What Is My Quilt Worth?

Without seeing and examining your quilt, it is impossible to answer this question. There are so many variables that affect the value of a quilt: age, condition, colors, style, workmanship, history, rarity, and artistry, among other considerations. For example, a 1930s Double Wedding Ring in pastels typical of the period is generally not going to be worth near as much as a pre-1940s Amish quilt or a 19th century Baltimore Album quilt or even an 1880's indigo and white quilt. One of the reasons is that there were so many thousands of almost identical Double Wedding Ring quilts made in the 1930s, which was a major renaissance of quilting. That does not mean that the Double Wedding Ring would have no value, however. Not at all. People love the pretty, crisp Depression-era quilts, partly because of that very familiarity.

Almost everyone has a well-loved Double Wedding Ring or a Sunbonnet Sue or a Grandmother's Flower Garden somewhere in their family, carefully handed down because a grandmother or great-grandmother made it when times were hard. Once, in the mid-1980s, at a Quilt Day in a little town in East Texas, an older gentleman who had brought a quilt to be identified listened with growing impatience to the ongoing discussion surmising why so many quilts were made in the 1930s. Finally he jumped to his feet and declared to the audience:

"You don't understand! The reason we made a lot of quilts back then is because there wasn't anything else to do. We didn't have any money. NOBODY had any money. So we had to make do and make quilts!"

Another reason people love, and therefore value, these quilts is because they are comfortable with them. They know these quilts were originally made as bedcovers and so they feel at ease using them folded carefully at the foot of a bed, or as a colorful spread on the bed. They are usually treasured family heirlooms, loved as much for the person who made them as for the quality of the quilt itself.

But fine 19th century quilts, often with exquisite needlework and perhaps dated or signed, or dark, dramatic Amish quilts with their elegant simplicity, or an original, one-of-a-kind folk art quilt...these are not common quilts at all. It is a lucky family who happens to inherit one of these, because the really good examples are quite rare and quite collectible. And like anything else in the marketplace, the scarcer and more collectible an item is, the higher its commercial value.

Prepared by Karey Bresenhan, President and CEO of Quilts, Inc. and author, 8/00.

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