Sell your vintage furniture

1. You send us photos at infos@lapierremarket.fr or through the dedicated form: overall views (front, back, three-quarter), markings, serial numbers and wear, along with whatever you know of the piece's history.
2. Within 24 to 48 h, we give you a likely resale range and a firm buy-back or consignment offer. It still has to be confirmed in person, but we never inflate a figure only to lower it later.
3. We inspect the piece at our workshop-depot in Paris, in Auxerre, or at your home for large volumes. This confirms or adjusts the estimate, and the firm offer or consignment contract is signed on the spot.
4. On firm buy-back, we pay by bank transfer on the day of the sale, within 48 working hours at the latest. On consignment, the piece goes into protected storage before it is listed.

The sharper your photos, the more precise the estimate.

We do not pay in cash above the legal thresholds (€1,000 for French tax-resident individuals).

Firm buy-back

We buy straight away, for roughly 30 to 50% of the likely resale price. For example, a piece that will resell at €3,000 incl. VAT is bought for €900 to €1,500.

The gap covers transport, restoration, photography, time to sale and the risk we carry. The most sought-after pieces (USM Haller in rare colours, original-edition Pierre Paulin) are bought at the top of the range.

Consignment

You remain the owner until the sale, and we agree the commission and public price together in advance. If the piece does not sell, the price usually comes down a first time after two to three months.

You are paid within 30 days of the sale. You receive substantially more than with buy-back, but without knowing when.

Brokered sale

For a very rare piece, or one above €10,000, we put you in touch with an identified buyer, outside the catalogue. The commission is lower and the sale quicker, but the pool of buyers is narrower.

We buy what we sell: pieces we know how to document, authenticate, restore and resell.

• We take USM Haller from any year: modules, desks, storage in every RAL colour, and USM Kitos tables with a wood top. Rare colours (yellow RAL 1023, red RAL 3020, green RAL 6018, anthracite, petrol blue) come first and fetch more.
• From Ligne Roset, we take Michel Ducaroy's Togo, original or recent, and the Pumpkin by Pierre Paulin.
• From Cassina, we look for the LC2, LC3 and LC4 by Le Corbusier, Maralunga, Soriana, Feltri Bellini. An original edition (1965-1990) and a late re-edition do not carry the same value.
• From Knoll, in American and European editions, we take Harry Bertoia (Diamond, Bird, Side), Eero Saarinen (Tulip), Mies van der Rohe (Barcelona, Brno) and Warren Platner.
• From the Castiglioni brothers, we take Arco, Toio, Taccia, Snoopy, Gibigiana, Mezzadro and Sella, in Flos editions by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, originals first.
• Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé and Pierre Jeanneret interest us, domestic or institutional (Cité-Refuge, Maison du Brésil, Chandigarh), when an identifiable third party documents the provenance.
• From Vico Magistretti, we look for the Carimate, Selene and Maralunga, and the Eclisse, Atollo and Snow lamps.
• In Italian mid-century (1950-1970), we follow Tecno (Borsani, Sapper), Artemide (Aulenti, Magistretti), Oluce (Colombo), Arteluce (Sarfatti), B&B Italia, Arflex and early Poltrona Frau editions.
• In Scandinavian design, we only take signed work: Carl Hansen & Søn (Wegner), Fritz Hansen (Egg, Swan, Series 7), Gubi, String Furniture.

• Mass re-editions made after 2000 sell new at close to second-hand prices, so there is no resale margin.
• Copies and unidentifiable pieces (missing, false or inconsistent markings) are turned down outright. See our verification process.
• When restoration would cost more than 70% of the expected resale price, we pass, unless the piece has heritage interest: rarity, documented provenance, signed and dated.
• Mass-market Scandinavian from today's furniture chains is not for us, however well kept.
• We also leave aside furniture with no design interest: if a piece does not deserve three hundred words placing it in design history, it does not go into the catalogue.

If you are selling in your own name (a move, an estate, a collection that is changing), selling as a private owner covers photographing a piece, what makes its value and which arrangement to choose.

If you are selling for a company, a practice or a business (office fleet, dealer lot, notarial estate, end of lease), see professional disposals, which covers sorting on inventory, invoicing, our commitment to a date and discretion.

Wherever the piece is, we value it from photos and arrange collection. Our bases remain Paris and Auxerre: we have no establishment in the regions.

Twelve cities have their own page, with the local context and the collection logistics: Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Nantes, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nice, Le Havre, Grenoble, Nancy, Saint-Étienne.

Your city is not listed? Write to us anyway. For the ecological side of resale, see circular economy.