at it and commenting on it and I made sure I was seeing the RIGHT price and it was $1000.

My point on this is that it seems to me that sometimes the price of 'antiques' is often very high and we're not really talking true antiques (items over 100 yrs old) we're talking things I remember as a child which I'd say are about 50 yrs old. Just my bit of a rant for today that here anyway seems old becomes antique which somehow justifies asking an exhorbitent price for items that are not a far cry off junk. Same there or it is just me on an off day ?

[Horus]

You are not on your own with this LLL, I see lots of stuff on antiques programs that quite honestly I would not put in my rubbish bin, I guess it is a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder and maybe he had the decimal point in the wrong place ie $10.00

[Grandad]

LLL, I have an old water pump at the corner of my garden workshop. I bought it several years ago at an antiques fair. It is French and certainly more than 100 years old and I paid £25 for it. Was the one you looked at anything like this?


A few years ago when Louis was smaller I set it up so that it DID pump water, to his amusement.

[Horus]

I have a similar pump to Grandads and I bought mine at a reclamation yard many years ago. It is quite ornate and if I get the time I often pick out all of the figures on the casting which are reeds, bulrushes and frogs in gold against a black background. I often move it around the garden as takes my fancy, in the first image it is standing alone and in the second one it is pumping water into a large Greek urn in a water feature. It was in full working order when I bought it and would have pumped water from a well, but I converted it to produce water via a submerged pump although if you pump the handle it will still push out more water, the grandkids loved messing with it.

[Grandad]

I think your very ornate pump might have been a village pump or at a wealthy home Horus. Mine is the type that most humble homes would have had (and some still do) to draw water from their own water source. I just had to make new leather washers and away it went.

[Kiya]

Very nice these old water pumps I wonder why it is we like old fashioned stuff

Horus ...is that another water feature with your gold fish ?

[Horus]

@ Grandad

Kiya, I change things about from time to time, so yes it has also been part of a water feature that had gold fish in at one time or another so you may have seen it in another picture.

[LovelyLadyLux]

The pump I saw was much more like Grandads - just a plain working pump much like the one I used as a kid. It lacked the long handle and he'd stuck like an axe handle in there. The price WAS $1000 which to me was totally over the top ridiculous however often here we get 'old junk' priced as an antique with prices that are astronomical.

I looked at the pump cause I'm really wanting to make the new backyard look really spiffy and I had the idea of placing it somewhere for decoration but at that price I wasn't tempted - actually I felt rather disgusted that anybody would ask that much for something old but not antique.

On the other hand I don't have a clue around here where anybody might find an old iron pump but I still don't believe just cause something might be difficult to find justifys that type of pricing (however I'm not trying to personalize it to this particular person - just taking generally)

Am off now to buy a rusted IRON birdbath for $10 (which is much more reasonable) and I'm fairly certain I can clean the rust and then spray paint with metal paint this back to looking nice and being useful.

On another note Horus did advise about getting a big bowl and then putting rocks in it. Not sure if I mentioned on here but I did get a bowl, it is deep so I have collect up a few rocks AND at a junk store for $3 bought a rusty round iron base that I managed to scrape clean and spray black which really made the roses pop out. Once moved I'm going to put the bowl on top + rocks and will have a super neat birdbath for another area of garden. Good suggestion H!!