Antiques
20 objects (Tiffany lamps, Dirk van Erp copper, Stickley furniture, Grueby pottery) and what each one actually made at auction, cited to the sale it happened in. Across 5 houses they run from $5,938 to $3,372,500.
These are not market caps and not prices. Each figure is one unique object, sold once, on one day. There is no unit to quote and no supply to multiply, so no total value for the class exists. Figures are in the nominal dollars of the year of sale and are not converted by the currency switcher: a 1989 dollar at today’s rate would describe nothing.
What an antique actually returned
An index of antique prices has to decide what “the same thing” means across objects that are never identical. A repeat sale does not: one object, two hammers, arithmetic. These are the 2 objects here with more than one recorded sale.
Tiffany Studios
"Pond Lily" table lamp
+6.45%
a year for 29.0 years · 6.1× in total
$550,000 at Christie's New York on 9 Dec 1989, then $3,372,500 on 13 Dec 2018.
Gustav Stickley
"Columbus Avenue" sideboard
+3.70%
a year for 11 years · 1.5× in total
$362,000 at Christie's in 1988, then $540,000 in 1999.
Nominal and gross: the buyer paid a premium on the way in, the seller paid commission on the way out, and neither is inflation-adjusted. The method also flatters the class: an object that fails to sell never enters the sample. Comparing these against equities over the same years needs a price history this site does not keep yet.
Every recorded sale
Ranked by the most recent price each object made. Where a house published an estimate, the last column is what the price did to it.
| Object | Category | Realized | Sale | vs estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Pond Lily" table lampTiffany Studios · c. 1903The world auction record for Tiffany Studios, and the same lamp that held the record in 1989. Christie's sold it both times. | Lighting & glass | $3,372,500 | Christie's New YorkDesign · 13 Dec 2018Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| "Pink Lotus" lampTiffany Studios · c. 1900-10Then a world record for twentieth-century decorative arts, against a previous Tiffany high of $1.1 million. Sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. | Lighting & glass | $2,800,000 | Christie's New York12 Dec 1997Deseret News | — |
| "Columbus Avenue" sideboardGustav Stickley · 1902Made for Stickley's own Syracuse home. Bought by Barbra Streisand in 1988 and sold again in 1999 to an anonymous telephone bidder; now in the Two Red Roses Foundation collection. | Furniture | $540,000 | Christie's1999Gustav Stickley House Foundation | — |
| Vase with abstract floral decoration, variegated ochreGrueby Faience Company · 6¾ in.A 45-minute bidding war on an unusual glaze took this to roughly 48× its high estimate, the record for Grueby and the sharpest example here of how wide an estimate can miss. | Pottery | $431,250incl. premium | Sotheby's New YorkImportant Design · 30 Jul 2020Arts and Crafts Collector | 47.9×est. $7,000–$9,000 |
| Hammered copper and mica lampD'Arcy Gaw for Dirk van ErpTop lot of a sale that made over $2.2 million across 1,100+ lots at roughly 90% sell-through. Gaw's brief partnership with van Erp produced the most sought-after work of the shop. | Metalwork | $180,000 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Vase with carved conventionalized flowersArthur Hennessey and Sarah Tutt for Marblehead Pottery · c. 1910Top lot of a $1.3 million sale that ran at 90% sell-through. | Pottery | $150,000 | Rago, Lambertville NJAmerican Art Pottery · 20 Jun 2020Antiques and The Arts Weekly | 4.3×est. $25,000–$35,000 |
| Vase with calla liliesGrueby Faience Company · 1898-1910 | Pottery | $107,100 | Rago, Lambertville NJEarly 20th Century Design · 11 May 2023 · lot 122Rago lot 122 | 5.4×est. $15,000–$20,000 |
| Crystalline-glazed porcelain gourd formTaxile Doat for University City · 1914 | Pottery | $81,250 | Rago, Lambertville NJAmerican Art Pottery · 20 Jun 2020Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Tall-case clockCharles Rohlfs | Furniture | $63,250 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Glazed porcelain centerpiece with hand-carved frogsAdelaide Alsop Robineau · 1926 | Pottery | $47,500 | Rago, Lambertville NJAmerican Art Pottery · 20 Jun 2020Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| "Curtained" red copper vaseDirk van Erp · 5 × 6 in. | Metalwork | $36,000 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Vessel with swimming sharksRedlands Pottery | Pottery | $32,625 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Double pedestal desk with chairCharles Rohlfs · 1902 | Furniture | $28,750 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Hammered copper lamp with leaded glass shadeRoycroft, shade designed by Dard Hunter | Metalwork | $27,600 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Two-colour vaseGrueby Faience Company · 9 in. | Pottery | $26,450 | Craftsman Auctions with David Rago, Lambertville NJJun 2002Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Vase with cinquefoilsGrueby Faience Company | Pottery | $24,700 | Rago, Lambertville NJAmerican Art Pottery · 20 Jun 2020Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Vase with irisesRuth Erickson for Grueby Faience Company · 11¾ in. | Pottery | $21,250 | Rago, Lambertville NJAmerican Art Pottery · 20 Jun 2020Antiques and The Arts Weekly | — |
| Early table lampDirk van Erp · c. 1912 | Metalwork | $17,640 | Rago, Lambertville NJEarly 20th Century Design · 21 Sep 2023 · lot 183Rago lot 183 | — |
| Leaded Nautilus table lampTiffany StudiosThe other end of the same maker: a Tiffany lamp is not one asset, and the distance from here to the Pond Lily is the point. | Lighting & glass | $10,000incl. premium | Rago, Lambertville NJEarly 20th C. Design · 21 Sep 2019 · lot 333Chasen Antiques | 1.1×est. $6,000–$9,000 |
| Boudoir lampDirk van Erp · 1915-30 | Metalwork | $5,938 | Rago, Lambertville NJEarly 20th Century Design · 13 May 2021 · lot 238Rago lot 238 | — |
What this is and is not
A ledger, not an index. Twenty objects cannot describe a market, and the ones that get written about are the ones that did something surprising. A Grueby vase clearing 48× its high estimate is here precisely because it was extraordinary, which is the opposite of representative.
There is no feed behind this page and there is not going to be one. No auction house publishes an open results API, Rago and Heritage both refuse automated requests, and Heritage’s developer portal no longer resolves. Every row was read from the trade press or a lot page and entered by hand, which is why the ledger is short and why each row names its source.
Trading cards (Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh) are deliberately absent despite being the easiest data here to obtain. Every free source for card prices resolves to TCGplayer, whose terms prohibit redistributing their pricing, combining it with other pricing data, and obtaining it from a third party that collected it automatically. Publishing it anyway would contradict the licensing position that makes the rest of this site publishable. Cards arrive when a licensed price feed does.
Graded cards are also the one collectible that could carry a genuine market cap, which is the other reason to wait: PSA publishes a population census, and population × price per grade is the same arithmetic behind the precious-metal figures here, on better evidence, since a census is counted rather than estimated like an above-ground tonnage. PSA has no public population API, so that number needs buying too.
Ledger last updated 11 Aug 2026. Every figure links to where it was read. If one is wrong, that is worth knowing. See methodology. Nothing here is investment advice.