Just adding the name to the title means money for the seller !
Yep, however, this works both ways. About a year ago, a carved pilgrim century chest (1620-1720) came on the market that a small southern auction house mis-attributed to the Mason-Messenger shop in Boston with an estimate of 1-3k. I immediately realized the carving was in fact, Thomas Dennis (america's most celebrated 17th century joiner). The chest was in poor condition, feet were missing, lid not original, etc. however, the 3 carved front panels were absolutely carved by DENNIS! in my mind. I confided this info to a friend who, after looking at pics of the chest had doubts, this was wrong, that was not correct, bla bla bla.
Then i did a stupid thing ( if i had any hope of acquiring the chest), I second guessed myself. I spent an entire day & night researching known Dennis carvings. At this point, i was 90% sure where the day before i was 100%. I fired off an email to someone who knew more and had actually handled more Dennis objects than anyone on the planet. He confirmed that yes, this is in fact a chest built by Thomas Dennis, the attribution is wrong! and, within 10 mins had a post on his blog with pics and everything! This had the effect of alerting every antiquarian in the nation and also dashed any hope i had of buying this chest under the radar so to speak. The chest sold for over 30k
Bottom Line? Sometimes the attribution can work to your advantage if you don't give the game away like i did.
