Classic Car Appraisal

We have the background and experience to provide you with an auto appraisal that is thorough, realistic, and with the attention to detail that you may not get with the formula appraisal networks.

We are restorers, and collectors, and are genuinely interested in the items we appraise. We have actual “hands on” experience with objects like your classic or custom car, and precious collectible. So our experience goes far beyond the basic appraisal only training you may encounter elsewhere.

We are not just inspectors that gather data and feed it to a central office that uses computers to create the appraisal.

We take in what we see, hear, and touch to produce an appraisal that reflects not just the factual data, but also includes the appraiser’s intuition and a lot of “detective work”. We take a deep dive into the essence of the automobile we are appraising.

Richard Houser is the owner of True Value Appraisal and is uniquely qualified to appraise antique, classic, sports cars and modified vehicles. As a professional fabricator and collector, Richard has owned and restored over 60 different vehicles, both foreign and domestic, rods and kustoms.

We treat every one of our appraisals as if it is the only one we have ever done. We first define the reason for the appraisal, how it will be used and by whom, where it will be done, when, and determine the legal and government related aspects that might be necessary.

We then meet with you in person, discuss, and then inspect your classic car closely and take photos.

Then the real work begins. We research past sales of vehicles of the same type, or similar if no sold comparables are available. We dig into auction records, trade publications, speak with experts in the field, and contact organizations and other appraisers in our network that are familiar with your particular vehicle.

And as importantly, we pay attention to what “feels” right about the vehicle in the correct rising or declining market, the condition of the car, the quality of the restoration work already performed, and the potential for future appreciation within the marketplace.

It can sometimes take us anywhere from two to five days to produce an appraisal. This is because we take all of the time necessary to produce the most accurate appraisal we can.

We look at a number of individually selected sources of information for the vehicle we are appraising, and if it is a particularly interesting or challenging vehicle in this case, we expose it to the whole I-VAN network for input. The network consists of many senior appraisers, many of whom are AACA show judges and professional restorers.

At times we might even wait for a current auction to close before completing the appraisal so we can include the most up to date information available.