Carolina Collectibles
9th Annual Carolina Collectibles
6/1/2026 | 41m 17sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover local treasures and stories at PBS Charlotte’s Carolina Collectibles.
It’s an Antiques Roadshow experience, Carolina-style. Discover local treasures, remarkable collections, and the fascinating stories behind them at PBS Charlotte’s 9th Annual Carolina Collectibles. From hidden heirlooms to unexpected finds, this beloved community event celebrates history, culture, and the people who preserve them across the Carolinas.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Carolina Collectibles is a local public television program presented by PBS Charlotte
Carolina Collectibles
9th Annual Carolina Collectibles
6/1/2026 | 41m 17sVideo has Closed Captions
It’s an Antiques Roadshow experience, Carolina-style. Discover local treasures, remarkable collections, and the fascinating stories behind them at PBS Charlotte’s 9th Annual Carolina Collectibles. From hidden heirlooms to unexpected finds, this beloved community event celebrates history, culture, and the people who preserve them across the Carolinas.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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- Coming up, the day of discoveries at the 9th Annual Carolina Collectibles.
So many treasures worth so much money.
Stick around.
(bright instrumental music) Thanks so much for joining us for this 9th Annual Carolina Collectibles.
It is a day of discoveries as over 150 folks have found their treasures, supported their local PBS Charlotte, and they wanna find out how much those treasures are actually worth from our friends at Leland Little Auctions.
We're gonna show you them throughout this time together.
Let's get started right now.
(bright instrumental music) - My name is Rob Golan and I deal with historical items at Leland Little Auctions and through the auction house I've met Jeff Schultz here who owns this magnificent piece of American folk art and I would step back and let him explain it.
- Thank you Rob.
We've been researching this piece for a while now.
It's been in my family for 70 years and a rebus is a piece of art that's made up of pictures and letters so it tells a story and this piece here tells the first 100 years of American history and for the longest time this hung over my bed as a child and I would look at it and go, what does that mean?
What is that a picture of?
And Thanksgivings would come and aunts and uncles would come and we'd all sit there trying to interpret what this piece said.
Now with Google image search Rob I can take a photo of something and decipher what or who that person is, and I've put the story together and it's the first 100 years of American history done by a gentleman named AD Richmond Jr.
in 1871 which is 6 years after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and it goes all the way through the whole thing so I've actually built a little key that I've printed out that's taped to the back.
Each photo is numbered and then it explains what that photo is so that you can put the words together and I've also done the whole dialogue but it's quite interesting like over here just as an example this is a tree and this is men and it's followed by D-O-U-S, tree, mend us.
And then down here is John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
So it's filled with all these different things that really took a lot of work that we've researched trying to figure out who these people were, what they meant, a lock here, a door latch, that's a shield, I didn't know it was a shield but you know that's how it interpreted.
So we came here today to find out a little bit more about it and I believe it could have been done by a Union soldier possibly, a gentleman named AD.
Richmond thank you for that info, and we still have more work to do on it and it's been quite an adventure.
So it's been in the family forever, I don't know what we're gonna do with it.
- Well I think that this is a valuable piece and certainly unique in my years of evaluating these kinds of objects, I come to the conclusion that this is probably gonna be a $3000 to $4000 piece if not more because it is so important and unique to the market.
- Thank you sir.
That's wonderful.
- I have an accordion that is Italian made called the Fortificio Futurama it's only worth $300-$400 but the cool story about it is believe it or not my dad dragged this thing to school when he was 10 or 12 years old in Cleveland Ohio in the 40s and 50s and this was his instrument that he had to learn to play, so we've kept it in the family.
It's big on me I can't imagine how big it would be on a 10 or 12 year old.
I don't know how to play it but I think I might wanna take some lessons.
(mellow music) - The story behind this item, I actually have three of these.
I have two this size and I have one that is a little larger.
And my father he was a career military man, he was in the army and when he was stationed in Germany he purchased these.
They can go as tables or they can go as wall coverings, but he bought them around the late 50s and they have traveled with the family.
Both of my parents have passed on now and so I have the pleasure of holding on to this treasure and sharing it.
These are scenes from the Alps of Germany.
She said that it could be around the hundreds, if I put them all together I could possibly get $800 but this is something that I will never part with because of the sentiment of it being a part of my family.
- We had a great time here today learning more about this old writing desk that I think was modeled after folks in the military that would write in their tents on their campaigns and this desk has been in my family for a long time it's got some burled walnut veneer and some interesting woods and details that we recently discovered.
It sort of was designed to be portable and to move around with someone and they could keep their private documents in here and actually keep it under lock and key.
And it opens up and has several drawers and lots of nice details and we were just excited to bring it in today.
It has a value between $800 and $1,200 and it's got some old detailed brass from London and we were just excited to learn more about it today.
- Francisco tell me a little bit about what you brought today, you have a 1947 Yankee signed baseball.
- Alright.
My father he passed away, I don't know 20 years ago but he was in by that time really all the time as a second job, he was a statistician for the Santurce baseball crapper team in Puerto Rico which still they play nowadays the baseball league started more or less in the 30s in that sense.
In 1947 the Yankees went really for the spring training through Latin America.
First Puerto Rico in the Caribbean then Venezuela, then Cuba, they play five games in Puerto Rico and they won four and they lost one.
So my father since he was with the baseball Santurce crapper baseball team he was able to go to the dugout and get the Yankees that were there in one, I don't know which one of the games, but he was able to get most of the signature of the players that were there for example Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto was a shortstop, Ralph Hook was later but was a manager, Joe Guevara was there also this was spring training but they won the World Series that year in 1947.
- Yankees did, yeah, later that year.
So how many games did they play while they were there?
- They played five games in Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico only was one and that was published by the local media, it's in Spanish but it says "The day that we beat the Yankees," it was a memorable day in baseball.
- Indeed, well I think what you have here is not only assigned baseball but you have really good provenance because we know this baseball has been in the family.
Your father was involved with the Puerto Rican Baseball League during this time it was a gift to him and it was bequeathed to you, right?
- Correct.
- So when we determine value on memorabilia we are looking at how authentic it is and based on this history everything seems really great about this.
So we've seen a 1947 baseball signed by all the players come up for auction a few times.
2018 I saw a similar ball come up and it sold for just under $1000, but that ball didn't have the history that yours did to accompany it.
It wasn't authenticated by a known authentication service like JSA.
More recently I have seen a similar baseball signed by all the members of the team that did have authentication that one showed an auction value sell price of close to $4,000.
So I think authentication is important a lot of times but given all of this provenance there's no doubt that it's right but it may be worth looking into to having it authenticated if you do decide to sell it.
But what a fun history from your family I hope you can keep it in the family for generations.
Thank you for bringing it.
- Well, thank you for your assessment.
- If everything is correct and it is authenticated I'm expecting it to be in that $3,000 to $4,000 range.
That's the result that we've seen recently so I have no doubt that it would probably be in that range.
Without authentication you're looking in that $8,000 to $1,200 range.
So I think it's important to do it.
- Okay, good.
We'll follow your advice.
- Thank you.
- What we have here is a beautiful maple music box from the turn of the 20th century.
It's a Regina and we have a tune on it called Youthful Dreams Waltz and why don't we just listen to a little bit of that and then we can discuss the machine some.
(cheerful music) It does work and I would like to hear a little bit more about this please.
- This belonged to my aunt.
She acquired this in Denver, Colorado.
I'm not sure what that acquisition was but then she gave it to my father who lived in Hickory and then my father passed to me so I hope to continue to hand it down through our family but it's a very treasured piece and I love the wood but the sound of the music box to me is incredible.
I have 25 of these discs that go with the box and a lot of them are listed on this directory.
It's really a beautiful thing to listen to.
- I think it's probably the best sounding thing in this room.
- Thank you.
- Yes ma'am and thank you for bringing it.
I think what we have is a Regina machine.
It's not on the box itself but the disc is and it works fine and this machine is probably from the turn of the 20th century, late 1890s, early aughts in that period.
We've handled a lot of these at the auction house and I'm fairly confident to say that it's about a $1000 machine.
- Okay, thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
(bright instrumental music) - Well what I brought today is an apple butter kettle.
It was from my wife's family over in Sissonville, West Virginia.
It had been passed down through generations.
I grew up on a farm out in Union County.
We had cows and hogs and chickens and all the things, our own gardens and everything.
We were very self-sufficient at that time but seeing this reminds me of being self-sufficient where everybody took care of themselves.
I enjoy thinking about the memories of it, and how people used to make apple butter.
They said 500 to 1,000 and I guess it was early 1900s when it was made.
- This is a 19th century coral necklace.
It's actually in my family.
It's my great-grandmother's coral necklace that was gifted to my grandmother at her wedding and then it was gifted to my mom at her wedding.
So what I found out is this is a hand-carved coral necklace.
What is really interesting about this is during World War II in Italy where my family is from, Giuliano di Roma, this necklace along with another relic that's actually a gold chalice that was part of the church down the street.
These two items were buried under an oak tree to be preserved until after the war.
That chalice is actually interesting because it was at the church down the street where a bomb, an aircraft bomb, hit the roof and came through the church and never exploded.
So it remains in that state right now for people to kind of worship the miracle.
And so after the war, of course, the two pieces were removed and this was my family's piece.
- Well, we might start with this little item that I don't know where it came from.
I found it in our house and it's only worth about $50.
- And these are antique Chinese porcelain from the early 20th century.
Worth about $100 that we're told we can display flowers in.
(both laugh) - Thank you so much for joining us today, Juan.
Can you tell us a little bit about these great artworks you brought in for us to see today?
- Well, these are original designs by high school students in the 1930s.
And it was a contest that was happening for all the states.
And these are the winners from a few of the states.
And I got them from an antique dealer at the flea market in Charlotte in the early 80s.
And he had a lot of them and I love the color.
So I went to his house and picked up the biggest ones with the orange and blue colors because that's what I was using in my home at the time.
And he told me that he got them from the postmaster who lived in Charlotte and he was selling all of his memorabilia and his ephemera from the post office.
So I thought they were fabulous.
And the fact that they were one of a kind pieces of art by high school students really blew me away.
- Yeah, they're very accomplished for these high school students.
And you can see why these were examples of some of the winners.
I'm so glad that you brought these in.
They're really interesting examples from the 1930s.
Starting actually in the late 1800s and moving into the early portion of the 20th century, you see a lot of big graphic poster art as a way to disseminate information.
You know, advertising information just to spread the word through prints, usually big lithographic posters.
These are similar in a way because they have that same graphic feel, but they're different and literally unique works.
They're one of a kind works, what we call in the art world, a unique work versus an original print.
These are just a one of a kind work.
They were made as a foundation on which to build other, the stamps that would have been also spread information.
- [Juan] Right.
- I would say if these were to come to auction, they would probably sell in about the $500 to $1,000 range.
- Okay, wow.
That's great.
- Thank you so much for bringing them today.
- Thank you for having me.
- Enjoyed it.
Thank you for bringing this in, Carrie.
Tell me a little bit about how you acquired this ceramic piece.
- Well, I don't know a lot about it, but I grew up with this piece.
It was always in our living room as a child.
And I just thought it was really beautiful.
And I can't tell you how many times I touched it, looked at it, opened it.
It's surprising it's not broken.
(all laugh) That was the mid 60s.
So I brought it today because I wanted to find out more.
- Well, what you have here is a beautiful piece by an Italian designer, Aldo Landi.
He was making ceramics for Bitossi, which was a popular ceramics maker in Italy during that mid-century period.
The decoration on it is glazed in a variety of neutral tones, right?
Including some bolder mid-century green on the interior and a little bit of green bands on the exterior.
And then what's striking too about it, is he's mixing in those natural glazes with gilt luster and then applying this sgraffito technique, which is, you know, incised fine lines that are vertically channeled and ribbed all over.
The other nice detail is this scale design here on the bowl, which I think is quite lovely.
So all those forms intermingling.
Looking at the base, we see a signature here, which is very typical of this artist's production and a number.
So Italy and then the production number, model number up here.
It's a great mid-century piece, a good example of a candy dish from this designer.
I appreciate you bringing it in and sharing it with us here at PBS.
That's great.
I would say, you know, at auction, these are bringing in the 250 range sometimes if they're sold with a group of other ceramics in the same design, you can expect more if it's grouped together with other hollowware pieces.
So it's a lovely example.
- Well, I just love it and I'm glad I have it.
- Wonderful.
Thank you, Carrie.
- Hey, Karen.
I'm really glad you brought this guitar.
I think a lot of people are gonna like to hear its story and know about it and your family connections with it.
And this is a Chet Atkins Tennessean Gretsch electric hollow body guitar.
Take it away, ma'am.
- Okay, so my daddy was in the Air Force and we were stationed in Glendale, Arizona, and he bought this used at a pawn shop in Glendale in January of 1969 for $250.
- In two installments.
- Yeah, and he paid it over time and he just played guitar.
He had an acoustical.
He played mandolin.
I got a picture of him back in the day in Korea playing the mandolin.
And he just was a self-taught musician and played by ear.
And I've had this ever since he passed away.
- Well, I'm very impressed with this and glad you brought it in.
A lot of guitar people are gonna be very excited to see this.
And of course, there's always the value of a guitar.
And this one is pretty special and comps look to place it in the mid $2000s.
- Wow.
- So you're doing pretty good.
- Yay, good job.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
(bright instrumental music) - This is a painting that I found after my mother died that had been given to my grandfather when he was a teacher at St.
Albans in Washington, DC by this artist, Eugene Gabritschevsky.
I really had not seen it before.
And then we had some paperwork and a photo and some documentation on it.
He didn't do a lot of this type of ink washy looking things.
He did mostly paintings that were very different than this, and when he gave this to my grandfather, he was not well known.
I'm going to leave it here with Leland Auction Company to auction for me.
And it's worth anywhere from about $800 to a couple thousand dollars.
Just depends on the market.
It was exciting to know it could be worth something, 'cause most of what you find isn't worth that much.
And you're like, well, what do I do with this?
So it was exciting.
And I could find his work online and him online.
But you can't find anything that looks like this online.
- Okay, so I found this on my birthday sometime back in the last decade at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop.
It was six bucks, just a price for $400.
So I feel pretty good about that.
It's a Roseville piece from Roseville, Ohio pottery.
They went out of business in the 50s, but they were founded around the turn of the century.
So it has some age to it.
Probably more of a mid-century piece, not an early piece.
But I love the color.
It's in great shape.
Sits in my living room on a stand.
- So today I brought this old record player gramophone.
I remember my mom picking it up at an antique store when I was maybe about like eight or nine years old, and it's always just sat in the house.
And I decided to bring it in.
It's been in our family for about the past 40 years.
It always just sat there as almost like a piece of furniture.
But I brought it in.
It works.
It's got a set of records from the opera, the HMS Pinafore, the whole set.
And basically what he told me was it's a great story.
It's got some great history since it's been in my family.
But it's a market that is kind of steadily declining.
So it's probably about $100 or something like that.
It was really awesome to kind of learn about it.
It's from the mid-1920s.
It still works.
It'll still play.
And that's kind of just really the gist about it.
It's like how old it is and that it still works.
They don't make things like they used to, right?
- Hi, Sue.
Thank you so much for bringing this painting in today.
Can you tell me a little bit about how your family acquired it?
- Sure.
So this has been in our family for three generations.
My husband's grandfather took over a business.
The man who originally owned the business owned this painting.
We knew it came from Italy.
That's all we knew.
And it has been passed down and now it is ours, and we love it.
- Well, thank you so much for bringing it in.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
The artist is Carlo Fachinetti.
He was an Italian painter born in Florence in 1870.
He studied at the Academy of Bella Arte in Florence.
And this, from what I've been able to decipher, was likely painted around 1912, 1913.
When we were looking at the back of the painting, which you can oftentimes find a lot of information about a work from just looking at the back, it has an exhibition label from the National Academy of Artists that was shown at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
And it's known that he definitely exhibited there in 1913.
And I'm not certain that it was this painting, but it's very possible that it could have been.
Fachinetti was very well known for these very intimate genre scenes and most of the time, they incorporate mother with her children.
This is a little bit unusual for him because most of his paintings of mothers with children are in an interior setting.
So a lot of times they're kind of gathered around a fireplace.
This obviously is a garden scene.
And like you were telling me, it has the chickens and just a really sweet scene of just a domestic moment.
And another thing that I find interesting is this painting, compared to some of his earlier works, he was working in a more realistic style.
This particular painting kind of skews more towards an impressionist, post-impressionist treatment where you can see all the little individual brush strokes to kind of capture that fleeting moment in time and the light, which, I mean, I think that you really pick it up, especially in the way he's done the little bald head of the baby and the little hair of that little toddler there.
And it's amazing the expressions that he's able to capture with just so few brush strokes.
So I think it's just a tremendous painting.
I love the fact that it's been in your family for as long as it has.
It looks like the frame, like you were saying, is probably original to the work and where do you have it on display?
In my guest room.
- [Claire] In your guest room?
- Yes.
- Well, it's definitely a very nice treat for everybody coming to visit.
- Yes.
- And at auction, you know, his works have been selling in the $1,000 to $5,000 range.
- Okay.
- I think that this is such an appealing painting that it would probably sell in the $3,000 to $5,000.
So I would expect it to bring a little bit more than some of his other scenes.
- Oh, great news.
- But... yeah, yeah.
So thank you again for bringing it in and sharing it with us.
And I hope maybe it makes it out of the guest room.
- Oh, yeah, it might now.
(Sue laughs) (bright instrumental music) - Hi, Jenny.
Thank you for bringing this interesting reliquary object in.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you acquired it and a little history behind the family?
- Sure.
Thank you, Brian.
It's great to be here.
So this is a family relic that's been passed down to my mom and dad.
The background on this, it was given to my great-uncle, who's a Franciscan priest in Assisi in the 50s, early 50s, maybe late 40s.
And he did a lot of missionary work in Africa.
And because of his relentless work and dedication to the people in Africa, he was presented with this relic by the cardinals in Italy.
And taking a vow of poverty, of course, he always knew that at some point he would have to find a keeper for the relic.
And it came to be my mom and dad were married in Pompeii.
He actually officiated the wedding ceremony in Pompeii.
- Oh, wow.
- Not far from the ruins, by the way.
And it was a dual wedding.
It was my mom and dad and her brother and spouse.
And so Nerozio, as we come to know him, he had two possessions, one of them being this, another one being a museum-level movie camera that was used in the Italian film industry production companies.
And somehow he came to have that.
It was given to him as well.
So in gifting the two possessions that he had, he gifted the movie camera to my mom's brother and her spouse and the relic to my mom and dad.
Of course, everyone was of the opinion that the movie camera had so much more value.
And it was.
It was a very valuable movie camera.
My mom and dad, of course, because they are very devout Catholics and they practice the rituals daily, they love this piece and they cherish it, and Nerozio knew that.
And he wanted the keeper of this piece to be someone that would appreciate it.
- That makes so much sense.
And what a fascinating story to know his involvement with the Franciscan Church and the history behind how he came to own this.
I think what's interesting to me about the piece is we have this really nice cast figure of Christ in bronze with a patination.
And then we have the 14 stations of the cross illustrated in wonderful relief moments here and these octagonal panels on each of the perimeter pieces of the cross.
But what's really fascinating, too, is this relic on the inside, which says (indistinct) which is relating to the crown of thorns.
So this is a relic from Christ's crown of thorns.
You know, whether or not this is an actual piece, I think is besides the point.
It's meant to be something that someone prays on.
There's no way for us to authenticate that.
But there is a nice authentication sheet here from the Franciscan Church.
And it's signed here and dated 1949.
And then what's also interesting is that the backside is signed Roma.
We do know St.
Peter's is there in Rome.
This is a fascinating piece with good provenance.
At auction, we see crown of thorn relics similar to this selling anywhere from the mid-hundreds to low thousands.
But, you know, usually that's not set within a crucifix.
So, you may see from that 1,000 to 1,500 range at auction if you were to sell it.
Thank you for sharing it with us.
- Well, thank you.
- [Brian] What a fascinating story.
- I will say that this will stay in the family.
It's just something that we just wanted to see, exactly what it represents.
And I think you've done a great job.
Thank you so much.
(bright instrumental music) - Well, this is a decanter that belonged to my great-grandfather on my father's side.
And he lived in Boston.
And I learned that it's late 19th century, early 20th.
There was no signature or mark on it.
So we couldn't trace what company may have made it.
It's quite heavy.
And I learned that the glass has lead in it.
And my great-grandfather used to keep his bourbon in this decanter.
I did find a value about $100 to $200.
- I brought this radio that was handed down from my grandmother.
She used to work in a radio repair and sales shop.
And a salesman came in and said, would you folks like to carry this line?
And the boss said no, but told my grandma she could take it home with her.
And so we just passed it down and grandma said, "Hang on to it."
Grandma lived very simply.
And when she had this, she said, you hang on to it because it might be worth something.
And that meant a lot to her because she didn't have much.
And so she thought that she was really gonna be leaving us a legacy.
And so it is special to us because it was special to grandma.
And the fact that she wanted to do something for us when she couldn't do other things for us.
So it's special.
It's good to know that it came from the 1920s, which we thought it was 1940s.
It didn't have a lot of value, probably $100.
- This is Peter Hohenstein and he brought in the best electric train I think I might have ever seen, including my own.
And Peter, would you like to explain some of this?
- Yes, this is a 1928 American Flyer Presidential Special that my father and my uncle got in 1928 as a Christmas present when they were five years old and seven years old.
After both sons came back from World War II and got married, my grandfather said, the train goes to the first grandson and that's me.
So I've had it ever since I was born in the 1950s.
It works, it runs, it's in its original boxes.
We've got, as you can see, a lot of the original brochures are still around.
We played with it every single year.
We had it set up every single year down in the basement of our house in Buffalo, New York.
As you can tell with a train this size and the extra track and the extra cars that are freight cars, it takes up a lot of basement.
So it never got up into the living room.
It was always down in the basement.
Probably had it up for about three months a year.
- Okay.
Well, I can relate to that because I inherited my grandfather's Lionel train.
It was an O gauge from 1917.
And it's about half the size of this, but it still runs too.
And we run it around the Christmas tree.
- Very good.
- Yes, sir.
Well, this is a really remarkable train.
And I've really never handled one this large before or in such great condition.
That's amazing after nearly 100 years that it's looking this way.
- Well, my father taught me to be very careful with it.
'cause at the time I got it, it was already about 45 years old.
- [Ron] Right.
- [Peter] So now that it's made it to almost 100 years and still works, we've played with it, but we've played with it carefully.
- Okay, well, I think both of us are in a situation we can't ask for anything more.
- Yeah.
- Well, it's very rare to see something this pristine and with paperwork and all the track that you have.
So I'm really pleased to have seen this this morning.
After everything you've shown me and the condition of this train, that we're looking at least $2,000.
- Okay, okay.
- Okay.
That sounds great.
- I'm glad to see it.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you, sir.
(bright instrumental music) - This was my mother's doll from the 1920s.
It's a Patsyette doll that was made in France.
I didn't really know any of the value of it.
We have the case with a lot of her clothes and some shoes.
Found out it could go at auction for $300 to $400.
So I was pleasantly surprised.
- This is a Americana wedding chest.
And she had said mid-19th century, but then we found a date on it, which I had never noticed before, saying 1815.
It was signed on the back and painted in the Pennsylvania Dutch style.
It's a pine box, which is usually what the painted chests are, with a sort of curved top.
It's not flat, it's curved.
It's been in my family a while.
My grandfather, who died in the 1960s, found it, I don't know when, obviously before that.
And it was painted brown, and he actually removed the paint in order to find this wonderful birds and flowers, et cetera, on here.
So it's been in the family, and I love it.
She mentioned that retail it would be $1,000.
- This is a World War II soldier doll.
The story is my father stood in line in New York to buy this.
I have two brothers, and one was about three or four at that time.
And I brought his picture holding the doll.
It was well played with, and I learned that it's by the Effanbee toy company.
And it's called a Skippy soldier doll, and might be worth $100 or so.
- Dick, tell us a little bit about these two wonderful baseball cards that you brought in for us today.
- Okay.
Brian and I started collecting baseball cards back in 1953.
And I was getting Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, William Mays, those cards.
But I'd heard a lot about the old player, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, and so I wanted some older cards.
And so I found this company, it was the Card Collector Company, and it was in Franklin Square in New York.
- How old were you at this time?
- Well, I was about 14 when I wrote this letter.
And they sent a little thing, and it had the prices.
And the prices ranged from $0.12 to maybe the highest one was like $0.35 for cards.
And these were cards from 1951 to 1960.
So I wrote off, and I had several that I wanted to get.
And so I wrote off, and I got a letter back, a note, from the Card Collector Company.
And it said, "Dear Richard.
This was May the 3rd, 1960.
- [Brian] Okay.
- I could not find any of the names with the exception of the enclosed two, the 1910 and the 1948 Bowman cards.
Bowman 49 are temporarily out of stock.
And they signed it.
And on the back they said the Ty Cobb cigarette card, it was $0.35.
The Bowman, the Stan Musial, was $0.25.
So that was $0.60.
And postage and handling was $0.10.
So it was $0.70.
I had sent in $3 worth.
- Oh, wow.
- And so I got those two cards, plus I got $2.30 back.
- A change, okay.
Well, that's a great story.
You know, any idea what the value is today at auction on these two collector grade cards?
- You know, I hadn't sent them off to any of the companies to grade them.
You know, I've just been keeping them.
- [Brian] Okay.
- And I think the Ty Cobb is in pretty good shape.
And maybe around $1,000 to $2,000, depending on, it's kind of hard to tell.
One thing I found out is that if the corners get a little bent, it knocks off.
- It's not aware to the corners.
- But, you know, maybe about $2,000 for it and the Stan Musial maybe $1,000.
- I think those values are about accurate.
- Yeah, we actually sold the same card here, the Ty Cobb with the red portrait background.
That one sold last year for $3,900.
You know, that one was not PSA certified yet.
So I think that would be an expense to possibly look into 'cause you could be looking at higher values.
You did mention this one does have some creasing wear through the center.
So it could be in that $2,000 to $3,000 range because of that central crease.
But that's a really good example from like 1909, 1910, right?
- Right.
- The Stan Musial, that famous Cardinals player, is the number 37.
This is his rookie card.
It was one of two that Bowman produced during that time period.
This one's slightly offset in terms of the condition.
A little bit of wear to the corners, but it's in really good shape.
I would expect this one to bring between $1,000 to $2,000 at auction.
We did see one of these come up at another auction company out in Chicago last year.
That one brought just over $1,000.
- Wow.
- So given that you have this wonderful provenance history with it, the correspondence with you and the collector card company, I think those are exceptional things to have with it that will only add value to these two collector-grade cards.
- I did look, I think, in PSA.
They sent out a price, and they had the 1948 Bowmans, and you're right.
The Stan Musial, it was way valued more than any of the other in that.
I guess that's because it was his rookie card.
- His rookie card.
He had a famous batting stance where he would wind up, and his nickname was Stan the Man, for good reason.
Thank you for bringing these in.
- Thank you.
I was glad, too.
I thought it would be interesting just to see what other folks thought about them.
- Absolutely.
(bright instrumental music) - As we wrap up our ninth annual "Carolina Collectibles," I am so struck by the opportunity to connect with our community.
It's one of my favorite things about these kind of events.
Over 150 of our friends and neighbors showed up to find out what their goodies and valuables were worth.
But we connected.
We shared stories.
We shared their history.
And I just feel like it makes the world a little bit smaller and a little bit brighter.
Thank you for tuning in for this "Carolina Collectibles."
We missed you.
Hope we'll get to see you at the 10th annual Carolina Collectibles.
Good night, my friends.
- To have this opportunity to come and be a part of this today was something that I canceled a meeting with my husband.
I would not travel with him today, so I could make sure I was here.
- We love PBS.
We love watching PBS.
We love this show and Antiques Roadshow and just have a real interest in PBS programming and in particular antiques.
I think this is great.
I brought my mom here last year and find out a little bit about all the history of the family.
It's been a lot of fun.
- Well, it was a lot of fun and the people get engaged in wanting to find out something.
A lot of curiosity, which was fun.
So I enjoyed it a lot.
(bright instrumental music) - [Announcer] A production of WTVI, PBS Charlotte.
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Carolina Collectibles is a local public television program presented by PBS Charlotte













