All collectors stop at some point to think about if and when they will sell their collections. It is perhaps inspired by morbid curiosity or maybe the need to shrink a household or raise funds for a needed project. But when is the right time? We want to sell when the market is high, but when is that? Take, for example, the Pennsylvania German folk art market. Many of us remember in the 1990s when that market was so overheated that even the most generic of items would bring crazy prices. I remember selling a modern reproduction redware dish made by a noted redware revival potter and putting it through an auction in Mifflin County. The $10 plate brought $100 because anything Dutchy at that moment was hot, hotter, hottest. Today, I saw a plate similar to it (actually really nicer than) the one I sold in a booth with a $10 price tag. The market rose high and then either death and/or taxes took the market away, leaving objects priced as they were in the 1980s or earlier. While most, if not all of us collect because we are passionate about objects, we all probably secretly desire to sell our collections someday for a huge profit. Who doesnt want to have the market validate all the work they put into buying some treasure? And while no one hits it right every time in terms of making a huge profit, one does hope that in the end the collection is worth more than what was paid. Today, that notion grows dimmer and dimmer as you look in the taillights of life. I recently witnessed a friends collection come up for sale and saw the myriad of $400 and $500 pieces of pottery he owned instead selling for $75 or $100. It was painful to see but reflected the marketplace of today. Will it come back in price? I have little doubt that it will. Despite the gloom and doom naysayers, I do think that most antiques will gain in value again over time. The number of items is finite, and fashions do come and go. I recall an article in the now defunct Art and Antiques magazine that listed the most undervalued items in the antiques and art world. The point of the article was that certain antiques simply never caught on to make big jumps, things like the following: 1) American Empire furniture 2) Jacquard Coverlets 3) English 17th century oak furniture 4) Japanese and Chinese prints and paintings 5) Historical photography One can probably sit there and read this short list and agree that the market has come for some of these items (photography and Asian arts), but it remains abysmally low for Empire and Jacobean furniture. Coverlets are an odd category as prices remain strong for the very, very best but anything less remains in the doldrums. I watch the auctions carefully and am seeing more and more toy trains coming on the market. In our household, toy trains are sacred. Eldest daughter Jane has eight or nine trunks of Standard, O, HO and N scale trains that she has collected over the years. We were never big time collectors, as we loved to run our trains and create extensive layouts in our basement. Today, one can find trains in nearly every price point. The collectors who loved them are aging through the system, and while there are young collectors, there is just too much material on the market. What is a collector to do with their trains? Horde and hope or sell and cut bait? For my two cents, I would sell and cut bait. The market is not going to improve for a long time and so better to get what you can than hope that the items grow in value, meanwhile worrying about rust and damp and a host of other issues. Welcome to the joys of collecting. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth of antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.