Technical article

Antiques and the Family Furniture: Why It Is Worth Less than You Think

Insurance values and sale values are different things.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a widow in Ohio whose house holds the dining table her family ate at for fifty years. She has two children. One lives in Mexico City and one in Madrid. Neither has a dining room big enough for it. Each says, kindly, that the other ought to have it. Then both say they are not sure anyone will want it.

That quiet exchange is common, and it is worth looking at with numbers.

What the sources show

Insurance values and sale values are different things. One probate firm's article gives an example of a dining table insured at GBP 4,000 (about US$5,200) that might fetch around GBP 300 (about US$400) at auction. The same article says HM Revenue and Customs treats valuations as the biggest single area of risk in estate checks.

Nobody has a long price series for family furniture. Here is what exists. Knight Frank's luxury index showed furniture at 0% over the twelve months to June 2023, according to one news report. A US estate professional, writing in a magazine, says dark brown furniture, china, silver tea sets, pianos and figurines are unwanted by younger buyers. The reasons given are fewer dining rooms, downsizing parents and low-priced new furniture.

Selling has a cost too. One estate liquidator says estate-sale companies keep 25% to 50% of what a sale brings in.

Moving it

Shipping a house of furniture abroad adds its own questions. A movers' guide to Mexico says used household goods owned more than six months can enter duty-free with an inventory. Goods owned less than six months pay 20% duty plus 16% value-added tax, and anything missing from the inventory can be seized. Goods left unclaimed past 30 days at an airport or 60 days at a port can be confiscated. That is a movers' guide, not the customs office, so it reads as one company's account.

When the law asks for a list

Italy takes a different view. For inheritance tax, cash, jewelry and furniture are presumed to be 10% of the net taxable estate, unless an analytic inventory shows another amount. The source is a legal-code site, tier B. So a family that lists each piece and its real value may pay on a smaller number than the presumption gives.

The objection

You might say that a table with this much history must be worth something. It may be, to the person who sat at it. The sources suggest a buyer in the market may see an ordinary table. Both views can be true at once, and neither is a failure of love.

Doors you could open

You could ask each child, in plain words, which pieces they would keep if there were no price at all. You could photograph the rest and write a line about where each came from, so the story travels even when the object does not. You could ask an auction house for an estimate before you pay to ship anything. You could write the list while your mother is still here to tell you which piece came from whom.

What did your family do with the table? Share it here. Someone standing in a dining room right now may find it a comfort.

Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Date read: October 2026.