Welcome to Antiques Roadshow.

Got treasures?

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MAN: This piece my father acquired, I'm guessing either at a flea market or a gun show.

WOMAN: I said it was very ugly.

We had a laugh about it.

And it didn't get brought out until Friday.

Oh, my goodness.

That's wonderful.

Don't miss a minute of Antiques Roadshow from Des Moines, Iowa.

Stay tuned.

♪ ♪ (fireworks exploding) ♪ ♪ Welcome to Antiques Roadshow.

Hi, I'm Mark Walberg in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Hawkeye State's presidential connections are numerous.

31st president Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, a young Ronald Reagan got his start at radio stations in Davenport and Des Moines, and every year since 1972, the Iowa caucuses kick off the nation's presidential nomination process.

Let's see what Roadshow has found to kick off this hour from Des Moines.

Coming to the Roadshow here in Iowa, I am a New Yorker transplanted, right, for a few days.

Uh-huh.

You brought in a New Yorker and brought it to Iowa also.

Oh!

How did you come upon it?

My mom had it, my mom's family had it.

All I know is they came into Portsmouth.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

My sister has one that my mom's sister had as well, which is similar to this one.

A similar desk, okay.

Because the writing desk was the most important item in a person's house.

It carried all the important papers.

It had often money in it, and all those things were locked inside.

Let's start by opening this lid.

You know, these are called lopers.

Lopers?

L-o-p-e-r. You do slide it out and it holds up things, so...

Okay, yeah.

It used to have a brass lock that would have had a key.

Do you have the key?

I have the key at home.

I didn't bring it.

All these pigeon holes held papers.

So, this writing desk from New York is Chippendale style.

Chippendale?

It's made between 1765 and about 1785, '90.

Whoa!

And it's old, so old, right?

Yeah!

It goes way back in your family.

Oh, my God.

If we pull out one of these document drawers, they call them, we can see the original poplar.

This is the 1780 poplar that's so green.

Do you see how green that is?

It's still very green.

It's just like it was cut.

After it oxidizes, okay, I'm going to take out another drawer.

I'll show you the back of this drawer.

That's what that poplar looks like oxidized, because the air got to the back of this little drawer.

Now, if we open this...

I'm going to use my pointer to open this.

Do you know that there's something in here?

No.

You've had it how many years?

I've had it about seven years.

And you used to visit it...

It was at my mom's-- I grew up with it, sure.

Okay, she never showed you this-- watch this.

See that little hole right there?

Okay.

And it's going to be like magic.

(gasps) Oh, wow.

What's behind it?

You didn't know it comes out?

If there's any money, we split it 50-50.

I'm not sure about that.

(laughing): Okay.

So there we are.

So we take this out.

There would have been three little drawers back there.

Now there's one left, and isn't that cool?

Nothing in it.

No money; nothing to split.

How cool is that?

There were three little drawers.

Three little drawers.

That one is number two-- see the number "2" in there in chalk?

And you can see here the mahogany in the front and poplar in the back, which wasn't so expensive.

So we'll put that back in.

It locks into place, right?

Put that in, put that back.

And we go like this, and then this goes in.

Isn't that cool?

So now you know, right?

If we look at the top of it...

This high-style, highly figured plum pudding mahogany.

Look at the quality of that mahogany.

We have these four graduated drawers with replaced brasses-- that affects value a little bit.

Okay.

This is replaced, and that one over there is replaced, and the one on the side Okay.

are replaced pieces that used to be carved.

Now, there is on this side, that's the original one.

So we add up all those things, and the value at auction would be $2,000 to $3,000 in this market.

That would be the estimate on it.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks a lot.

WOMAN: This piece was bought by my great-grandmother, and it was given, I think, to my mother, and she didn't do anything with it for a while.

For some reason, she gave it to me when I was in my first apartment.

And when I saw it, I didn't know if I really liked it back then, and it looked awfully delicate to me, so I kind of rolled it up and put it away for a while.

And eventually it made its way back to my mother, and she put it in a Lucite box and kept it... hung it on a wall.

Okay.

For about 30 years, I'd say, something like that.

Any ideas on what kind of rug it might be?

Well, I was told it was a Russian silk rug.

And they said it was pretty valuable, but at that time, that really didn't mean too much to me, you know.

They didn't give you a value?

No, no, never had it appraised or anything.

Well, it's actually a Persian silk rug.

Oh, okay.

So it's not far from Russia.

It's woven in Azerbaijan.

It's a Tabriz silk rug.

Tabriz, okay.

Woven in the late 19th century.

Okay, that's...

So it's about 120 years old.

So your great-grandmother might have bought it, you think, around 1900, or...?

Probably, maybe even a little earlier, perhaps.

She traveled all over the world, I know, at that time.

Well, this is an extremely fine rug.

It has about 400 knots per square inch.

Wow.

I always thought the back was a little more interesting.

Well, it's extremely fine.

The colors have faded a little bit, Oh, yeah.

especially the red.

These were extremely popular in the late 19th century.

There was a revival that took place in the 19th century of rug weaving in Iran.

Uh-huh.

And it was for the European market primarily, and then later for the American market.

And these silk rugs were really a status piece, and they were a symbol of wealth.

And they were drawing their design influences from the classical carpets that came before them in the 16th and 17th century.

Wow.

So it's a wonderful revival.

We see a lot of these rugs in a varying degree of condition, and this piece does have some condition issues.

Right, I could see that myself.

There is the little tear up here.

Was there any, like, fringe at all, or was it pretty much...?

It probably had a fringe at one point, Uh-huh, okay.

which has worn off.

But the important thing is that it maintains its border at the end.

And you'll notice that there is a narrow red guard border that still remains.

Overall, the piece is a little bit stiff because I don't think it's been cleaned in a very long time.

I don't think it has, either.

And so it needs to be thoroughly washed and soaked so that it can soften up, so that that place can get fixed.

Oh, okay.

Now, would the colors come out more, then, if you wash it?

No.

Okay.

No, but it will definitely... it already has the brilliance of the silk and the way the silk reflects the light, Yeah, yeah.

but the important thing about the cleaning is that it's going to get supple again.

Yeah.

I think the cleaning process and the TLC that it needs might cost as much as a thousand dollars.

Okay.

It's worth about $5,000 now.

Oh, really?

Really?

Wow.

And if you were to put that thousand dollars into it, it would have a value closer to $10,000.

Really?

On a retail level.

When we find them in mint condition, a rug like this would be worth close to $30,000.

Really?

WOMAN: I got it from my mother, who got it from my father.

He repaired and worked on watches and clocks.

And this was given to him in payment for a repair that he had done for a gentleman that didn't have the money to pay him.

He didn't like the clock, so he gave it to my dad for payment.

Well, you have brought in a truly spectacular example of an Egyptian revival French clock.

It represents a period in our national and international history when people were just overcome with thoughts of the exotic and travel.

This clock was a very expensive product of the time.

It was made of variegated marble and red onyx, and it is covered with bronze Egyptian iconography, capped off by the Great Sphinx on the top.

Very high quality French mechanism, very high quality French case, beautiful bronze finishing the front of the clock and on the sides of the clock.

And made about 1880.

And in today's auction world, this clock could be $6,000 to $8,000.

Oh, my goodness.

That... is a lot for a payment just to repair a watch.

That's wonderful.

Of course, this does strike on the hour, and it has a wonderful sort of double...

Double bong.

Double bong.

(clock chiming) WOMAN: My husband and I bought a house in 1979.

This was left in the closet.

My husband brought it out.

I said it was very ugly.

We had a laugh about it.

He put it back in the closet, and it didn't get brought out until Friday.

Really?

Yeah, well, as soon as I got the tickets, he says, "You're taking the whirligig."

So you knew it was a whirligig.

I knew it was a whirligig.

Well, these are pieces of art that were made, probably by some family member, to put outside their house so children could watch it rotate in the wind.

Okay.

And this is a really wonderful one, primarily because of the size and the condition.

These paddles, one would be typically up and one would be down.

They're kind of frozen both in a down position and we don't want to force it, but they're all original.

Typically the paddles get broken and discarded.

Very strong face, and the hat is pure whimsy.

Yes.

It's almost witch's hat.

Now, underneath you'll see how honest the piece is.

And you can see the way the wood is worn with the rotation.

Yes.

So this was used, and this was out there in the elements.

In a retail setting, a piece such as this, we're talking about $4,000 to $6,000.

Wow.

I am shocked.

WOMAN: I got it at an auction several years ago.

It was pretty and different, so I got it.

The only thing I really knew about it and still know about it is that because the pin is out past the end of it, it's usually pretty old.

Well, it is an old piece, and the date of it is about 1840, and it is paste.

So it's an old costume piece.

But it's set in silver-topped gold, which is the way that they would have set diamond pieces at the time.

So this is a very nice piece of costume jewelry, because it's made so much like the old diamond jewelry.

Really?

Yes.

And it's a beautiful foliate design, and, as you can see, the flower in the center is mounted on a spring.

Yes.

To make it tremble, and that's called en tremblant.

So if the lady would have worn this in her hair or on the front of her dress as a brooch, it's meant to capture the light.

Everything then was all about capturing the light and the sparkle and the candlelight.

That's cool.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's wonderful that you have the original box with it.

It's beautiful.

What did you pay for it when you bought it?

Probably around $50.

That's what I normally would pay, but it's been so long ago, I honestly don't remember.

Well, these days, I think, for a beautiful piece of costume jewelry like this, something like this would sell at auction for about $1,500.

You're kidding.

Not bad.

Not bad at all!

WOMAN: The only thing we know is that it hung in my parents' family room over the table for, like, 35 years.

And my mother passed away, and then eventually my father, so then it became mine.

It's a Handel signed lamp, and my father counted all the pieces, and there's 877 pieces.

Well, you're right about it being a Handel, but believe it or not, there are 1,100 pieces of glass in this lamp.

Oh!

Then he didn't count right.

Well, it's hard to count.

But I'll tell you why I know there are 1,100 pieces in the lamp.

Because in an article written in July of 1907, this lamp was described.

And one of the things that it said was, "There are exactly 1,100 pieces of leaded glass in this lamp."

Wow.

It said, "The background, or upper portion of the shade, "suggests rich foliage that extends down over the skirt, or apron..." And this is the apron right here.

"...and breaks into flowers and fruits, which are not only fashioned, but are also colored in a manner closely imitative of the types they represent."

Oh, my goodness.

So it's very exciting that someone took notice of this lamp back in 1907.

They thought that it was a really excellent example.

So it was probably made circa 1906, 1907.

Handel was actually based in Meriden, Connecticut, and in 1905 they opened a factory in New York, specifically to make this kind of lamp.

This kind of lamp at the time, what they called this glass, "opalescent glass," and there was more opalescent glass in and around New York City and Brooklyn, but also the people who knew how to assemble these lamps were really located in that area, so it's been suggested by a number of scholars that that's probably the reason why they opened the New York showroom and factory.

I see.

Well, it is a hanging lamp.

There is evidence inside the shade that it could have also fit on a floor base.

Oh.

But this is done very nicely as the hanging lamp, and I believe that it probably came two ways.

I don't think that that's an original cap, the very top of it, and you don't have original chain.

That's something you could look for, and that would increase the value.

It's a very fine example of a leaded glass shade by Handel.

It's one of the nicer ones, and it's one of the larger ones also.

Yes.

It would retail at least for between $12,000 and $17,000.

Oh, my, wow.

And since this has always been in your family as a hanging shade, it should stay like that.

That's what we'll keep it as.

It's very beautiful.

Thank you.

We love it.

WOMAN: This painting was in a high school in Illinois, and the high school was built in 1918.

The first principal of the school felt that the students should be exposed to the humanities, and part of the plan was to incorporate art-- mostly reproductions, because it was cheaper.

The high school was there until about the 1960s, at which time the county, which was very small, consolidated its schools.

And this building basically just went into neglect.

So an alumni association got ownership of the items from the school, and they started a small museum.

Unfortunately, in 2004, it was hit by a tornado and the building was destroyed.

And they just started to kind of disperse these things to other institutions or individuals.

My mom was on the association, and I'd heard her say that some of them, they were thinking about just maybe tossing.

And I'm, like, "Don't let them throw them away."

Don't let them throw them away.

So that's how I came to have this in my possession.

So, did you pay anything for it?

No.

Well, the piece is by an American woman illustrator named Katharine Wireman.

And she was born in Pennsylvania in the late 19th century.

A woman illustrator in the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century had kind of a hard road, because once you got married, it was usually over.

Katharine Wireman continued working after her marriage, doing covers for the Saturday Evening Post, for lots of children's books, and also for Procter & Gamble, where she used her children as the models for their tremendously successful Ivory soap advertising promotion.

The piece is oil on artist board.

You have some dings, as one might imagine, from just a piece being alive for that long, probably done in the '20s or '30s.

But it's ultimately in quite good condition.

It's in its original frame.

The combination of her being a woman artist, a successful woman illustrator, and also the fact that it's a really wonderful example of her artwork that has a child-- one of her children, maybe-- it has a bit of value.

On the retail market, I would value it between $7,000 and $9,000.

Great.

Yes.

So, it's quite a survivor.

Mm-hmm.

WOMAN: I received it as a gift from my Uncle Jack.

He had purchased it in an antique store in Chicago in the '60s.

I know it's a snuff box, and he paid $168-ish.

$168.

Okay, well, you have a papier-mâché, hand-painted Russian lacquer box.

And inside here, on the top of the lid, it's signed by a Russian company called the Lukutin Factory.

Okay.

And it also has a Russian imperial eagle.

They had the imperial warrant, so they made boxes for the imperial family.

And we can see inside it's a hand-painted faux tortoiseshell interior.

This box would have been actually manufactured around 1840.

And what is quite unusual about this piece is, first of all, the multicolored lacquer and the checkerboard design, but also the painting on the front of the box, which is a Turkish painting.

And Catherine the Great, towards the end of her reign, received an awful lot of gifts from the Turkish sultan, and what this box could quite possibly be-- we may have to do quite a little bit more sort of research on it-- is actually a box celebrating a painting that was given to her as a gift from the Turkish sultan.

And with regards to the value of the piece, I think today if you were to go into a retail store to try and replace something like this, if you could find it, you would have to spend around $20,000.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow!

That's amazing.

I better take better care of it.

I'd take good care of it, yeah.

I'll put it under glass.

But thank you for bringing it.

It's a wonderful box.

Wonderful.

Wow.

I'm shocked.

Here in Des Moines, there's an interesting intersection of two seemingly unrelated topics-- English literature and women's cosmetics.

The connection is Carl Weeks, an entrepreneur from Iowa whose powders, creams, and lipsticks laid the foundation for this American castle, a manor based on the king's house in Salisbury, England.

Carl and his wife Edith filled their Salisbury house with fine art, antique furniture, and an impressive collection of books, manuscripts and historical documents.

Expert Francis Wahlgren pulled a rare set from the shelf to explore.

So, Francis, what do we have here today?

It's an extra-illustrated biography of Charles Dickens by his good friend John Forster.

So, what exactly is an extra-illustrated edition?

An extra-illustrated edition is any book into which additional material is inserted, whether that's printed or hand-written.

But these inserts are not by the publisher or the author.

These are by the collector who's purchased the book.

Exactly.

In 1769, a gentleman by the name of James Granger took it upon himself to publish a biographical history of England, and because it was biographies, he left spaces and extra sheets in for people to find portraits of those figures and insert them and glue them into the book.

And in the 19th century, it became very popular to "Grangerize," as it became known, or extra-illustrate works.

It's sort of a high-end scrapbook, and we have one of the highest level here.

This is a very remarkable set.

The original manuscript, the original book The Life of Charles Dickens, which was published in 1873... '72 to '74-- he published it over a period of a year and a half.

Three volumes.

Yeah, your normal kind of octavo was the size we'd say, but it's a normal, smallish size book.

What we have here is a growth that's taken place through various hands, different owners, and it's expanded to now a very hefty nine tomes of material.

Let's take a look at some specific examples, and sometimes the owners have added things that are germane and specific to the original manuscript, and sometimes it's a tangential reference.

Yeah, and that really is a decision that's made by the collector, how far afield they will go in enhancing the books.

A collector with the means would go out of their way to get the finest impressions and plates they could find, or the best documents they could find.

This is an original illustration, a leaf that's been removed from a true first edition of Oliver Twist.

In the set, this appears right where he's talking about the publication of Oliver Twist, so he mentions the illustrator, so there he gives you an example of an original illustration from the first edition.

And then next to that, he's included an autographed letter of George Cruikshank, the artist.

Why would an Abraham Lincoln document end up in an extra-illustrated volume of The Life of Charles Dickens?

That's a good question.

What I think is happening is it's 1863; it's Lincoln, who was a contemporary of Dickens.

So you could argue that there's a connection there.

So, as we talk about value, the original three-volume Life of Charles Dickens first edition book, what would that value be?

Yeah, the book itself would be worth only a few hundred dollars as it came out.

But now that it's been "breathed out," as it were, into this extra illustration with such treasures like this Abraham Lincoln letter, let's talk about this-- this one particular insert.

We'd probably estimate this at $15,000 to $20,000, with the expectation it would exceed that.

And that's one page in nine volumes.

If you were to find an extra illustration this expansive in this type of quality, with these kind of important documents in them, what would you guess the range of value would be?

I would say in this case, you'd be thinking about something like $80,000 to $120,000, with the expectation that it could go well beyond that, but certainly, certainly in the six figures.

Francis, thanks so much for sharing this.

It's really fascinating.

I get the sense we could sit here for hours and not even scratch the surface of all that's inside here.

It's my pleasure; it's always a privilege to come and see something as wonderful as this.

WOMAN: I found it in Minneapolis at an estate sale about five, six years ago.

Now, do you go often to estate sales looking for American silver?

I love collecting coin silver, so I have quite a bit of it.

Well, let's turn the pitcher over, and we'll see what it says on the bottom.

We can see there's two marks there.

The first is the maker's mark-- Jones, Ball and Poor.

Many of the American makers did mark their silver very clearly with just their name.

There are no halls of assay, so there are no hall or assayer's marks put on at this point.

It also says there in very tiny little stamp "pure coin."

And that's a mark you occasionally find on coin silver, but it's not a common mark.

And coin silver is, as you know, it's a uniquely American form of silver.

Mm-hmm.

And it goes back much earlier than this pitcher, actually.

In Colonial times, American silversmiths, of which there were relatively few, would often make their silver out of melted coinage, which is not of sterling silver standard.

Sterling silver has a particular standard established in England centuries ago.

But the American silver makers didn't adopt that until essentially after the Civil War.

The piece was from a Boston silversmith that only operated for less than a decade or so, around 1850.

But beyond that, we can date this one beautifully, because you've got a piece with great engraving.

I know it mentions John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States.

And what it says in detail and what the Adams papers letter confirms is that the piece was presented by the House of Representatives to the owner of a boardinghouse in 1848.

Adams spent the last 17 years of his life, by the way, serving in the House of Representatives, and he was actually in the House of Representatives when he suffered a stroke which, ultimately, two days later, led to his death.

But so the House of Representatives convened a little body to look after him on his way home on his final journey, and they presented this to the owner of a boardinghouse who must have put up the party.

And I love the inscription at the bottom.

It says she was "an excellent... American housewife."

I've never seen another one, and I searched others to see if perhaps there were other people who received one.

We haven't found one.

If it were an ordinary piece of American coin silver from 1848, a nice baluster-form pitcher with no engraving, it would certainly be worth a few hundred dollars as a little collectible item.

That's what I thought.

But the engraving escalates it into presidential memorabilia.

And there isn't that much stuff related to John Quincy Adams.

Oh.

This is a nice Boston-made pitcher, right from the time of his death and directly connected to that.

And so when you bought it at the estate sale, how much did you pay for it?

Well, I paid $600 because I knew it had more value because of that, but... And were you afraid of that price?

Yeah.

Yeah?

I sensed you were.

Well, I discussed it with a couple of my colleagues.

I would say today, in a good auction of historical Americana, this pitcher should bring at least $1,500.

Oh, okay.

And possibly as much as $2,500.

Oh, wow.

Well, good, then I made a good investment.

MAN: My wife, actually, is the one that purchased it at an auction approximately three and a half, maybe four months ago.

It was one of the last items on sale, so... she bid on it and got it.

The stock ticker has been around a long time.

It was actually invented in 1867.

And Thomas Edison made improvements to it, as he did to just about everything else.

In the 1870s, these were used on a contract basis.

It cost six dollars a week to have a stock quotation sent to your office.

Wow.

On the transmitter end, there was a man or woman sitting at a keyboard, typing, and it would relay signals to this device, which was then translated into numbers or letters.

In 1883, there were a thousand of these used, just in the New York Stock Exchange.

Wow.

And it was, at that time, a pretty magical device from a technological standpoint.

This one I think dates from about 1880, 1885.

It has great graphics.

It has wonderful lettering here on the front.

Yes.

It's not an Edison, but it was made...

I believe you said the Star Manufacturing Company.

Star Electric Company.

Star Electric Company.

We did notice that there was one little pin missing here, but that really doesn't affect its value.

You said that your wife got this at auction.

Yes.

Do you remember what she paid for it?

Yes, she bid $1,700 for it.

It's in great condition.

I've talked with my colleagues here, and we think that a retail price on this would be $8,000 to $10,000.

Wow.

Wonderful.

MAN: This piece my father acquired probably 40 years ago, I'm guessing either at a flea market or a gun show.

And brought it home, cleaned it up.

My mother fell in love with it.

It sat on the shelf in the den for all those years, and I inherited it about five years ago and brought it home and gave it to my wife and she fell in love with it.

It's been on our shelf since then.

That's all I know about it.

And it was her idea to bring it?

Yeah.

Well, one thing you do know is the information on the back of the piece.

It says "Hunter Arms Company, First Prize, Class A."

We're pretty sure that they had competitions for shooting, maybe even for field trials with dogs.

Okay.

But this is a presentation piece made for the Hunter Arms Company, not by them.

And the mystery is, who made the tankard?

Okay.

Okay.

Well, there's an artist's name on this piece.

Did you know that?

No, I had no idea.

Okay.

Well, under the handle, it's signed "M.

Timberlake."

That's the only mark on the piece other than the Hunter Arms thing.

Mae Timberlake was a very, very fine decorator.

She worked at Weller for a while.

She also worked at Roseville.

Okay.

This piece is Roseville.

Oh, boy.

And the reason we know that, it's a classic Roseville tankard shape.

We also know that Roseville made a number of these presentation pieces for the Hunter Arms Company.

Most of them probably made around 1900 to 1910.

That's typically when these brown, Rozane Royal, dark pieces were made.

Okay.

What's special about this and special about most of Mae Timberlake's work is the beautiful decoration.

Do you know how much your dad may have paid for the item when he bought it?

Probably paid less than $50 for it.

The piece has a few minor flaws.

Even with that, we think that at auction, a piece like this probably would sell for $1,000 to $1,500.

Wow.

Glad your wife had the hunch?

I am too, I am too.

MAN: I got it from my uncle, who came over in 1909 on the Lusitania.

Grandma had it on the wall before my time.

And then in the late '50s, early '60s, I can remember going into a brooder house and there this picture was.

And so, I'm really amazed it's still around.

When Grandma passed away, it was going to go in the garbage, and I snagged on to it and said, "I'll just hang it on for a little bit."

Do me a favor; I'm a city boy.

When you say "brooder house," what do you mean?

It's a chicken house, raise chickens.

But to have something like this come out of a chicken house is pretty impressive.

Do you know what the most famous ocean liner is?

No.

I would say it's probably the Titanic.

Okay.

And the Titanic is so famous that it's memorabilia is really valuable and sought after.

Do you know what the second most famous ocean liner is as far as memorabilia goes?

I hope Lusitania.

You know, it's the Lusitania.

The Lusitania really is a famous ship in the lore of all the great ocean liners.

You know, it was the torpedoing of the Lusitania that precipitated America's involvement in the First World War.

That's right.

It was sunk in 1915.

But here's the thing.

The ship was launched originally in 1907.

It was launched in September of 1907, and then in November of 1907, the Mauretania was launched.

And they were sister ships.

Right.

So you'll notice there's no name on the bow of the ship.

Normally, it would say "Lusitania" or "Mauretania."

The reason they didn't put a name on it is this poster was probably finished before the ships were launched, so we can date this poster to probably summer of 1907.

All right.

Now, a ship enthusiast would be able to recognize the Lusitania or the Mauretania immediately, just from its profile.

I've examined this poster to try and find an artist's name, and, in fact, it's anonymous, which isn't a surprise, because many of the ocean liner companies used very talented but unknown artists to do their work.

The Lusitania and the Mauretania were owned by the Cunard Line, which was a British-based company, and so this poster would have been printed in England.

Now, the name "Cunard Line" is missing from the poster.

I'm pretty sure this is because the name has been cut off.

Still, I feel that the poster is so rare that even with "Cunard Line" missing, it retains its value.

Now, do you have any idea of the value of this piece?

I talked to one gentleman, and he gave me a price of... of course it was just a snapshot picture that I took of it-- of between $3,500 and $4,500.

Did you think that was a good price?

No, I thought it should be more, but... How long ago was it that you got that appraisal?

About two years ago.

So really not that long ago.

Prices have been down a little bit, Right.

but there's another curious thing that's also happening in the art market specifically.

As prices overall go down, we've found that prices on select pieces have begun to go up.

And what collectors are really focusing on now are the very special pieces, the crème de la crème.

And in my opinion, I would consider this to be one of the top of the line, rarest of the Lusitania posters.

Really?

I've actually never seen this exact variation of the poster before.

It's a known image of the ship, but with this exact text, I consider it very rare.

Conservatively, at auction, I would estimate this piece between $12,000 and $18,000.

Wow.

Wow.

That's unbelievable.

WOMAN: This has been in my family as long as I can remember.

It was my great-great-aunt's, who lived in Omaha, and word is that she probably bought it in Omaha at a big, famous department store.

It's a beautiful piece made in Paris by Demetre Chiparus.

He was a Romanian sculptor, and he made editions of these beautiful, beautiful bronze and ivory figures.

Here at the Roadshow we see tons of reproductions of Chiparus figures-- tons.

This one, happily, is perfectly authentic and beautiful.

Her face and hands are made of ivory, and she's had a little bit of an accident, because her arm has popped out.

Today.

But that's okay.

It's not as bad as it looks, because these pieces were essentially just sort of glued in there.

You could send it to a professional restorer.

It wouldn't cost much at all, a couple hundred dollars at most.

And it won't affect the value at all.

Oh.

This little woman in the pretty dress has a parrot that would sit on her hand, and the name of the figure is called Indiscreet, because she's sort of telling secrets to this bird that's going to repeat them.

Oh, that's great.

But really, she's in splendid condition.

Oh, really?

Usually this coloration on the dress, a lot of that would get worn away.

The fingers would snap off, the ivory would crack.

But yours is beautiful.

Oh, that's good to hear.

At auction, your estimate, conservatively, is going to be about $40,000 to $60,000.

That's wonderful.

She's really beautiful.

Thanks for bringing her in.

Oh, thank you.

WOMAN: This is one of two that I have from my grandparents' home in Racine, Wisconsin.

APPRAISER: Okay.

They moved away many years ago, and brought some of these with them.

My grandfather was a cabinetmaker, and he used them for some cabinet doors.

Okay.

And these were extras that my grandparents told me I could have.

Well, what do you know about them above and beyond that?

The home they came from, it's my understanding that our family did not build the home, it was an existing home, that it was built between 1900 and 1910, and these windows were in the home.

Okay, great.

Well, of course, they're very prairie, which is an architectural style, especially in the American Midwest, Mm-hmm.

which is perfect for Racine.

Yeah.

Late 19th, early 20th century, and, of course, Frank Lloyd Wright is probably the best known.

Yeah.

Although there are other people certainly very well-known, but-- and a person, especially, Marion Mahony Griffin, who worked with him, and then subsequently worked with other folks.

Mm-hmm.

But she designed a lot of what Wright took credit for.

Wright was very good at taking credit for things.

But these are gorgeous windows, of course, and there's the beautiful colors, the metalwork, or these dividers, or canes, extraordinary.

Have any idea of value or...?

I have no idea.

I had a friend tell me that they were worth quite a bit, but no dollar amount, no idea.

Yeah, well...

Okay, well, they're still only windows after all.

Right.

And, realistically, I think without an attribution, we're at $2,000 to $3,000 apiece.

So that's $4,000 to $6,000 for the pair.

Mm-hmm.

But if we could attribute it to someone like Mahony, then basically we could triple that.

Mm, mm-hmm.

And, you know, but I think your work now is to try and track down who did that house.

Racine should have some sort of records, and, you know, hopefully you could find out.

Is the house still standing, or...?

Yes, it is.

Okay, so... And there are more of these.

Okay, all right, so then the records should be okay.

But this is just a gorgeous window and it's very, very prairie.

Good.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

Very good.

WOMAN: While I was a graduate student in Delaware, and the landlady told us that we could go up in the attic with another graduate student friend, and we could have whatever we liked.

And so this was in the attic of an old home, and I like primitive things, so this was what I chose to take that day.

Great.

Well, what you have is a mid-19th century Bergama rug.

Bergama is a bit of a generic term because there were a lot of different villages that had their rugs marketed in Bergama, and so there are a lot of different designs that were... they're all referred to as Bergama rugs, but there are sort of subgroups.

It's a rug woven in a village in Turkey around 1850.

And it exhibits a lot of the nice characteristics that you see with the village rugs from that time period.

It has the natural dyes, it has the good, bold geometric designs.

As subsequent generations interpreted designs, they became a little bit more primitive and they became a little bit more coarse.

And so that's the main difference between the really early pieces and the later ones.

Because as they get later, certain villages have more primitive looms.

It's not as refined craft, it's more of a primitive either made for utilitarian purposes or a less expensive piece being made for the market.

So when you say 1850... 1850.

How do you determine that?

Because of the design evolution that takes place between the 18th and the 19th century.

Okay.

And because they started to use synthetic dyes Okay.

in the late 19th century.

All right.

The fact that this is free of synthetic dyes.

Okay.

And the fact that the design is still relatively pure helps us...

Helps you to understand.

...to put it in to the mid-19th century.

Because by the late 19th century, rugs had become so popular, that they started cutting corners with both the colors and with the designs and it's very easy to recognize that they've kind of gone downhill in terms of their artistic merit.

Okay.

Now, obviously, the condition is an issue.

Yes.

Do you have thoughts about what to do with it?

I would like to get it repaired and... Because, basically, the restoration has come in leaps and bounds, and there are workshops in Turkey now that do nothing but restoration.

And they can take these worn areas, and they can re-pile them, they can redo the selvages, so that those are appropriate.

And you'll notice that there's some significant loss at the bottom of the rug.

Yes, yeah.

And they can even weave out the end border.

If this was a late 19th century piece in this condition, I wouldn't be making any recommendation to do the kind of restoration Mm-hmm.

because it doesn't have the collectible merit at the end of it that this would have.

This would have.

It has to have that integrity to justify doing the restoration.

Now any time we have something like this, we have to do a cost-benefit analysis of how much is it going to cost to do the restoration, and then what it's... what's it gonna be worth at the end of it.

So any idea on the value?

I do not, I've had it cleaned, it was about $300 to clean it maybe four or five years ago.

Okay.

Well, in its present condition, it's worth about $2,500.

Wow.

And the reason for that is that if you were to put about $4,000 into it, you'd have something that was worth about $15,000 retail.

Oh, my goodness.

So there's really a very advantageous equation that says to get it restored, and that wasn't always the case.

Anything can be restored, it's just a question of whether the value at the end of it justifies the money that it would cost to have the restoration done.

MAN: I purchased this from my aunt's estate about six months ago.

I paid $4,500 for it.

It came from the family, it's a family item, and it is rather unique, and I like unique items like this.

Well, it's a mechanical bank.

They were primarily popular in the late 19th century in America.

They were popular because they promoted thrift, which was a very great Victorian value of the day.

This particular bank was popular because it promoted another aspect of what they wanted to teach, namely the Bible.

Correct.

They're made of cast iron.

It's really a unique American art form, frankly.

We were the only country in the world that made a lot of toys out of cast iron, and the mechanical banks are the best examples of the work, because they were incredibly intricate, incredibly complex mechanically.

I just wanted to demonstrate how it works.

Okay.

You put the penny there.

And the lever's over here.

The lever's over here.

And it goes in.

And there goes the whale.

It was made by Shepard Hardware.

$4,500 is generally a little high for a "Jonah and the Whale" bank.

It was a lot of money, yes.

The average examples of these generally run $1,000 to $1,500, sometimes as much as $2,000.

Are you concerned at all that you overpaid?

No, because, as I say, my aunt is family.

It's an emotional thing.

Yes.

This is above average condition.

It does have remarkable paint retention all along here.

It is really an exceptional example.

I think at auction, a conservative estimate on this bank would be in the $6,000 to $8,000 range.

Well, thank you very much.

That's nice news.

So, let's do it one more time.

Okay.

I love the way the jaw just is...

Floats up and down, yes.

Perfectly balanced there.

WOMAN: It's been in my husband's family.

His great-uncle Leo had the lamp.

Uncle Leo was from Dallas, Texas, and he would travel around in the Midwest, but he'd often stop by my husband's parents' home.

My husband's mother, Bonnie, really liked the lamp when she had been visiting.

On one of his trips, he brought it to her, and so my husband's parents have had it for a long time.

Okay.

And then at one point they decided that maybe they would sell it, and my husband John and I decided that we didn't want it to leave the family, so we bought it from them.

Since we got it, we were curious about it.

We were hoping that it was Tiffany, so I kept looking for more information about it, but we never could find a mark, so we figured that it probably wasn't Tiffany.

I went to the library, I found an Art Nouveau book, and I found a picture of this in the book, and I learned that it was from the Cincinnati Wrought Iron Works and that it was made in 1910 and that it originally sold for $34.

Okay.

The Cincinnati Artistic Iron Works Company is a fairly obscure company.

Now, we see a lot of Tiffany lamps here, Handel, Pairpoint.

This company was making these lamps.

They made a lot of metal novelties of all kinds, a wide range of art glass items as well.

This lamp has a beautiful leaded shade, a very naturalistic tree trunk form base, which was not unlike the Tiffany base.

This is going to be 1910, maybe 1915, in that period.

This company had galleries in Cincinnati, they had galleries in Chicago.

I think probably a good retail price would be around $7,500.

It's not the big money lamps, but it's still a very nice lamp to see on Antiques Roadshow.

Yes, yeah, thanks.

Okay?

That's good.

WOMAN: We've had them for over 50 years, and we know who the potter was, but we don't know any kind of value on them.

What inspired you to collect these pots?

Well, my husband bought three at one time in 1959, the year before we were married, and then we acquired another one and we've loved them all the years.

They're the work of Lucy M. Lewis, who was the last matriarch of the Acoma pueblo.

She is in the category of great potters as Maria Martinez, Nampeyo and Margaret Tafoya.

And it's quite extraordinary to see such wonderful examples.

She worked in a very traditional manner.

She would collect Mimbres, black-on-white pots, archaic pieces, shards, and use them to help form these pots.

She'd actually grind them up and do the tempering of her own clay with them.

Everything came from the earth.

She was a great traditionalist.

Why did you come seeking to find out more about them now after you've had them for 50 years?

Well, we're thinking about maybe we might sell them or... How much was spent on any particular one?

Do you remember?

Um, this one, this one, and this one were bought at the same time, and I don't think we spent over $200 for them.

This pot I really don't know how much we paid for it.

Under $100.

And you bought it where, roughly?

We bought this at an antique shop.

Well, if you were to offer these pieces at auction today, the corrugated form over here, it's signed and dated from 1959 and it would have a value of $2,000 to $4,000.

Really?

I would estimate the date on this particular pot probably the mid-'60s.

Also $2,000 to $4,000.

Even though it's not from the same time period, it's a very nice example of her work and it's signed beautifully.

Oh, my God.

The fine-line potteries are very desirable.

$2,000 to $4,000 for this piece.

And this one is like a seed jar form.

It's beautiful.

This particular piece, I think conservatively at auction would sell for $4,000 to $6,000.

Oh, my word.

So you're selling them and going to Disneyland?

(laughing) Not Disney World, no.

We'd probably go back to Acoma, to the pueblo, and tour the Southwest again.

You'll find it's changed a tad since 1959, but it's still absolutely beautiful.

It's called Sky City.

Wow.

Thank you for bringing them today.

Oh, thank you so much.

WOMAN: I brought in a partial Shakespeare First Folio that I've had for about 15 years, and it's been in my family since my great-grandfather acquired it earlier in the 20th century, I believe.

He collected a lot of interesting things from all over the world, so this is just one of his interesting things that he brought home with him.

If you talked about an iconic book in the English language, the First Folio of Shakespeare is one of them.

Probably next to the Bible, Shakespeare is the most commonly printed book in the English language.

Usually when you have a book and you say it's only 176 pages out of, I think it was 400-something.

400-something.

So it really is a partial book.

But you open it up and there's no title page.

We are missing pages.

And usually you'd say, "Gee, this isn't going to be anything."

This is the first part of Henry, then we get to the next one.

That's the third part of Henry the Sixth.

And then Hamlet.

When you turn it back one page, you're just finishing up Macbeth.

Now, this book was rebound.

The rebinding is a very nice job, but it's not the original.

All of this... My guess would be they probably did it in late 18, early 1900s.

Two of the plays are complete.

Those plays, in and of themselves, are valuable.

You could take this book apart, sell the two individual plays that are complete.

People will buy individual pages.

Nice thing about this book, too, is when they bound it, they didn't trim any of the text or any of the borders.

Now, you had an appraisal done earlier.

There was an appraisal 20 years ago at $1,500.

The individual plays that are complete have gone up tremendously.

They're probably worth $10,000, $15,000 each.

Wow.

Each one of the complete plays.

And then you have around 160, 170 individual pages.

$100 apiece-- that might be close to another $10,000, $15,000.

Wow.

Basically, this book, as it is, missing half the book, rebound, fragments and so on, is probably, retail, a $40,000 to $50,000 book.

Wow.

Which has gone up a lot since 1990.

Yes, it has.

I would advise insuring it if you're keeping it at home.

It probably should be gone through page by page by page, double checking absolutely everything.

It's one of the ways they can tell if this all came from one particular volume or maybe it possibly might have come from one or two.

Sometimes maybe a play was separate and they put it together.

So all of that is part of the research.

If this were to turn out to be a mixture of first and second editions, it's not going to make much difference.

It might be $35,000 to $40,000, or $45,000.

It's not going to make a big difference.

Thank you very much.

You're watching Antiques Roadshow from Des Moines, Iowa.

WALBERG: And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

My Gibson painting, which my husband bought for $15, is worth between $1,000 and $1,500.

Really a good day.

Great-Grandpa's business papers weren't worth a darn, but my ring from the cheap antiques store, 400 bucks.

Thanks, Antiques Roadshow.

And thank you to all the people that came and asked, "What is this?"

(laughing) It's a magnifying lens.

And I came to the Antiques Roadshow because I've had this for almost 30 years, and I couldn't figure out what it was, where it came from, or how much it was worth.

And it's worth almost a thousand dollars, and I'm happy.

And it's just beautiful and it's from Italy, so... Oh, thank you, Antiques Roadshow.

Well, I brought in these trading cards.

They said they were priceless.

I mean worthless.

Okay, mine is only valuable if I put money in it.

It's a little bank.

I brought three old things to Antiques Roadshow today.

They're all Norwegian-- one, two... three.

And this is a chamber pot from the Harvey House by the railroads in Colorado, and it was told to me that it was the holy grail of chamber pots because it has a lid and it's made by Royal Doulton.

And this little Mickey here was appraised between $350 and $500.

That's really good, too.

Thanks for coming!

Yay!

I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time on Antiques Roadshow.

That's a little... what you got, a little treasure?

Yes.

A snowy day in Iowa?

Actually, I think it's in Germany.

Oh, is that right?