Vintage motoring specialists
Valuations
We can provide valuations for many different purposes, and not just for collector cars and transport related material. Our work encompasses many different types of antiques and collectors' items, and is used for insurance, finding a fair market value, negotiating family division, for finance and for donations under the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program (in the categories of Historic Vehicles/Australian Colonial Furniture/English & Continental Furniture/ Decorative & Applied Art/Horse Drawn Vehicles/Film & Film Props/Silver). We also offer expert advice for estate management and investment in most categories of collecting. For over forty years, we have identified, researched, valued and sold items as diverse as rare cars and horse drawn carriages, music boxes, scientific instruments, antique toys, clocks, Colonial furniture, steam locomotives and even full size historic ships and aircraft.
Most valuations can be completed electronically without the additional expense of a physical visit.
Fees vary according to the complexity of the work but as a guide have a minimum charge of $500, and are arranged as a percentage figure of the value of the item. Fees can be negotiated as a fixed or capped fee for large groups of material.
Valuations completed for the Cultural Gifts Program are fully tax deductible. We've been instrumental in directing hundreds of remarkable objects to Australian museum collections since 1983, ensuring that significant items can be preserved for future generations in collections that could not otherwise afford to acquire them, and benefitting the donors by enabling a taxation credit in return for their gift. We can suggest appropriate recipient collections for your valued items and can negotiate on your behalf.
We offer free initial advice and estimates and are always happy to discuss the best solution to your circumstances.
Expert knowledge & international experience
Our valuer, Antony Davies, is among the most qualified antiques and fine arts valuers in Australia with over 40 years international experience. Antony is approved to value for the Australian Commonwealth Government's Cultural Gifts Program in the categories of: Historic Vehicles, Australian Colonial Furniture, English & Continental Furniture, Decorative & Applied Art, Film & props, Horse Drawn Vehicles, and Silver. Valuations for other purposes are available in all categories of the fine arts and collecting.
Antony worked as a senior specialist at Sotheby’s in London between 1982 and 1995 and was responsible for many important sales in Australasia, over numerous specialized categories, during that time. Following a brief period with Christie’s Antony founded Wemyss, a specialist auction house for collectors, in Sydney, operating this until its sale in 2004, and has since focused on valuations for collecting institutions and private clients. He is the author of numerous specialist journal articles, a book on collecting, and over 150 articles documenting the art market and published in “The Australian”, together with many ABC radio programs, and commercial television appearances.
Antony Davies acted as the official valuer for the National Motor Museum of Australia, a position held for over 35 years. He has conducted valuations of large public collections throughout Australia since the early 1980s. Valuations have covered every category of collecting with a particular emphasis on transport and machinery, furniture, social history and applied arts and sciences and including collecting areas as diverse as antique furniture, paintings, prints, musical instruments and vintage cars.
In that time services have been provided to nearly every Australian State gallery and significant Museum, and many regional museums and galleries, as well as to private collectors and corporations.
Our specialists
We are a small and focused team, with a long and varied set of experiences to inform our advice, but we also work with a very large group of highly experienced international colleagues assembled over many decades of work in art and antiques. If there's something we can't answer, we know who can!
Antony Davies
PO Box 252 Braidwood NSW 2622
telephone 0438 126987
Specialist Photography
Andrew Gow
telephone 0419 424520