Early 20th-Century Duffner & Kimberly Shade

Appraised on: August 14, 2004

Appraised in: Reno, Nevada

Appraised by: David McCarron

Category: Glass

Episode Info: Reno, Hour 2 (#911)

Originally Aired: April 4, 2005

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (1:58)

GUEST: My dad was a general building contractor in San Francisco, and he was remodeling a home right after World War II, and this was headed for the dump, and he just couldn't see anything this beautiful going that direction, so we brought it home, and it hung in his corporation shed for, oh, probably 12, 15 years. And when he passed away, it was my job to clean it out, and I found this and didn't know anything about it and took it to San Francisco to dealers to try and find out what it was worth, and everybody said, "Well, what do you want for it? What do you want for it?" So I figured it had value, brought it home, put it in a box. And when we built our home at Lake Tahoe in 1972, why, my wife finally got to see what was in the box, and it's hung over our dining-room table ever since.

APPRAISER: Well, good. So, do you know who made it or do you know anything about it since then?

GUEST: I have no idea.

APPRAISER: This is a Duffner & Kimberly shade. Duffner & Kimberly was an American firm, early 20th century, based in New York. They made these wonderful art glass leaded shades. Now, they were very heavily influenced by the Tiffany shades. The leading on this is exceptional, and the quality of the glass is exceptional. Also, this is a nice typical Duffner & Kimberly form with the turned-in edges and this pattern of floral arrangement. Now, this is a very unusual shade in that it's the inverted hanging shade. There are supports here, supports that you normally don't see on a leaded shade because it hangs down. This is a very pretty shade. We've not seen one of these on the ROADSHOW. I would easily put an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000 on it for auction.

GUEST: Really? Fantastic.

APPRAISER: It's a beautiful shade. One thing I would suggest is to make sure that the light bulb wattage is not too high, because heat can disturb the leading over a period of time.

GUEST: Mm-hmm, very good.

APPRAISER: Thanks for coming in.

GUEST: Thank you, Dave.