Whistory
Fielded by many calls and emails, here is a pithy aid to selling off your whistle(s) The previous SPOTLIGHT concentrated on placing a value, this article will focus on police whistles. Two early questions to ask ….
1) Is it a Metropolitan? (most common) Then it is by Hudson.
2) Is it made by someone else? Then it needs to be identified.
Why Separate Off Metropolitan Police Whistles?
Metropolitans have proven to be very ‘collectible. In part because Metropolitan stamps are associated with Fire Brigades, Hospitals, Asylums, Prisons, military and such.
So, if it is a Metro, is it 84 bucks, 131 Barr, 13 Barr or 244 Barr. The older the address the better for pricing. The more obscure the police force, the better the price you will get.
Are you selling it on eBay (most are these days) Then start it low and hold on to the very end. The bids will always come in at the last period with last second ‘sniper’ bidding. It can be nerve wracking, but it is just the way of bidding. Most people know that if they bid up front, it merely drives the price higher, so they lay low. Be careful not to place ‘extra’ bids by friends on your own whistle. That is very taboo by eBay, called Schill bidding.
Now consider this…If it is a police force whistle it will sell high, if it is an asylum whistle it will bring in more. OR if it is a fire brigade whistle it will bring in even more. Is the whistle from the UK or outside of the UK? Most collecting is inside the UK. However, there are some big-time collectors outside the country. It is simply just more popular in the UK.
Silver sells well. Can’t say much about silver whistles though…they are usually little things with high prices. Teethers can be quite elaborate and sell well if unusual, but often the seller asks for far too much. Silver and gold whistles can fetch very high prices. It is almost a different field of collecting, with precious metals involved.
In fact, many specialty whistles sit on the market far too long. Why is that? Unrealistic desires of the sellers. Foolish too. Know why? Take a whistle worth 2 to 3 hundred dollars US. Try for a year or two to sell it for 5 hundred dollars and turn everyone away from your items. You bought it for 150 dollars and feel you need to make 250 dollars because it is so rare, which it may or may not be.
On the other hand, drop the price in half and make 100 dollars. Then you turn those 100 dollars over 5 times in the next year making yourself 250 more dollars. Now you have made 350 dollars profit. OR you can sit on that whistle for a year or two – perhaps taking a lesser offer anyway. You decide.
Conclusions
Turn those whistles over and more will come out.
Perhaps it is a different shape than the tubular police type whistle. Gotta identify it (use the TWG categories pages). Pricing becomes harder if obscure – gotta find a collector that wants it right?
The field of whistles is so obscure that many very, very rare whistles just do not have a market yet, but it is growing rapidly. However, even if the field is small, there are some maniacal collectors like us here at the whistle gallery …… and out there.
If all else fails write us—however we might make you an offer and then, what to do, what to do….
TWG
Posted September 12, 2014
Revised September 15, 2020
Revised October 11, 2020
Revised February 16, 2021
Revised December 4, 2025
Revised July 20, 2026
Biblography:
- TWG Reference Collection
- The Whistle Gallery Archives
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