Sunday, July 25, 2010

When sending a quilt for appraisal


(click on pic for closeup)
The time has come the walrus said...... to create a good bio on yourself to accompany your request for a quilt appraisal. I am not an appraiser, but I have empathy for appraisers trying to determine a quilts assessed value. It is not always the quality of quilt alone that determines its value. More and more appraisers are wanting information about the quilter, the quilters quilt journey, etc. so I have like many others created a document covering just that including the following such information.

A small pic of yourself including contact, web/blog info as applicable
A paragraph overview of your quilting career, it's origin, your training, or the like.
A list of competitions
Sample pictures of your work
Exhibition timeline of your quilts
Publications about your work/you
Teaching History/Overview
Any retail products you offer.


In addition... you might include on the appraisal request form (whether specifically requested or not) any information you think would be helpful to the appraiser. I have in the past identified the number of hours included in creation of the quilt top, the number of hours or thread changes involved in quilting the top. I've sometimes included my hourly rate for contract work too. All this may not be necessary for appraisers that are familiar with your style of work, but thats not always the case, so tell 'em anything you think relevant and helpful to their job. Since most appraisals are really for replacement insurance value, this kind of information may be helpful in the appraisers estimate of what it would take to replace the quilt.
Hope this makes sense. Some appraisers like a list of past sales and prices as well.

As a side note, I note that I created mine in Powerpoint .. so that I have an option of printing it out as is. creating an electronic.pps (powerpoint slide show) version for emailing, or even a .pdf version for mailing or printing.

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