24 Baskets and Wicker Pieces Selling Faster Than Expected

Woven goods spent years as the category that would not move. A basket sat on a shelf at a dollar or two, and wicker chairs went to the curb rather than the truck.

That has changed, and it changed fast enough that plenty of sellers are still pricing from memory.The shift rewards anyone willing to look closely.

A turned wooden base, a lashing that pulls even around a rim, the faint ridges left by pounding ash: these details now separate a quick sale from a listing that sits for months.

Nantucket Lightship Baskets With Turned Wooden Bases

The base is the tell. A genuine lightship basket sits on a solid disc of cherry or maple, grooved at its edge to receive staves that rise against a mold. Rattan weavers are packed tight enough that the wall gives a firm tap rather than a rattle.

Later examples carry a maker’s stamp or penciled date underneath, and that inscription does real work at resale. Prices run from a few hundred dollars for an unsigned open form to several thousand for a signed lidded purse, though condition and documentation matter far more than size.

Shaker-Style Splint Baskets With Single-Binder Rims

Shaker work is defined by restraint: black ash or maple splint shaved to an even thickness, a rim lashed with one continuous binder, and no decoration beyond an occasional band of color. True community-made examples are scarce and mostly sit in institutions, so nearly everything reaching the open market is Shaker-style work by later hands.

That distinction matters less to current buyers than it once did, because the form itself is what sells. Clean, tight examples trade in the seventy-five to four hundred dollar range, with splint condition driving the number more than claimed age.

Appalachian White Oak Rib Baskets

The rib basket takes its shape from two crossed rings bound at the intersection with a wrapped knot, then filled with ribs and white oak weavers split from a green log. The result bows at the sides and dips in the center, which kept eggs from knocking together on a wagon seat.

Look for oak aged to honey rather than gray, and a wrap at the joint still tight enough to resist a thumbnail. Field-made egg baskets sell in the sixty to three hundred dollar range, with repair history doing most of the pricing work.

Pounded Black Ash Splint Baskets

Pounded ash splint comes from beating a soaked log until the growth rings separate in sheets, a process that leaves faint parallel ridges running the length of every strip. Those ridges catch light differently than machine-sawn reed, and they are the quickest way to separate hand-prepared material from a factory basket.

Ash splint also darkens unevenly with handling, which experienced buyers read as honest wear rather than damage. Sound examples bring roughly eighty to five hundred dollars, and a cracked rim lashing cuts that in half no matter how good the weave looks.

Coiled Sweetgrass Baskets From the Lowcountry

Coiled sweetgrass baskets from the South Carolina Lowcountry are built from bundled grass stitched with strips of palmetto, often with bands of pine needle or rush worked in for contrast. The coil should feel dense under a thumb, with stitches close enough that no bundle shows through.

These are still made today, so age matters less than form and scale; a tall lidded piece or a wide shallow fanner outsells a small tray. Ranges run from forty dollars for a modest piece to several hundred for a large one, depending heavily on tightness and condition.

River Cane Double Weave Baskets

“Last of 2007” by Charlotte Coats, source: Flickr, licensed under CC by 2.0

Double weave river cane baskets are built as two baskets in one, woven up the outside and back down the inside so no raw edge is exposed and each face carries a different pattern. The technique belongs to Southeastern traditions and demands real skill, since the cane must be split, scraped and dyed before any weaving begins.

Buyers pay for the interior surface, so looking inside is the first move rather than the last. Attribution to a specific nation or maker is a job for a qualified specialist, not for a listing description.

Coiled and Twined Basketry of the American West

Coiled and twined basketry from the American West turns up regularly in estate lots, often mislabeled and often underpriced. Coiled work shows a spiraling foundation wrapped in stitches; twined work shows paired wefts crossing between upright warps.

Both traditions can be extraordinary and both have been widely reproduced, which is why serious money follows a documented opinion. Sellers do better describing technique, materials and dimensions accurately and leaving cultural attribution to a specialist.

Values swing from under a hundred dollars to five figures, with condition and provenance accounting for nearly all of that spread.

Maker-Signed and Dated Longaberger Baskets

Longaberger baskets were woven by hand in Ohio and signed and dated on the base by the weaver, which makes a production year unusually easy to establish. After years of being written off as a collapsed market, specific forms have quietly firmed up: large laundry and picnic shapes, earlier production years, and anything retaining its original liner and protector.

Everything else still sells for a few dollars. A signed base from the eighties or nineties with a clean interior might bring twenty-five to a hundred fifty dollars, and stains in the weave drop that immediately.

Market Baskets With Carved Swing Handles

A swing handle basket has a handle that pivots on two ears lashed or pegged into the rim, letting it fall flat against the side for stacking. On well-made examples the handle is carved from one length with a thickened center where a hand rests, and the ears are shaped rather than stamped.

Check the pivot points first, since that is where age announces itself as splitting. These sell in the fifty to three hundred dollar range, and a cracked ear or a replaced handle puts a basket at the bottom of it.

French Oyster Baskets in Peeled Willow

French oyster baskets are shallow, wide and built from thick peeled willow, with a rim heavy enough to survive being dropped on a stone quay. Many carry remnants of painted numbers or a stenciled name from the operation that owned them, and that residual paint now counts as appeal rather than defect.

Salt exposure leaves the willow pale and faintly chalky, a useful authenticity check. Imported examples typically run forty to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a soft rim that flexes under thumb pressure should pull the price down sharply.

Garden Trugs With Bent Frames

A garden trug is a shallow carrier of thin bent boards set into a bent-wood frame, built for cut flowers and light produce rather than weight. English examples use sweet chestnut for the frame and willow for the boards, tacked with small nails that oxidize into dark rings.

Later reproductions use thicker, perfectly uniform slats and staples, visible in seconds. A trug with a tight handle joint and no split boards sells in the thirty-five to one hundred twenty dollar range, and a loose frame joint drags it to the low end.

Picnic Hampers With Fitted Service

Fitted hampers are sold on their contents as much as their weave: leather straps, an interior with elastic retainers, and the original plates, flatware and flask still in place. A complete set in a sound wicker case is a fundamentally different object from an empty basket with dangling straps.

Check that the lid hinges are still lashed rather than taped and that the retainers have not gone brittle and snapped. Complete midcentury sets run roughly seventy-five to three hundred dollars, and missing service pieces cost more in value than any amount of surface grime.

Lidded Wicker Laundry Hampers

Lidded hampers went from thrift store filler to quick movers as soon as open shelving gave way to concealed storage. The ones that sell are tall, sound across the base, and hinged with cloth or leather rather than metal that has rusted through the surrounding weave.

Painted examples are a gamble: a thin, even coat reads as a decorator finish, while a thick sprayed layer cracking along the weavers usually signals a covered-up repair underneath. Sound hampers bring thirty to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a soft bottom corner ends the conversation.

Bushel and Half-Bushel Field Baskets

Field baskets were built for abuse, with heavy splint, a wire-reinforced rim and stout wooden grips nailed through the sides. Many carry a stenciled orchard or packing name, which buyers now treat as the main draw rather than incidental marking.

The half-bushel size sells faster than the full one for the simple reason that it fits inside a room. Expect thirty to a hundred twenty-five dollars, more with legible stenciling, and considerably less if the rim wire has rusted and stained the splint or the bottom slats have sprung.

Wicker Sewing Baskets on Turned Legs

Sewing baskets standing on turned legs were ordinary parlor equipment for decades and are moving again as small occasional tables. The good ones have a hinged lid, a fabric-lined interior with sewn pockets, and legs that seat into a woven apron rather than being screwed to the underside as an afterthought.

Original lining, even faded, adds more than a crisp replacement does. A stable example with intact lining runs forty to one hundred seventy-five dollars, while wobbling legs and a torn interior put it near the floor of that range.

Wicker Doll Prams and Carriages

Doll carriages occupy an odd position: too small to be useful, too charming to pass up, and increasingly bought purely as display pieces. Construction dates them reasonably well, with earlier examples using spoked metal wheels, a sprung undercarriage and a deep hand-woven body, and later ones using stamped wheels and machine-woven paper cord.

Check the wheel rims and axle mounts, since that is where failure actually happens. Sound examples run seventy-five to four hundred dollars, and a repainted body usually costs more than it adds unless the paint is original.

Victorian Wicker Porch Settees and Rockers

Victorian wicker is recognized by excess: rolled arms, curling scrollwork, woven skirts and serpentine backs, all built over a hardwood frame. Reed that has dried out cracks audibly when pressed, and running that test before agreeing a price saves a great deal of disappointment.

Original painted surfaces are generally preferable to stripped ones, because stripping raises the reed fiber and leaves it permanently fuzzy. Settees and rockers in sound structural condition sell from one hundred fifty to eight hundred dollars, with frame soundness mattering far more than decorative completeness.

Bar Harbor Arm Chairs With Open Lattice Sides

Bar Harbor chairs are the opposite of Victorian wicker: open lattice sides, a wide flat arm meant to hold a glass, and a low relaxed seat angle. The openwork makes them lighter than they appear and also more fragile, since every gap means fewer weavers carrying load.

Sit-test one before buying and press the front rail where the arm meets the frame, listening for movement. Singles run one hundred to four hundred dollars and pairs bring a premium beyond simple doubling, though a sagging seat deck reduces either one to a project.

Fan-Back Peacock Chairs in Heavy Rattan

The fan-back peacock chair, with its towering woven halo and pinched waist, has ridden a long revival driven by photographers and event rentals. Older rattan examples are heavy, with a thick wrapped frame and a back that holds its shape without leaning forward.

Newer imports use thinner cane and often show glue residue at the wrap joints. Height drives desire, and anything approaching six feet commands attention.

Expect one hundred fifty to six hundred dollars, and note that a back which has begun to lean is a structural fault, not a cosmetic one.

Papasan Frames in Wrapped Rattan

Papasan frames sell better than the cushions that came with them, which surprises people clearing a garage. The bowl-shaped seat rests loose in a ring base, and buyers care about the tightness of the rattan wrap at each joint and whether the bowl still holds a true curve.

A frame that creaks under a shift of weight has loose lashings somewhere, and that rarely gets better. Frames alone move in the thirty to one hundred twenty dollar range, and a base and bowl in matching finish outsell a mismatched pair by a wide margin.

Rattan Etageres and Bar Carts

Rattan etageres and bar carts have become steady movers because they solve a small storage problem while reading as decor. Look for bent rattan poles bound at every joint with cane wrapping, glass or wood shelves seated in a rabbet rather than resting on tacked brackets, and casters that still turn freely.

Fading on one side from a window is common and effectively impossible to correct. Sound pieces bring eighty to four hundred dollars, and a chipped shelf edge or a missing caster pulls the figure toward the lower end quickly.

Wicker Headboards for Guest Rooms

Wicker headboards were a summer-house staple and have returned to demand for guest rooms, where they add visual mass without actual weight. The better ones carry a solid hardwood inner frame with the weave applied over it, which can be confirmed by tapping along the crest rail and listening for a dull thud rather than a light ring.

Twin widths are common and sit unsold; full and queen widths move quickly. Ranges run sixty to three hundred fifty dollars, with broken weavers along the crest the main thing dragging the number down.

Demijohn Bottles in Woven Jackets

Large glass demijohns in woven willow or rattan jackets were shipping containers for wine and industrial liquids, and the jacket was simply the packaging. Buyers now want the jacket intact and the glass free of cracks, which is a harder combination to find than it sounds, because the weave concealed damage for decades.

Green and amber glass outsells clear by a noticeable margin. A sound jacketed bottle in the two to five gallon range sells for sixty to two hundred fifty dollars, and a cracked base or collapsed jacket removes most of that.

African Market and Storage Baskets in the Modern Trade

Coiled and woven storage baskets from the modern African trade, including tightly coiled grass bowls and tall lidded granary forms, sell quickly because they read as contemporary decor rather than antiques. The weave is usually a fine coil over a bundled core, sometimes with dyed accents worked into a spiraling pattern.

Steady import channels cap the ceiling but keep buyers comfortable about authenticity and price. Typical resale falls between twenty-five and a hundred fifty dollars depending on diameter, though a crushed rim or a mildew smell ends the sale outright.

What the Base Was Always Telling

The common thread across these forms is visible evidence of hand work. A turned and grooved base, a rim lashing that pulls even the entire way around, splint carrying the faint ridges of pounding, a coil dense enough to resist a thumb: those are the things separating a sixty dollar basket from a six hundred dollar one.

Machine-woven paper cord and perfectly uniform sawn reed never earn that premium, and buyers have learned where to look for the difference.

Condition does the rest of the work. Dry brittle reed, broken weavers, a loose lashing at a handle ear, a thick sprayed coat filling every gap in the weave, the sour smell of mildew in a base that sat on a damp floor: any one of those cuts a price in half.

Sellers who turn a piece over and press the bottom before writing a single line of description tend to price it correctly the first time.