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57 °F Forecast | Road Cams Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classifieds Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 12, 2005 Dave Roberts hopes to learn the value of these vintage fly rods and reels at next week�s free appraisals at G.I. Joe�s. The appraisals will be given by representatives from Ward�s online auction house of Salem. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Wanted: Reel value Visit by online auction house hopes to hook lovers of antique outdoor sporting equipment By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Dave Roberts rarely ventures into rivers without a piece of his family fly-fishing history in his hands. He strips line from vintage Hardy fly reels bought by his grandfather and passed down to the 58-year-old Eagle Point truck mechanic and avid angler. To Roberts, they are priceless. But to someone outside the Roberts lineage, they undoubtedly have some financial value. But how much? "I got a Hardy St. John and four Hardy Perfects from him that I use all the time," Roberts says. "But I really would like to know how much they’re worth." Eric Ward will tell Roberts and anyone else with old sporting gear what their heirlooms are worth during a free appraisal for sporting collectibles Feb. 19 in Medford. Advertisement Six appraisers from Ward’s online auction house in Salem will be at the G.I. Joe’s store in Medford to put financial values on the rods, reels, creels, shot-shell boxes and other antique sporting gear. And just like the appraisers on television’s "Antique Road Show," Ward can deliver as much bad news as good news about the stuff people collect. "Sometimes what we say is, ‘Well, you have some good old garage-sale stuff,’" says Ward, 39, of Salem. "But once in a while you get a guy like we did in our last show who brought in an old reel that we sold for $7,000. "The message is, you don’t know how valuable your stuff is until you show it to us," he says. And if that isn’t enough, Ward hopes a shopping spree will lure people in. Anyone who brings in an item for appraisal is eligible to win a $250 spree at G.I. Joe’s. The appraisals will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. These shows are a way for Ward to ferret out new items for his online auctions, in which buyers have a month to bid on collectibles presented in catalogues and on his Web site, www.wardscollectibles.com . "We’re trying to get customers who aren’t collectors now, yet don’t know they have items that are valuable," he says. About half the people walk away after knowing what their items are worth. The other half consign them for Ward’s next online auction. It’s set for April 6 through May 6. During the eBay-like auction, Ward charges buyers a 10 percent premium. Sellers also pay anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of the top bid price, depending upon the item’s value. Ward wants nothing post-1950 because collectors aren’t interested in items that young. He’s most interested in collectibles from the early 1900s. Wooden fishing lures, guns, old hunting and fishing licenses, knives, books, waterfowl calls, all can be worth far more than they appear. Even an old box of Winchester "plinker" targets can be worth $100, or a tin of gun oil could be worth $200 to $300. Anything old may hold value in the collectors’ world, depending upon everything from their condition to their color. Sometimes, the items literally are the throwaways of their time. L.C. Smith Guns, for instance, was a New England firm that peddled shotguns that sold for $5 to $10 during the 1920s. They also sent color posters to sporting goods stores each year as in-store promotions for their low-end guns. In a recent auction, one of those color posters sold for $3,500. A low-grade Smith shotgun can fetch $2,000, and mint-condition ones can sell for as high as $5,000, Ward says. "We had several posters and calendars from the ‘20s era that were selling for $1,500 to $2,500," he says. Ward’s trip into the appraising world started in 1998 when he and his father, Jere Ward, formed a Web site to help them in their own hobby of collecting shot-shell boxes. By 2000, the buying, selling and auctioning of shot-shell boxes and other outdoor knickknacks became lucrative enough that Ward quit his job as a wholesale seller of heating and air-conditioning units. Ward now holds four online auctions a year. The last one ended this week with 1,215 items with gross sales of $118,000. Between auctions, he beats the bushes for people like Roberts with items that may, or may not, have value to collectors. Roberts will take his reels to Ward. But he’ll also go home with them, no matter what price Ward puts on them. "I won’t sell them," Roberts says. "They’re family heirlooms. I want it for insurance purposes." If you go What: Free appraisals of sporting collectibles by Ward’s Auctions online auction house, Salem. When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 19. Where: G.I. Joe’s , 2370 Poplar Drive, Medford. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers Advertisement s