Fort Worth, Hour 3

WALBERG: Antiques Roadshow found Fort Worth, Texas, to be overflowing with treasures.

Opening it up, you can see immediately this is something special.

That's like a hole in one, isn't it?

WALBERG: The people of Fort Worth like to say that the city is where the American West begins.

But here you can also find a peaceful spot reminiscent of East Asia at the Fort Worth Japanese Garden.

From peace and quiet to activity and excitement.

Downtown, the atmosphere is very different at Antiques Roadshow, where thousands have come to get their treasures appraised.

MAN: This is a painting that was done by Howard Cook, who's a Texas artist, in 1930.

And he gave it to my father.

They were connected because they both liked ships, and Howard used to come to our ranch in South Texas, where I was born.

So your parents knew the artist then.

Oh, yeah, they were personal friends.

And do you know anything more about Howard Cook?

Yeah, he does a lot of... did a lot of murals around the state of Texas.

There's a lot of them in post offices and government buildings and...

I think he did the mural at San Antonio, in the post office there, yeah.

He's done several.

Howard Cook was born in 1901 in Springfield, Massachusetts, and worked on the East Coast for a while, and actually made some of his better-known prints in the 1920s and the 1930s-- sort of gritty, urban images of New York City.

He first came down to this part of the country in 1926.

He visited Taos, New Mexico.

And it was that same year that he met a woman named Barbara Latham, who he married in 1927.

Mm-hmm.

Soon after they were married, Cook and Latham, they went on a trip to Europe and Africa.

And this is actually a rendering of the engine room on that ship when they were sailing to Europe in 1929.

And it's great, because it's one of these sort of classic Howard Cook images where you want the play of the light and dark and the industrial look.

That's really what he's best known for, even though by the 1930s he and his wife had moved down to Taos and become members of the Taos artist community.

You have the title of the print right along the bottom here, and then a very, very small rendering of that numbering is 75.

It's an edition of 75.

And you also have, closest to me, a book that was illustrated by Barbara Latham.

That's correct.

And what's that about?

The story of the ranch where I was born.

And it's a story about a silver dollar that I was given.

And when I showed him all that and told him what I was going to do with it, then I lost the silver dollar.

Yeah.

And in the process of the book, one of them got me a pair of chaps-- or I call them leggings-- and different articles that I needed to be a full-time cowboy.

Yeah.

And so at the end of the book, I was all equipped to be a full-time cowboy, but then I found the silver dollar out in the bushes.

So I have to ask you, I see you sitting on the horse there with the silver dollar you found.

Mm-hmm.

And where is the silver dollar now?

Right there.

Oh.

That looks pretty worn down.

It's been in my pocket ever since.

That's great.

I didn't sleep with it, but I kept it in my pocket most of the time.

And I've lost it two or three more times, and always found it back.

For the group, if I had to put a replacement value on them, I would say $6,000.

Good, that's great.

That's great.

I appreciate that.

It's not going anywhere.

There's lots of our kids standing in line wanting to keep it, so... That's a nice thing to have.

Yep, and the silver dollar is worth?

A dollar.

$6,001.

$6,001.

MAN: Well, I went to an estate sale here in Fort Worth, and found this underneath the table.

Didn't think much of it.

It was just a bucket.

So I opened the lid and saw what was in it, and then asked them what they wanted for it, without letting them know that... what was in it.

And they didn't look, so...

Hold that thought-- let's have a look at what's in it.

When you brought this to the table, it looks like an old bucket, kind of rusty metal.

And then we looked inside it.

And opening it up, you can see immediately this is something special.

There is a mark on it, and it's the mark of one of the Mayer family of potters, Mayer of Burslem.

And we can date this mark to the early Victorian years.

Dates through about 1840.

And I think the best way to describe it is a Victorian porta potty.

Every large manufacturer in Staffordshire at the time, and Burslem, where this was made, had a line of what was called sanitary ware.

The Mayer were probably best known... you see their mark on conventional blue and white printed ware-- plates, tableware, meat platters, things like that.

And I think it's a fabulous example of early Victorian sanitary manufacturing.

So let's take a look at how it works.

This is the business end of it.

And when it's done, there would be a jug nearby full of water that could be poured into it to flush it.

The center is, as you can see, hinged on a counterbalance to flush into the bottom of the pan.

I've seen Victorian sanitary ware over the years.

Most of it is later into the Victorian period, and quite complicated, quite decorative.

It's not unusual.

I also think it's very discreet, which is one of the things I love about it.

To me, this is made for the garden, possibly for use on a picnic, which the Victorians loved to do, or-- they had very large gardens-- perhaps in a conservatory or somewhere out in the corner, perfect for a garden party use.

The paint on the outside is entirely original to the piece.

This is painted metal, probably zinc.

I don't think anything's been done to this since it was new in about 1840.

And that's one of the things I love about it.

How much did you pay for it in that sale?

I paid $30.

Well, I think you are, as we say, on the right side of it there.

$30, how can you go wrong, for something from 1840 that's rare, and a great curiosity?

And I think it's a great auction item.

I suspect you could estimate it for at least $1,000, and put a high estimate on it of perhaps $2,000.

The artwork inside is pretty nice for it to be inside of a toilet bowl.

APPRAISER: I'm thinking...

I would say made probably in the late 1800s.

What did you say they had the price at?

$162, that's what they were asking for it.

Well, somewhere between, maybe, in the $30 to 50 range.

Okay.

I have a vacuum cleaner.

Okay, and where did you get that?

My great grandfather invented it.

Oh, wow.

It's from about 1909.

Great.

The documentation you have is great.

And based on this, I have no question that it was on the U.S.S.

Constitution.

I think probably in the $10,000 price range.

Tell me, why were they dropping this dog from an airplane?

Because they could.

They did say they were going to have to do a little bit of an adjustment, because it came down a little too fast.

But there were people down below waiting to catch it.

And this is his little parachute.

It shows Dad in the picture here, and the dog there.

There is a whole collector's market that revolves around dogs and military service.

There's a mascot end of it, and then there's also the service dog.

And, of course, we're seeing an awful lot of that now with the bombs and IEDs.

It does mention mascot in here somewhere.

Yeah, so just rather than having a specific job to do, he's a mascot who maybe hooked his wagon to the wrong star if he didn't necessarily want to be an airborne dog.

But this is the first jump-qualified dog I think I've ever run across.

That's fantastic.

MAN: You caught his name, right?

Colonel.

Colonel Snafu.

Colonel Snafu, that's great.

So any sort of value that I put on it is going to be kind of a wild guess, but I would expect to see something like this in the neighborhood of $500 to $600.

WOMAN: My husband was an interior designer in Dallas for over 60 years.

APPRAISER: Oh, my goodness.

Back in 1969 he saw this painting, and he purchased it.

I think, if I remember correctly, that he bought it for a client's home, and they didn't like it.

Oh, no.

And so he did like it very much, and he brought it back, and we've had it, then, since 1969.

Do you remember how much he paid for it?

He paid $115 for it, and I'm sure that was with his designer's discount.

Oh, right, of course.

Well, today you've brought in a most interesting painting by William R. Hollingsworth, Jr. What do you know about the artist?

That he was born in Jackson, Mississippi, that he went to Chicago to study at the Art Institute, he met a girl there and they got married, and they wanted to stay in Chicago.

But it was the late '30s and the Depression was on, and they could not make it in Chicago, so they came back to Jackson to live with his father.

The artist actually started at the University of Mississippi... Oh, really?

...for a couple of years, and then went to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Okay.

While there, he was very influenced by Cezanne and Matisse.

But you're exactly right-- he moved back to Jackson.

And when he got there, he started working for the government in the Federal Emergency Relief Administration... Oh, really?

...that FDR had started, and he painted at night.

But at some point, around 1938, his wife knew that her husband really wanted to paint full time, so she became a dressmaker, and he no longer worked during the day-- he painted full time.

He went through bouts of depression all through his life, and 1944, he committed suicide, which is very, very sad.

So the amount of his work is really quite sparse.

Really?

In terms of his paintings, have you seen other examples of his work?

Only a few things on the internet, and I was surprised to see that he liked to paint people in the rain.

And there were several different paintings that showed people running through puddles or walking in the rain.

That's absolutely right, he loved that kind of subject matter.

He also painted landscapes, both sunsets and sunrises, and he particularly loved painting African Americans and showing their segregated culture and society.

And much of what he painted was in West Jackson, so in the area that he was living in.

He actually is most known for watercolors, so an oil like this is really quite rare.

It was done in 1940, which is a prime time for his work.

Do you have it insured for a particular price, or...?

Well, it's listed on our fine arts inventory for $500.

I see.

Do you have any idea what you think it really is worth?

Actually, no.

I've not done any research to try to find a price.

That's why I'm here.

Okay.

Well, it's very exciting to see this painting.

If this were being offered in a gallery, I believe an asking price would be $45,000.

Really?

Yes.

Well, that's wonderful, thank you.

Well, this table was in my great-great- grandfather's house, and this is a picture of the room where the table was found.

And my grandfather lived in this house when he was growing up, and then I inherited it from my mom.

If we go back to your great-great-grandfather, what date might that be?

He lived until 1916, so he was born in the mid-1800s.

I knew where this was from...

The minute you took the blanket off, I said, "I know who made it, I know when it was made, and I know where it was made."

The table is from the 1790s.

Okay, wow.

And it was made in Baltimore.

And it predates your great-great-grandfather's owning it.

And the form is called a Pembroke table.

They were made everywhere, but the Pembroke form in this case is a little bit more sophisticated than your typical table because it has bowed ends, and the bowed ends continue on into the demilune leaves.

What's special about the top is that the edge is concave.

If I tip this up, we can see that there's a beaded edge right here, and a concavity which makes it look a little bit lighter visually.

Uh-huh.

It also has compound inlays and cross-banding.

It's a mahogany table with rosewood banding on the edge, which is another feature that makes it better than your average Pembroke table.

Uh-huh.

Now, rosewood is a protected species.

It's endangered.

It comes out of the tropics just the way mahogany did.

There are movements these days to try and limit the sale and use of rosewood.

This table can be sold because it's old enough-- the rosewood was harvested long ago.

Right.

What really allows me to put this in a school of cabinet makers in Baltimore is the inlay that's on the leg.

You've got the string inlay outlining the edges of the leg, but then at the top, we have an oval... almost like a ring that's been elongated.

And from that ring are graduated bell flowers.

The bell flowers have a three-dimensionality to them, and the way they accomplish that, they'll lay it in hot sand to burn it ever so slightly.

Oh, wow.

This is the school of Levin Tarr.

Levin Tarr worked in Baltimore at the end of the 18th century.

He finished an apprenticeship in 1793.

He's first recorded as having been a cabinet maker in that city around 1794, and went on to a prolific career until about 1821.

What's really special is the condition.

This table is untouched.

The cuffs are missing, some of the banding is missing, but when it comes to American furniture, to find a piece like this that's totally pristine from a benign neglect point of view is quite rare.

Wow.

I think because of the condition and the fact that it has this grungy surface-- grungy is a good thing in this case...

Okay, good.

...I think it can safely stand an auction estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.

Wow, that is amazing.

I have to be real careful with it.

MAN: The story from my aunt says that my father won it during World War II in a poker game.

And she swears that that's the truth, so I believe her.

Where was the poker game in World War II?

Do you know which country?

Well, he was stationed in France and went up that way.

He came in the Normandy invasion and was also involved in the Battle of the Bulge, so in that area.

So you don't really know very much at all about it, other than it's a snake bracelet.

I don't, sir, no.

It's an interesting design because the first snake jewelry was the Egyptian asp.

Wow.

And it's not the time of the poker game.

It's probably 1870, 1880, it's English.

Wow.

And I would wager that that's 18 karat gold, which is very high.

And the diamonds are very good quality as well.

But what gives this very good value is that big sapphire.

If you could test it, which is very difficult, because you don't want to take it out... Sure.

...and it's got the gold around it, which is going to enhance the color, I would imagine it's Kashmir sapphire, which is the top, top, top grade of sapphire.

There are no marks on it, because it's English.

Do you have any idea?

No, I really don't, but I've never seen anything like it, and when I searched on the internet, I couldn't find anything, and everybody I talked to says they've never seen anything like it.

Well, how much would you like it to be?

Well, I'll put it this way: it doesn't really matter to me if it's a dollar.

It's a family heirloom.

It's a keepsake from my mom, who passed away in October, so it has very high sentimental value.

So, frankly, you could tell me it's worth a million dollars and it wouldn't make a darn bit of difference to me.

Not quite, but how about about $25,000 or $27,000 retail?

Well, that's wonderful.

That's nice to know, to be able to get an appraisal and have it appraised, and you can... Well, a lot of the value is the fact that it's got such a wonderful stone in the center of it.

If it were a lesser stone, it might be around $18,000 or $20,000, but I'm firmly convinced that $25,000 is a very fair retail price for it.

Well, you know, I think that's amazing, and I'm thrilled, and it's an honor to be on Antiques Roadshow, and it's wonderful, and I'm very, very pleased.

If you look at it right here, there it is.

And it's made by the Federal Glass Company between 1933 and 1937.

And the dinner plate, which they list for nine dollars for the dinner plate.

APPRAISER: Got some unusual shaping to it that makes it look very Art Deco, and as a result, it would really appeal to kids.

I think probably in the $350 to $400 price range.

This horn was bought in America, went back to England, and somehow made its way back to Fort Worth, Texas.

Yes.

It's a mystery.

I know, right?

It's really cool.

I just thought it was really crazy, yeah.

It is crazy.

MAN: My parents bought it in North Carolina, mid-'70s.

They were told it was Chinese.

They were told it's old.

None of us know how much to trust any of that information.

And they said they probably paid, like, 60 bucks.

Okay, now, have you had it appraised at all since then?

No.

And you got it from your parents because you liked it?

Yeah, we grew up with it, it's cool, and yeah.

Okay, great.

Let me tell you, maybe sort of open some doors for you on this one.

It's not Chinese, but here we have a mark that is Royal Copenhagen.

So that's Danish pottery.

We have an artist signature for Knud Kyhn, it's a stylized "KK," and it's dated in the 1930s.

So what we have is a stoneware pot.

Now, of course, this form goes back ultimately to some of the greatest potters in the world, the Chinese.

But this one is definitely Danish.

And you have these great colors, but also this wonderful giraffe motif, and that's a single running one here, and then one here.

And probably acacia trees there.

So it's just this beautiful mid-20th century piece.

Have you thought about value or anything?

I couldn't guess.

I think a good retail price for this piece by that artist is $3,000.

Interesting.

So it's really a nice piece, and it's a lot better than $60.

It's a lot better than $60.

Yeah.

WOMAN: Well, we had a good family friend that is in the music business, and he was friends with Harry Nilsson, who is one of the autographs.

And evidently, John Lennon was ill, and that family friend told the producer to take him over to see my father-in-law, who was a physician.

And he went, and I guess as a token of appreciation, he signed this, an autograph, for my husband and his two sisters.

They have one also.

Very cool.

I like this piece: one, because obviously John Lennon signed it, which is really cool; Harry Nilsson signed it, which is cool.

What I like even beyond that is the combination of the two of them, because they had a legendary friendship that goes back to the late '60s, actually.

The Beatles heard some of Harry Nilsson's demos, and when the press asked them who their favorite artists were, who their favorite American bands were, they kept promoting Harry Nilsson.

They kept saying, "Harry Nilsson."

And Paul McCartney said, "Who's your favorite band?"

"Harry Nilsson."

So they were big fans of his because they thought he was really talented.

Well, then you fast-forward all these years later, and they kind of reconnected in Los Angeles around 1973, 1974, when John Lennon was on the Lost Weekend and he was doing a lot of partying out in LA, and Harry Nilsson was invited to a party at George Harrison's house, so he was really good friends... he was very good friends with Ringo Starr.

But what I like even more than that on top of it is because it's on this letterhead...

Studio letterhead.

It's the Record Plant, and it's Record Plant Studios in New York City.

So we know a little bit about their friendship, we know all of this information about that.

And then when you put it on this paper, then I know even more specifically, I can start to narrow things down as to what was going on when they signed this.

And they collaborated.

John Lennon decided they were partying way too much in Los Angeles.

They were famously thrown out of the Troubadour Club in L.A. for heckling the Smothers Brothers the night that Harry Nilsson introduced John Lennon to Brandy Alexanders.

Wow.

So they were up to a lot of hijinks.

They weren't getting any work done in L.A. And John said, "I want to produce an album for you," so they started working on an album called Pussycats.

Okay.

And they ended up moving the production to New York.

So we now know that this is May of 1974 because they were working in the studio at the Record Plant in New York in May of 1974.

Another cool thing, there are pictures of them in that studio in New York.

It was widely covered.

Okay.

And the sessions, actually, there are so many other things about that recording session and that album when they produced it.

Because Ringo Starr was a really good friend, he came and sat in, Paul McCartney sat in on some of the sessions in Los Angeles, Stevie Wonder sat in on the sessions.

So there are a lot of people that collaborated on this album.

And they say that this album that they were working on together was the last time John Lennon and Paul McCartney were ever together in the studio.

So putting all of that together, it kind of... the simple signatures on a piece of paper tells a much bigger story for us.

And the same is true of the value.

So the other thing I can start to build from this in the value, a Harry Nilsson signature is probably worth $200 to $300.

A John Lennon signature on a piece of paper is probably worth about $2,000.

A piece of Record Plant stationery isn't really worth anything.

But when you combine it all together, it tells a full story, and you have the little doodle in John Lennon's... his famous little caricature doodle.

So putting that together, I think at auction, it would probably be closer to $4,000 to $6,000.

Awesome, that's wonderful.

Oh, wow.

Very cool.

There's two more out there, because you said your husband's sisters each have one.

Right.

And he signed some albums also.

Okay, who has the albums?

His sisters, I believe.

I don't know if my husband has one or not.

We still have to look.

I think I'd probably find out.

Right.

Because a John Lennon signature on a piece of paper is worth $2,000; a John Lennon signature on an album is worth multiples of that.

This might be the tip of the iceberg for you.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

WOMAN: This sword came down through my family from my father's family.

They were German, they lived in Missouri.

He was 11 when he came from Germany with his family, and in 1862, he joined the Union Army, the 30th Missouri Infantry, and they were sent to Louisiana and Mississippi.

And so this was presented to him by his Louisiana friends as a token of their esteem in 1864.

The presentation reads, "Presented to Lieutenant Louis Bierwith "by his Louisiana friends as a token of their esteem, July of 1864."

The 30th Regiment of Infantry of Missouri was a Union regiment.

They were known as the Shamrock Regiment, which meant that the majority of them were probably Irish.

Really?

So it's interesting what this German young man did to distinguish himself even within that group of men to be bestowed with such a magnificent gift.

This type of sword is known as a statue hilt because literally, the form of the hilt is in as a statue.

This is the most elaborate form of Civil War presentation sword.

Really?

Particularly with the Union.

Admittedly, it's not bejeweled as the most extravagant, which have diamonds and emeralds within it, but it involves a lot of detail.

It has this beautiful blade, which... it has some condition issues.

The blade isn't as sharp, the etching isn't as sharp as you want, and it was signed by Schuyler, Hartley, and Graham, which was one of the premier retailers of this sort of military equipment.

The sword itself is actually probably of German manufacture.

Oh.

Well, I was quite excited to see it.

Just to curtail our enthusiasm over it, the condition issues like the missing sword that extends here and the wear to the etching, at auction, I would estimate that this sword would be worth $10,000 to $15,000.

Wow, great.

And considerably more if it was in slightly better condition.

Mm-hmm, thank you.

So you have your research cut out for you to find out what he did for these people.

I have more research to do, yes.

I understand there's some family connection to this artist, is that correct?

Yes, this artist is my grandmother's aunt.

Let's have a look at the back of this.

Can you just read what's on the back of this, please?

It says, "To Mollie, with love and good wishes, from Pat."

Okay, and who was Pat?

Pat was Blanche Lazzell.

That was her nickname in the family.

And so she was, what, your great-aunt?

It would be my great-great aunt.

And we knew she was a famous artist from West Virginia.

Obviously, lots of things pop up when you look on the internet about her.

You know, she spent some time in New England, pretty famous in the state of West Virginia.

Yeah.

She came from a pretty big family.

I think she was the ninth of ten, is that correct?

Yes.

Yeah.

And as you say, she's a well-known artist, came from West Virginia originally.

Yes.

But was no means a parochial artist in any way.

In fact, she traveled to Europe in 1912 and was well aware of the avant garde movement there in Paris and modernism generally.

And so by the time she came back to the States and moved to Provincetown, which was a big center for the arts in 1915... and it was no coincidence that in 1915, a lot of artists were coming from Europe and America trying to get away from World War I.

Right.

So she settled there, and this is probably where these two works originate.

Here we have a watercolor, and here we have a print.

Do you know anything about these, or is there anything you can tell me about them?

Not really.

My grandmother gave me this print when I moved into my first apartment about 40 years ago because I didn't have any artwork, so... And we went and got it framed together, and just kind of always had it around.

Well, let's talk about this one first.

So this was most likely done in Provincetown, and I believe is dated, I believe.

Can you see?

1937.

It's 1937?

So that's a little later on.

In a way, this is a fairly generic work.

I mean, this could have been done by numerous different hands.

But I'm sure anyone with even a passing interest in modernist printmaking watching at home is probably going, "That's a Blanche Lazzell, that's a white line woodcut."

And that's exactly what it is.

And she was probably the best known practitioner of that form of woodcut, which was pioneered by the American artist Arthur Wesley Dow based on the Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

And the way that they did it was they would have a single block of wood and they would etch into it, they would carve that line, and each raised area would then be inked up separately.

So it's interesting in a way because although it's a multiple, although it's a block print, each one in its way is a unique print as well.

This is a really nice example of it.

There is a price differential.

Which do you think would be more valuable?

After listening to that, I'd probably say the top one.

I'm glad you were listening.

You're quite right.

So this one, funnily enough, at auction, probably worth about $1,500 to $2,500.

Now, for some of her works, original, unique works, oils or watercolors, they'll make a lot more than that.

This is a nice piece, but that's around about the value of it.

This one I spent quite a bit of time talking to my colleague in the print table.

And these are very much in demand just now.

And I think conservatively, at auction, this would be worth $30,000 to $50,000.

Wow.

Now, I'm going to qualify that because in fact, we found another one.

This one is entitled, as we see here, The White Sail.

Right.

I found one other version of it that came up at auction back in 1990, and the estimate then was $10,000 to $15,000.

It didn't sell.

However, my colleague and I, we found one that is almost like a reverse image of this, it's very similar to it, called The Sailboat.

And that sold in 2012 for just a little over $100,000.

Wow.

So it would not surprise me in the least if this one far exceeded the estimate that I gave you.

It's hard to believe it survived my apartment in good condition.

Oh, really?

(laughs) We're not sure.

It may be oil, but that's what I need to find out.

With a kind of neat family history on it, a cup like this from that 1860 period from England would probably sell in an antique shop somewhere at around the $800 to $1,000 price range.

Yay, awesome!

It's a nice little piece.

So we always have this crossover between what is an antique and what is craft.

And because it's signed 1990, it definitely has that craft feel to it.

I think it's wonderful.

WOMAN: My husband's great-grandfather owned a jewelry store, and when he married, he took his wife on a wedding buying trip to New York City, and at one of the places, she saw these vases and admired them, but he said they couldn't afford them and he didn't buy them for her.

And when they received the shipment, these vases were included with a congratulatory letter on their wedding.

So they've been in the family ever since.

Yeah.

So when was this wedding trip to New York?

It was 1866.

Okay.

These were made by Auguste Jean, who was a Parisian glassblower.

He was born in Paris about 1830.

He won a bronze medal at the Universal Exposition in 1878 for his glass blowing and became very, very popular in the 1880s and 1890s for his work.

And these two vases with the Japonesque decoration to them and the trails, very typical of his works that he'd do.

Exceedingly rare pieces.

I'm so excited you brought these in today because this is the first time I've seen these in my hands.

Love them.

Any idea of what the value is today?

I have no idea.

I have loved them ever since they came to live in my house.

Yes.

The value today at retail is between $3,000 and $5,000.

Wow, for the pair?

For the pair.

Thank you.

APPRAISER: Where did you get it?

WOMAN: Last year from a Dallas estate sale.

And what did you pay?

$25.

All right, now, what do you think this is?

I've read Chinese furniture books, so I know this is kind of a stool.

This is a stool, and it would have been made in a set.

Now, what's unusual about this stool is the shape, and this is a very specific shape called a drum stool, because it is based on an ancient Chinese drum.

We know that by this kind of squat form.

Lower, yes.

Low form.

And importantly, these little bosses going around the edge, do you know what those are?

Looks like buttons to me.

Well, they're not buttons.

They're actually representing brass or bronze tacks that were hammered into the surface, securing a leather surface to the top in the original drum design that goes way back-- way, way back.

It's an ancient shape.

This is a type of Asian hardwood that's called hongmu.

So the other thing that's a major feature that helps us to understand more about this is the way that this is joined together, because Chinese furniture has a very interesting set of joinery techniques.

And I want you to look right here at the base.

You'll see protruding are these pegs, there and there.

And they're around every leg, and there'll be a peg underneath, and there are pegs on the interior that are securing the joints.

And the fact that these pegs protrude are indicative that the wood has shrunk and the pegs are being pushed out from the surface.

And that is indicative of something that is of great age that was likely made in the early 18th century in this kind of very elegant design.

Complicated to make, it required great skill of a very talented craftsman.

I think this, at auction, realistically, would sell in the $5,000 to $8,000 range.

That's great.

But I'm going to keep it.

(both laughing) MAN: My great-great-grandfather went from Central Missouri to the California Gold Rush.

The first letter is written from Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Some of the others are from Sacramento City, which became Sacramento.

Rough and Ready, California.

Some of the other letters are from his mother and father, and his girlfriend that later became my great-great-grandmother wrote back to him.

He was going out to make his fortune, I take it.

Well, that's what everybody went to the Gold Rush for, I'm sure.

There must have been a large group of them from Central Missouri that went on a wagon train, because he's writing back home and giving reports on mutual acquaintances-- their health and their fortunes and that sort of thing.

These letters are mostly from 1850, '51, in that period.

The Gold Rush started in 1849, so he wasn't the first very, very early wave.

Constantly when I was reading through these, he was talking about, "Well, maybe I'll stay another year, maybe I'll stay another year."

Do you ever know if he hit gold?

I assume not.

By the dates on the letters and the other information I have, he must not have stayed more than two or three years.

Now, part of that, it takes quite a while to go and quite a while to come back.

He returned to Central Missouri and got into the farming and ranching and state politics, and was quite a successful, well-known, and well-respected man.

So you have about a dozen letters.

Have you ever had these appraised or had anyone look at them or...?

No, they've just been passed down from generation to generation.

We're going to keep them in the family.

Yeah, and you said something, though, that at one point, the family transcribed them.

Yeah, I have them printed up in a loose-leaf book.

Yeah, I always advise that because it's a good idea because that way, if people really want to see them, studying future generations, they don't actually have to have the letters.

They're great letters.

He was very well written.

So when you read these letters... a lot of times, when you read a letter about the Gold Rush, a diary, a war, "It's cold," "It's hot," but you don't really get a feel for it.

And these letters really made it feel like you were in California with him, you were with his friends.

Yeah, he kind of paints the picture, doesn't he?

He does paint the picture.

As they are now, in the plastic, I would say that conservatively, a retail price would be $3,000 to $5,000.

Then with a little bit of checking, it would be nice if they could be removed from the plastic, but that could be a job in and of itself.

But $3,000 to $5,000.

Okay, thank you for the information.

So he did get something valuable out of the Gold Rush-- the letters.

Yeah.

So this is an artist who does a lot of these reverse works on glass.

Looks like it may be a combination of both print as well as hand coloring.

APPRAISER: And I guess it would have just sat on a desk or a mantel, but the thing is, without the sort of top, it is kind of a pale kind of imitation of what it used to be.

Okay.

But it's a lovely little neat thing, and it probably is a copy of a French lamp post.

On a scale of one to ten, his moustache is, like, an 11.

I know, we've got to get a picture of you guys.

Coming from you, that's an honor.

I love to see what you're wearing every night when I watch the show.

Well, thank you.

So you brought something today from your favorite golfer.

I sure did-- Jack, I love him.

What'd you bring for us?

Okay, I brought a five-pound note from Scotland that I got Jack to sign at an opening of one of his golf courses.

We see an image here of you standing in line.

Well, actually, I was the first one to get an autograph, so I know that's the note he's signing.

So it's a commemorative note made to celebrate his farewell in 2005, for the last time he played the British Open.

Oh, really?

And that's what it was issued for.

Oh, I didn't know that.

You're the lucky recipient of an autograph on top of that.

Yes.

So the currency is made more valuable by your favorite golfer's autograph on it.

He was really nice.

He was supposed to show us how to play his new course, but it got... it was raining, so we went in and had a talk.

And I was able to ask him the question of how he managed to get on the Scottish pound, being an American.

And he said, "Because they asked me."

So what do you think it's worth?

At least five pounds.

There you go, you're right about that.

At auction, we value this at about $300 to $500.

Really?

Absolutely.

That's like a hole in one, isn't it?

(laughs) WOMAN: I brought these candlesticks from my mother-in-law's estate.

And you know, it's a set of the four.

APPRAISER: Uh-huh.

She loved them.

I know that they're special, but I don't know what their value is.

Did she ever tell you anything about them?

She saw them when she was traveling and she wanted them.

And I think that maybe she didn't get them while she was there.

I think she was in maybe England, I don't know.

So she came home and wanted them and called back and got them.

So she saw them, she fell in love.

She saw them, could not forget them, bought them.

That's the way to do it.

So are you ready to find something out about them?

Yeah, please, tell me something about them.

So when you first look at these, you know that they're something special.

Yes, they're beautiful.

They have the beautiful design.

And the reason collectors really love English silver is that it's really well hallmarked.

So you can go into your books, I can see that the maker is Emick Romer, and he is a silversmith working in the 18th century in London.

The year is 1761.

Wow, 1761, okay.

And they were made in London.

Okay, great.

So these are very early George III candlesticks.

Beautiful.

And they're really quite nice.

They're very special.

There's a little bit of wear, as you would expect to see from... That many years of use, yeah.

When we look over here at this candlestick...

Yes, okay.

...this piece is marked with the maker's mark and the sterling mark.

Okay.

So we know that these all belong together.

What very often happens...

So the four were made together.

The four were made together.

What very often happens is one of these pieces might get lost.

Right.

So you don't have, necessarily, real associated... you get an associated piece.

But these are marked, and we know they were all together.

Do you have any idea what your mother-in-law might have paid for them?

A couple of thousand, several thousand, maybe.

If these came up for auction, a set of four George III candlesticks, it would probably bring in the $8,000 to $10,000 ballpark at auction.

Wow, okay, that's great.

Yeah?

Yeah, no, that's more.

You happy?

Yeah, very happy.

It's James Madison's personal seal.

It's James Madison's personal seal.

Now, how do you know that?

It's what I've always been told my whole life-- that we have President James Madison's seal.

And how did your family get this?

My grandfather's grandmother, her brother was married to Dolly Madison's niece.

Okay.

And that's the connection I have, and somehow or another, it came down through the family.

So the connection was through Dolly Madison's niece to you.

Mm-hmm.

How long has it been in your family?

At least 100 years.

When you said it's James Madison's seal, I was really skeptical.

It does have the initials "JM" on the seal.

And Madison's personal motto was "Veritas non verba magistri"-- "Truth, not the word of teachers."

We know, in fact, that that was James Madison's motto.

And you found that, right?

Yes.

How did you find that?

On the internet.

I found letters where he had requested that James Barber, a friend of his, obtain some seals for him.

So you showed me this information, and it was pretty astounding because in September of 1828, James Madison wrote a letter to his friend James Barber, who was in London at the time, saying, "Dear Mr. Barber, "would you order me a seal while you're there?

"And I'd like it to be modest-- "I don't want you to spend a lot of money on it.

"It doesn't have to be a really fancy stone.

"But I want my initials, and I want my motto on the seal."

Correct.

Then a few months later...

He gets it.

...Barber writes him back and says, "I went to Pall Mall, "found someone who can make the seal, and I hope you like it."

Yes.

And so he presumably then brought it back to the United States when he came back.

Now, Barber was who?

At one time, he was governor of Virginia.

So a guy that Madison would have naturally known very well from his political career.

When you look at this, it looks like it's gold, but it's not gold.

It's rolled gold, which is a brass that's plated with gold.

And that stone is agate.

This was ordered in 1828, so this was after Madison was president.

He was our fourth president, and he was in office from 1809 to 1817, so it would have been used after he'd left Washington.

Wax seals are things that we don't use as Americans today, and really, who writes a letter anymore, right?

We email.

But it is a remarkable artifact from a guy who was called the Father of our Constitution, the drafter of the Bill of Rights.

It's got a little condition problem.

It's got a crack in the seal.

But nonetheless, I think a good auction estimate of value of this seal is somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.

Really?

Wow, I would not have thought that.

I... wow.

I'm impressed.

That's cool.

Well, I brought my father.

He was Joe C. Fortenberry, and he was captain and high scorer of the first Olympic basketball team in Berlin, Germany in 1936.

They beat Canada, and he scored eight points in the last game, and the score was 19-8.

Played in a driving rain and mud.

So this is the first year that basketball was included as an Olympic event.

Yes.

As you said, the U.S. wins 19-8 in a downpour that turned the clay and sand surface they had to play on into mud.

Just a mess, absolute mess.

No dribbling-- you just had to throw it.

And it was a driving rain.

Right.

And what did your father tell you about the game?

Well, he said it was a joke.

He said it was Hitler's fault.

Hitler said basketball should be an outdoor sport, so they had it outdoor on a clay court.

Right.

So that's the way it was.

Right, which unfortunately for the game was a terrible way to start basketball being an Olympic event.

But ultimately, a great result for the U.S., getting the gold medal.

Tell us some more about your father's career in basketball.

Well, he went to a little school called West Texas in Canyon, Texas, and they were the tallest team in the world back then.

Everybody was over six feet back then.

He was 6'7".

Then he went on to play in the AAU for industrial teams.

The McPherson Oilers was the team that he played for that went to the Olympics.

And then later, he played for the Phillips 66ers.

And he is credited by the New York Times in 1936 with inventing the slam dunk.

So he's credited with being one of the first, if not the first, to do a slam dunk.

Yes.

He's also the reason, or one of the reasons, for goaltending, because there was no goaltending.

He would just jump up and swat the ball away, and finally-- I don't know when they did it-- they decided, "We can't let them do that."

And also they used to have a jump ball after every made basket, and he would get every jump ball.

Right.

So they got rid of that, too.

He changed rules of basketball.

Yes, he did.

So he was the star of the Olympic team.

Yes.

He was one of the stars of the Phillips 66 Oilers.

Yes, 66ers.

Which was an AAU team, but it was the premier league for the United States.

They were the best ones in the world.

Before the NBA came along.

I have this great memory when I was in high school out in front of our house, shooting goals and trying to dunk it.

And I'm a little challenged-- I was only 6'2".

And he came home, he has his hat on and his pipe, he's about 55, takes his hat off, takes his pipe out, says, "Well, maybe I can still do that."

He jumps straight up and dunks it two-handed at the age of 55.

His pipe goes flying, and then he has this funny grin on his face and he says, "I don't think I'll ever do that again."

That's unbelievable.

We have his Olympic gold medal that you've brought today.

We also have a great photo, what we thought was a great shot, because it has him doing a slam dunk.

Yep.

The gold medal is in the original box.

Now, regarding the condition, it's in near-pristine condition with just one mentionable.

We have one line running through the "L-I-N" of "Berlin."

Uh-huh.

Which I believe is perhaps a flaw in the minting process rather than a scratch.

Oh, okay.

Will that affect the value?

I don't expect that to affect the value.

What kind of value have you read about on the medal?

What can you tell me about the medal?

Well, one of his teammates had one and had it sold last year, but it had had a hole drilled in it and used as a necklace.

And I believe it sold for $66,000.

So I think this is a premium, and I'm prejudiced, but my father was important in basketball history, so I think it's worth $100,000.

We had a previous medal in 2015 the family brought in to the Antiques Roadshow in Tucson, that medal that you saw later sold at auction.

It was from a family member, and at that time, that was the only gold medal from the 1936 Olympics basketball team to ever come up not only for auction, but even to surface for the public to see.

Oh, okay.

So now we have the second one that we've seen come up that somebody is showing the public.

Definitely a museum piece.

So we do have that comparison-- $67,000, the one you talked about-- the condition it was in was much lesser condition.

This one, the importance of your father, his impact to the game, is huge, and this is by far the most important U.S. gold medal that we've seen come in at the sports table at Antiques Roadshow.

Oh, boy.

I would put a value of this, at auction, of $100,000 to $150,000.

Wow.

I was right, more or less.

Thank you.

That is incredible.

And for insurance, I would easily put a value on it of $175,000.

Wow.

Well, it'll go back in the lock box.

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

And I brought my Kewpie doll in here today.

I found out it was worth nowhere near what I paid for it, but I had an amazing time and it was absolutely wonderful.

I brought with me an unopened original copy in the sleeve, in the cellophane, copy of the original operating system which was the precursor to MS-DOS.

I was hoping that it was going to be extremely valuable, but ding dong dang it, dag snatch it, Jiminy Cricket, it wasn't.

Giddy-up!

BOTH: Whoo-hoo!

I actually brought four beautiful cups which I thought they were, like, platinum or silver.

Found out they were aluminum from the 1940s, and they're about $70.

So I'm still happy I came, and I had a great time.

We came to the Roadshow with highest of hopes, and we're leaving the Roadshow happiest of folks.

Thank you, Roadshow, we had a great time.

She came up with that all by herself.

(both laughing) I found out my grandmother's Barbie is worth $300.

And I found out my ring is plastic.

But everyone loved our Barbie wigs.

Everyone.

This is worth more than we paid for it, so we're happy.

And the Antiques Roadshow is fun to watch, but it's so much more fun to participate in.

Bye!

I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.