We are reaching out to Tea Leaf Club members and their families to let you know that there will be openings in our September Tea Leaf auction for exceptional Tea Leaf items. If you are considering selling your Tea Leaf at an estate sale or local auction, or piece by piece, we would like to help you feature some of your items at our September 2024 Tea Leaf convention auction.

If you have previously attended a Tea Leaf convention you are well aware that there are several opportunities for you to sell items and that the highlight of the convention is our annual auction. One of the goals of the auction is to present unique top quality Tea Leaf Ironstone and Copper Lustre Variants that are of interest to our beginning and advanced collectors. Many of these collectors have built their collections over the course of several decades but still look to add choice pieces to their collections at convention. It is traditionally the premier opportunity to market to our group of dedicated collectors.

To assist you, the Tea Leaf Club has created an Evaluation Committee, a group of dedicated club volunteers which is ready to assist you in the identifying appropriate items for auction, helping you with consignment details and sharing information on the various convention sales opportunities.

What can we help with?

• We can easily advise you as to whether you collection is made up of everyday pieces, or more rare and unusual items.
• We can help you identify manufacturers and body styles so you can know the details of your items. Knowing these details can make it much easier for you to use the Online Tea Leaf Guide to learn more about your collection.
• We can help identify items that might be appropriate for the annual featured auction and work with you on details for your submitting your consignment form.
• You don’t need to be a member of the Tea Leaf Club to request an evaluation, although you do need to be a Club member to consign an item to the auction.

What is beyond our capabilities?

• It is well beyond the capacity of our volunteer Evaluation Committee to help dispose of an entire collection.  We can, however, chat with you about the advantages and disadvantages of selling at the Convention, local auctions, estate sales, eBay, the Tea Leaf Facebook page, Facebook Marketplace, donations, Etsy, etc. This committee does not provide tax advice - please contact your professional advisor for tax-related questions.
• The Tea Leaf Club is not able to provide appraisal services. We do not have trained and certified appraisers to provide this assistance. (If you are a professional appraiser who specializes in Tea Leaf let us know and we can share your contact info.)
• Without photos, we aren’t able to evaluate collections. But don’t be intimidated! Professional pictures are not necessary. Get your children, grandchildren or neighbors to take a couple candid photos. Even a picture of a cupboard or tableful of Tea Leaf will be helpful to our evaluation team.
• We are not able to guarantee prices at our annual auctions but will assure that we will help market your cataloged auction pieces to convention attendees.
• We are not able to arrange storage or transportation of your consigned items. We realize that you may not be able to personally attend a convention but as a member of the Tea Leaf Club, you have access to a membership directory and there may be someone nearby to you with whom you could make personal arrangements to help you get your items to the convention.

If you would like our help, please contact us immediately so we can start the process rolling.  The mission of this initiative is to help you get your best pieces in front of an eager audience. 

If you know the details of your collection and don’t need the help of the Evaluation Committee, you can still submit consignments on your own.  More information and consignment forms will be available to members in future issues of Tea Leaf Readings, sent to all Tea Leaf Club members.  If you are not a member and would like to be informed of auction and consignment details, let the Evaluation Committee know.

Would you like to contact us for help?

We have created an easy online form below for you to let us know about your collection.  We are not asking for professional photos or complete written inventories and want to make the process easy for you! Once you have submitted the form, please immediately email your photos to evaluation@TeaLeafClub.com.

What to expect next...your form and photos will be distributed to a number of Club vomunteers who have agreed to help evaluate collections for auction-eligibal items.  A committee member will contact you by your preferred contact method to start the process.  Forms without photos cannot be considered.