Valuing cherished heirlooms: ‘Google can be a good starting point but it's best to ask a specialist
'Some clients have done their own research before they come to us but a lot of the time it has been done incorrectly, leading them to having higher expectations than the true auction market,' says Claire-Laurence Mestrallet, head of jewellery at
Adam's
Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers on
St Stephen's Green
,
Dublin
.
She explains that people can be confused between the insurance valuation (ie the retail value in case of loss or damage) and the more realistic price a piece might fetch when sold at auction. 'Sometimes pieces are overvalued for insurance,' she says.
According to Mestrallet, some people accept the valuation given by the auctioneer, while others need time to come to terms with the news before deciding to sell a piece.
READ MORE
Engagement rings are among the items for which valuations are frequently sought. Jewellery that's no longer worn and jewellery that's been inherited but not necessarily wanted are also likely to be brought in for assessment on valuation days, she says. It's often the case that people no longer want to keep valuable jewellery that they don't wear in their homes and decide to sell it on.
Adam's is hosting valuation days next week in hotels in Dublin (Monday, July 28th), Belfast (Tuesday, July 29th), Cork (Wednesday, July 30th) and Limerick (Thursday, July 31st). Anyone interested in attending should email
stephanie@adams.ie
in advance.
Mestrallet says valuation days always bring some surprises. 'It's like fishing. Some days, there is nothing and other days, you might see something spectacular,' she says.
Valuation days are also a way for auctioneers to build relationships with future clients, with about 40-50 per cent of items seen on the day put on the market for sale subsequently.
Will de Búrca of
De Búrca Rare Books
in Blackrock, Co Dublin, says his antiquarian and rare books shop receives photographs almost on a daily basis from people 'hoping they've stumbled upon a hidden treasure in their attic or in their inherited library'.
Most of the time, the owners of these potentially rare books, maps or manuscripts have already typed the details into Google in the hope of finding the answers to their questions. 'The internet can be a good starting point but it's a bit like diagnosing an illness – it's best to ask a specialist,' says de Búrca.
'What many people don't realise is that a book's true
value lies in the detail: edition, condition, rarity, provenance and sometimes the story attached to it.'
While it may be difficult to fathom, he says two books with the same title and date can differ in value substantially.
'Valuations can be a bit of a reality check. Sometimes people are disappointed to learn their cherished heirloom is more sentiment than substance. Others are pleasantly surprised to discover that a volume on their shelf is actually quite valuable,' says de Búrca.
Genuinely valuable or remarkable books don't turn up very often. 'Most inquiries turn out to be relatively common editions or books with more sentimental than market value.'
He says that what makes a book particularly interesting for a dealer isn't always its monetary value. 'It's rather if it has unique binding, marginalia [notes written in the margins of the text] from a notable owner or a forgotten piece of Irish printing that fills a gap in the historical record.' De Búrca Rare Books regularly puts up a selection of new books on its website for collectors to view.
Moral Tales, by Maria Edgeworth, new edition, complete in one volume, with three plates, designs by Harvey; deburcararebooks.com (€575)
Morgan O'Driscoll, which has offices in Skibbereen, Co Cork and Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, says paintings are often brought in for valuations. 'If people send us an image of a painting, we will give them an initial valuation but we will never sell something unless we physically have it here,' says O'Driscoll. A final, formal valuation will only be given once he sees the painting in person to check its authenticity, size and condition.
'Valuations are one of the most rewarding aspects of the job – never knowing when something truly special will come through the door. Those unexpected finds keep things exciting,' he says.
On average, O'Driscoll estimates that about 50 per cent of the paintings sold in his art auctions come in through clients seeking valuations. One such work is the John Shinnors painting Falling, which is being offered in his current Irish Art online auction. Executed by the artist between 2000 and 2001, the oil-on-canvas work carries an estimate of between €8,000 and €12,000 and is available to bid on until 6.30pm this Monday, July 28th.
Lot 18: Falling, by John Shinnors, Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction (estimate €8,000-€12,000)
Lot 70: Cottage with red door and tree, by Graham Knuttel, Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction (€1,500-€2,500)
Lot 106: Coming Home, Achill Island, by Alice Hanratty, Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction (€800-€1,200)
Lot 33: Roses on Table (after McGahern) (1998), by Nick Miller, Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction (€2,000-€3,000)
According to O'Driscoll, most people are happy with the estimates that auctioneers give them. 'They can see online the highest price an artist has made and avid collectors will know how much each artist's paintings are worth,' he says.
Adams.ie
;
deburcararebooks.com
;
morganodriscoll.com
What did it sell for?
The original Hermes Birkin Bag, owned by Jane Birkin, was sold at the Sotheby's Fashion Icons Auction in Paris. Photograph: Sotheby's/PA
Jane Birkin's original Hermes Birkin bag
Estimate
€1 million (bidding opened at this level)
Hammer price
€8.6 million
Auction house
Sotheby's
Lady's Rolex Cellini cream face wristwatch with Roman numerals and an 18ct gold case, clasp and buckle with black leather strap
Rolex Cellini
Estimate
€3,000-€4,000
Hammer price
Unsold
Auction house
O'Reilly's
Patek Philippe 'Golden Ellipse' 18ct yellow gold man's watch
Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse
Estimate
€7,500-€8,500
Hammer price
€8,333
Auction house
Adam's Blackrock
Chopard 'Happy Sport' stainless steel diamond-set lady's wristwatch
Chopard Happy Sport
Estimate
€1,800-€2,000
Hammer price
€952
Auction house
Adam's Blackrock
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Irish Times
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Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Will I pay tax in Ireland if a US relative leaves me something in their will?
I am a naturalised US citizen, born and raised in Ireland, and living in the USA. I will be bequeathing 50 per cent of my estate to my sister (with the goal of her passing it on to her children). If she predeceases me, it will go directly to her children per stirpes. My estate would be probated in the USA (Texas specifically). What are the tax implications for my sister inheriting funds from a relative in the US? Would it be better to divide the bequest between her and her two children (1/3 each) to reduce the tax liability? Or would it be best to bequeath it directly to them in first place? I had neglected to even consider tax consequences until reading your column recently. READ MORE Mr DM The position on inheritance and taxation is very different in the US and in Ireland. While most states in the US, including Texas, have no inheritance tax , Ireland does. It apples if the person either giving the inheritance or receiving it is tax resident or ordinarily resident for tax here. Not that it matters here, but it also applies if the property subject to the inheritance that is situated in Ireland – even if neither the dead person or the beneficiary is resident here. In general with cross-border inheritances, there are taxation agreements between Ireland and those other countries that ensure you do not pay tax twice on the same inheritance. If the inheritance tax levied in another country is lower than the liability here, an Irish beneficiary would pay only the difference between that and the Irish liability where these double taxation agreements apply. Where the inheritance tax bill abroad is higher than it would be here, no tax is levied here but neither do you get any refund for the amount paid in the other country that is higher than your bill would have been in Ireland. With Texas, this is moot as you have no inheritance tax there. Apparently only five US states do have inheritance tax levied on beneficiaries. The US does also have a separate estate tax which is levied on estates of dead people which exceed a financial threshold. Again, Texas does not have an estate tax. There is a US federal estate tax which, if you were to die this year, would kick in if the estate you leave behind is worth more than $13.99 million (€11.9 million). That is adjusted every year: the 2025 figure is roughly $400,000 up on 2024. So that's the very cursory general picture on cross-border inheritance. What about the position of your sister and her children if and when they inherit from you. In Ireland, the amount you can inherit depends on your relationship with the dead person. The highest threshold – €400,000, or around $470,000 – is reserved almost solely for children inheriting from their parents. The thresholds fall sharply from there. Category B, which covers inheritances received from siblings, grandparents and aunts and uncles by blood – the relevant threshold for your sister and her children – is just €40,000. That figure is halved again for more remote relatives, in-laws and friends. And those thresholds are 'lifelong' – or at least they date back to any inheritance received from people in each category since December 5th, 1991. Gifts in excess of €3,000 are covered by the same regime and thresholds. So, assuming your sister and her children have never received a large gift or an inheritance from a sibling, a grandparent or some other aunt or uncle, they can take €40,000 tax free from you if you die this year. On anything over that amount, they will pay tax at 33 per cent. I say this year because, as with US federal estate tax, the threshold can rise and fall in Ireland from year-to-year although it is no longer linked to inflation or any other measure. 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The small gift exemption applies to the beneficiary not the donor so there is nothing to stop you gifting the equivalent €3,000 each year to each of your sister's children from the US, reducing any eventual tax bill on a future inheritance. You'll need to manage exchange rates if you do that as anything above €3,000 in any year comes off their inheritance tax free threshold. As a general rule, the best way to reduce tax on inheritance in Ireland is to spread it widely. The more recipients, the lower any ultimate tax bill. But of course, in this case, that is limited by the size of the family whom you wish to benefit. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2, or by email to , with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
If you didn't have qualms about Spotify before, wait until you hear what its founder has done
If you are one of Spotify 's 268 million subscribers, you might be interested to learn of a recent investment by the company's co-founder and chief executive Daniel Ek . In mid June, it emerged that Ek had led a funding round of €600 million into a Munich-based start-up called Helsing, through his venture capital firm Prima Materia. Helsing, whose founders have backgrounds in both the video games industry and in Germany's ministry of defence, makes military drones and AI software for the enhancement of weapons systems. By all accounts, this appears to be a very smart investment: the company, which was founded in 2021, has more than doubled its market value over the last year, and is now worth an estimated €12 billion. Ek is not just a major investor, he is also now chairman of the company's board of directors. Over the past couple of years, tech investors in both Europe and the United States have pivoted toward a collective embrace of the military-industrial complex. Just a few years ago, the culture of Silicon Valley was such that, for companies like Google and Meta , any kind of direct military application of their technology was considered beyond the pale. In 2018, after its employees staged a mass walkout in protest against a deal with the Pentagon, Google pledged not to work on AI weapons systems. READ MORE But a number of cultural and geopolitical factors – an openly rightward turn among the tech elite; the growing perception of a Chinese threat to US global hegemony; Russia's invasion of Ukraine , along with Trump's withdrawal from established defence arrangements , putting the fear of God into EU leaders – have made it clear that there is money, fast and deep money, to be made in defence tech. Silicon Valley, whose deep foundations were laid in the postwar years with a massive injection of US Defence Department money into a handful of technology firms in Palo Alto, has rediscovered its roots in the military-industrial complex. Perhaps the most arresting recent indication of this came earlier this summer, with the news that the US Army had launched a so-called Executive Innovation Corps, intended – in the words of a press release – to 'fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation'. Under this new programme, high-level tech executives from companies including Meta, Palantir , and OpenAI were commissioned into the armed forces as lieutenant colonels. Ek is, in this sense, by no means an outlier. He is simply and straightforwardly following the money. But there is something particularly galling about his ploughing such a massive amount of his personal wealth into the arms trade. Many people already feel ethical qualms about using streaming services like Spotify, whose total restructuring of the distribution model for recorded music has brought about the vast enrichment of people like Ek, a man with an estimated net worth in the region of $9.2 billion, while making it extraordinarily difficult for artists to make a living from their own work. Daniel Ek, chief executive of Spotify. Photograph:Rather than attempting to mitigate this situation – by, for example, using some of that money to pay musicians a fairer share of streaming revenues – Ek is putting it directly into a company that makes strike drones, and, in the words of its promotional materials, AI technology 'to achieve scaled target acquisition and co-ordinated precision effects'. So far, the response to Ek's move into the weapons industry has been relatively muted – for, I would guess, two intimately-connected reasons: first, thanks to their near-total destruction of the means by which musicians were traditionally paid for the recorded work, streaming services like Spotify are the only way most musicians can now reach an audience; and second, Spotify's standing among musicians was already about as low as it could get. [ Irish tech firms pivot to defence as EU rearms Opens in new window ] The most high-profile response has come from the indie rock band Deerhoof, who at the end of last month announced the removal of all their music from Spotify. ''Daniel Ek uses $700 million of his Spotify fortune to become chairman of AI battle tech company' was not a headline we enjoyed reading this week,' as the band put it in a statement it published online. 'We don't want our music killing people. We don't want our success being tied to AI battle tech ... If the price of 'discoverability' is letting oligarchs fill the globe with computerised weaponry, we're going to pass on the supposed benefits.' There is nothing very new about this interconnectedness of the music business and the arms industry. Back when there used to be such a thing as major record labels, EMI Records – along with its subsidiaries like Capitol Records and Parlophone – belonged to the Thorn EMI group, among whose multifarious corporate interests was the production of missile guidance technologies. In the artwork for their 2002 album Yanqui UXO, the Canadian instrumental post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor included a hand-scrawled diagram mapping out the web of corporate connections between major labels and the arms industry. That band, and many others like them, went out of their way to avoid being ensnared in any such webs. But in the decades since that album was released, on a small Canadian independent label, the entire infrastructure of corporate record labels has all but collapsed, and streaming services like Spotify are practically the only show in town. If you want to listen to Yanqui UXO now, you can hear it on Spotify, along with all of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's other albums. There may, as they say, be no ethical consumption under capitalism. But there is a special queasiness to the dynamic by which the creative work of musicians, having been so thoroughly devalued by the likes of Spotify, has been used to fund a weapons company. Simply by firing up Spotify and streaming a song from Yanqui UXO – or by streaming, for that matter, John and Yoko's Give Peace a Chance, or Black Sabbath's War Pigs, or Bob Dylan's Masters of War – you can now do your bit to fund the arms industry. Alternatively, you could cancel your Spotify subscription, and take your business elsewhere.
