Collectors flocking to buy old birdhouses

Remember when your father built that birdhouse in 1956 using plans from one of those do-it-yourself magazines? Well don’t look now, but those funky homemade birdhouses of our childhood are now hot collectors items.

Birdhouses are just plain popular right now, and like so many areas of collecting that are new, no one has really figured out where the top and bottom prices are, let alone criteria for judging relative value. That being the case, this is probably a better time to sell rather than to buy, because they are going crazy out there looking for old birdhouses in virtually any condition.

One of the most important criteria in determining value for most collectibles is condition. Well, with birdhouses, that seems to have gone out the window. I have seen collectors and dealers pay big prices for rotted assemblages of wood which would qualify for little more than clean landfill. Now I will grant the fact that birdhouses by their very nature spend large amounts of time in the weather and, as a result, are not likely to be in prime condition if more than a few years old, but I can’t figure out why the fuss over a broken down wren house which could be knocked off by a 19-year-old in shop class.

According to the so-called experts, therein lies the popularity. Because most old birdhouses look like something made by a marginally skilled teen-ager, they seem to qualify as a newfound source of folk art. Having run the gamut from weathervanes to lunch pails, the ever-resourceful marketers of folk art were desperate for a new fertile area of collecting when they stumbled upon a rotting birdhouse.

Of course, there can be no denying that there are some real finds out there in birdhousing. A well-preserved specimen of the martin house of the 1930s or one of the truly delightful architectural scale models made by craftsmen from the 1870s to present is surely worthy of the attention of serious collectors. If one of these old classics should happen to be in excellent condition from having been stored covered, the value becomes considerable.

During the burgeoning craze for gardens in the late 19th century, many prosperous homeowners adorned their yards with intricately designed and executed birdhouses. Some of these were actually scale models of the main house or a well-known architectural landmark. The more monumental, intricate and well-scaled one of these houses is, the more valuable to collectors.

Because so many birdhouses were exposed to the weather year after year, there are few in very good condition and in this part of the country, there were not very many monumental, architectural birdhouses except at some summer estates. For this reason, many dealers and collectors seem to have decided that any old birdhouse is fair game.

Much like the Mason jar craze of the early ’70s, birdhouses are now a fad and as a result, prices for some pretty weatherworn examples with little in the way of detail are fairly outrageous.

For the average collector or homeowner who appreciates the quaintness and workmanship of old birdhouses, it is important to remember that just about anybody can build one of these boxes with a few scraps of wood, a saber saw and a little paint. So if you are looking for a nice birdhouse to use, simply build or buy a new one and let it rot on its own until it looks like the ones you will pay too much for at auction. If you have a serious interest in historic birdhouses, I suggest doing a little reading and shopping around before putting down those big dollars.