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Selling Your Lladros - Part VI - Identification

A few weeks ago I received a frantic phone call about the replacement value of a sold out limited edition Lladro over twenty years old. The person who owned the piece did not speak English and had a friend who could "get along" in English call me. The description initially provided was that is was a ship named Carmen. That was all. Subsequently, I was given a number from the bottom of the piece (which was the edition number - not an identification number). When I asked how tall the piece was, the answer was 34 inches. We finally got to the identification - 01013504, Rescue. This piece is 17 inches high, is a figure of a life boat, and the name on the boat is Carmen.

In 1993, the first edition of "The Official Lladro Collection Identification Catalog and Price Guide" was published. The latest edition, "The Lladro Authorized Reference Guide," was published in 2006. Notice that the word "price" is no longer in the title. The Guide only provides the last retail price, if available. The guide is organized by categories of figurines and by height within the categories. For instance, if you have a figurine of a woman, measure its height (in inches) and then look under solitary women around that height. You should be able to visually identify the Lladro and determine its name, retirement date (if retired) and last retail price. Obviously, if the figurine is of a little boy, you look under boys, and so forth. The exceptions to this rule are for gres and limited editions. Gres and limited edition figurines have their own categories arranged by height.

Where do you find the reference guide? Since you are looking to sell you Lladros, I would start with a check at the public library. Since you want to sell, you probably don't care about a collector's reference. Your second choice, if you can't convince your library to buy the guide, is to buy it yourself. You can do that here or you might try an Authorized Lladro Dealer

As a final alternative, you might call a Lladro dealer. This approach may or may not work. In the case above, identifying the piece was a challenge because of the story behind the piece, the communication barriers, and the intrigue of identifying a not so common piece. It was an uncommon inquiry.

If you do need to contact a dealer about identification, please provide the following:

Major description (e.g., man and woman, clown, girl playing piano, etc.). " The height of the figurine - use a ruler and measure in inches.
Any numbers on the bottom of the piece at least four digits long (DAISA is the U.S. equivalent of copyright).
A small digital photo (an 8 gigabyte picture is NOT needed).

Then be patient. Remember, you are looking for information because you want to sell or compete with the dealer. So you may or may not receive first priority in the response queue.

Now you know all about each piece you want to sell including the retirement year and the last retail price. With all the caveats about supply and demand mentioned in Part V, get out your calculator and head for Part VII - Calculating a Value.

Andy Andrews
http://www.andrewsgallery.com

This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 1995-2008 by Andrews Gallery, Los Alamos, NM, USA. Andrews Gallery is not responsible for typographical pricing errors that may occur within this web site. If in doubt, please call the Gallery to confirm the price. Lladro, USA, owns the trademarks for Lladro.