QUESTION OF THE WEEK: July 26, 2021.
Do you have a question and want to possibly be featured? E-mail me here and I’ll do my best to answer. Be sure to include QUESTION OF THE WEEK as the subject line. Keep in mind my answers here are mostly general and should not take the place of a formal appraisal.
Question: “My mother had about 50 Hummel figurines from the 1960s and 1970s and said they were very rare and valuable. Is that still true?” Lauren from Oak Park, Illinois.
Answer: They were initially popular with U.S. troops stationed in Germany following World War II. Soldiers would send them home as souvenirs and eventually an active retail and secondary market for the porcelain works manufactured by Goebel sprung up in the United States. As the years progressed, air travel became much more common and Americans who visited West Germany would often bring a few of the small figurines back from their travels. This continued until about the mid 1970s when it became obvious there was far more supply than demand on the secondary market. Prices dropped and have never fully recovered. Today, few on the secondary market have a value of more than $100 and most are in the $10 to $20 range in recent years. This is a far cry from the 1970s when people were buying them as investments including my parents and grandparents. I’ve occasionally appraised larger collections of Hummel figurines in recent years and I always warn clients my fees might outweigh the combined value of the figurines. One lawyer I worked for shook his head, fully knowing the value of the chotchkies. He was settling a dispute between feuding heirs who believed their collection was worth $10,000 or more. I remember his words well: “I tried to tell them it wasn’t worth it but they wouldn’t listen. So here we are.”
Have more questions? E-mail me at grantmiller@grantmillerappraisals.com. In Illinois and looking for an art or antiques appraiser? Call or text me at 813-240-4586 (Chicago and elsewhere).