Every guide to valuing a Tiffany lamp ends the same way: get it professionally appraised. What the guides rarely explain is that the appraisal starts before the appraiser does — with the photographs you send. The color depth and glass quality that drive a leaded glass shade's value are precisely the qualities that casual smartphone photographs flatten into mud, and the difference between a useful appraisal photo and a useless one is not an expensive camera. It is a handful of technique choices anyone can make in an afternoon. This guide covers the shots that matter, the lighting that shows leaded glass honestly, and the mistakes that cost sellers real money in underestimated appraisals.
Appraisers who work from photos price what they can see. A photograph that flattens the color gradient of a Wisteria shade, blows out the highlight on a Dragonfly wing, or hides the solder lines between glass pieces forces the appraiser to price conservatively — to assume the worst about what they cannot verify. Sellers who send muddy photographs receive low-ball ranges, and the gap between a conservative range and a real value can be enormous for the patterns that define the market. Good photographs are not decoration for the appraisal request. They are the appraisal request.
The mistake almost everyone makes is using a flash or overhead room lights. Direct light on leaded glass creates hot spots on every glass piece and deep shadows behind every solder line — the opposite of what an appraiser needs to see. The setup that works costs nothing:
Appraisers reviewing photographs work through a checklist, and sending the shots in their order shortens the process:
Three photograph errors account for most underestimated appraisals. First, flash photography: the flash reflects off every glass surface and flattens the color layers the appraiser needs to assess. Second, mixed lighting: overhead fluorescents plus window light create color casts that make genuine Favrile glass look ordinary. Third, photographing the lamp lit while standing it on a dark surface, which bounces warm light into the shade and makes every color read warmer and less distinct than reality. All three are fixed by the window setup above.
Every category in this directory — the Tiffany lamps, the antique oil lamps, the Dale Tiffany reproductions, the table and floor lamps by type — has owners who eventually ask the appraisal question, and the photography rules above apply to all of them with one adjustment per category: leaded glass shades want the unlit detail shots most; oil lamps want the marks and the burner close-ups most; Dale Tiffany reproductions want the full profile first, because their value is the look. Whatever the lamp type, the order holds: identify first, photograph second, appraise third — and never clean before the first photograph, for all the reasons the collector's guide covers.