Antiques Roadshow.

Experts have the eye of the tiger at Louisiana State University's Rural Life Museum.

Sharp knives were outlawed because of too many, I think too many dinnertime fights.

You're kidding.

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The Rural Life Museum has a wide assortment of utilitarian objects that were invaluable to their owners for their functionality.

But it also has treasured artworks by the beloved Louisiana artist Clementine Hunter, a prolific self-taught painter who lived at the Melrose plantation and Natchitoches Parish for most of her life.

Hunter started painting in her late fifties.

She worked all day in the plantation house, then painted at night.

On any surface she could find, Five of Hunter's artworks at the museum are painted with oil on canvas board and showcase the common themes of her work.

Laboring in the fields, daily chores and religious events.

Did we see any paintings of the prolific Clementine Hunter today?

Take a look.

How are you today?

We're doing great.

It's a bucket list muffins, hoping it is a Louie the 15th little slide table where I work.

The lady has this piece and I said, I'll trade you a desk for that.

She goes, okay, I loved it.

But she said, Mom, we have to get rid of it.

I want this.

And I'm like.

It was something from my mom's mother, my grandmother.

This is the house mobile.

It was made in Germany by a company named Hess.

Now, look on the roof.

Here you see these dots?

That's cause from bubble wrap.

I would just use some soap and water, and all those imperfections are going to stay.

They won't be quite as noticeable.

Right here.

I brought the defenders number one, page one, and I think it's from 1972.

It's this page.

And where did you get the page from?

I bought it online.

I was stationed in Iraq back in six and seven.

I saw it go on sale, so I decided to buy it.

And I believe I paid around 7000 for it, which was a lot.

But I had combat pay.

So I use my combat pay to pay for this baby.

I didn't see it for over a year.

I to wait till I come back to the United States.

You are correct in that.

Yes.

This is page one from Defenders One.

When you first came to the table today.

Yeah.

Literally.

I had to control my eyeballs from exploding out of my head.

That's how good this page pages.

Really?

Yes, absolutely.

No one else ever seems to like it for me.

So.

Well, you've met the second guy that likes it right there with you.

Yeah.

So the defenders, very interesting team of heroes when it comes to Marvel.

While this is Defenders One, they were actually first introduced in Marvel feature one in December 1971.

The defenders were portrayed as the first non team, really when it comes to Marvel Comics, because prior to this you had the Fantastic Four, you have the X-Men, you have the Avengers, you have all these people have come to back together as a concrete team, whereas when the Defenders first came, you're three initial members are the Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange and No More The Submariner From 1972 to 1986, the Defenders had a revolving door of characters that were included.

I mean, you had Valkyrie, Son of Satan and Luke Cage.

They included Silver Surfer becoming a member officially of the Defenders in Issue two.

But let's get to the page itself.

So you have Sal Buscema on the pencils and you have Frank Jekyll on the inks.

It's just such an eye catching page.

It really good condition.

It does have some toning to it.

Have you ever had this appraised before or anything like that?

Yeah, it's probably got 2011 and it was a $400, which really disappointed me.

Okay.

Well, I am happy to report that we're going to give you a lot better news.

Okay.

$400 today if this were to come up for auction and a properly well advertised setting, I would put a catalog estimate on it of 15 to $20000.

Whoa, whoa.

And I wouldn't be surprised personally if that high estimate would be exceeded, if not doubled, because just as a comparison, you know, being original artwork.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're getting say yeah, because it's like click.

It is.

That's more than I paid for it.

And that $400, I was so disappointed because like, I love this and I'm not trying to put prices on my paper babies as I call them, but I didn't think it was respectful.

That's how I felt.

I appreciate you coming.

I'm happy.

Cause, baby, I knew.

I knew you were worthwhile.

I really did.

It's a great piece.

thank you.

I love it.

Recently, in 2022, the cover two defenders.

One brought over a quarter million dollars at auction.

This is a piece that my mother had on her baby grand piano in her living room.

I think she probably got it on her 25th wedding anniversary.

So what year was the wedding anniversary?

Year, 1940.

And it's made by a company called Meriton.

And they were experts at making silver plates.

okay.

So it's got a nice, wonderful silver layer over it.

But it's not solid sterling.

You've got still have the silver plating to it, which is great.

Most people polished it all off.

So thank you for not doing that.

We see pieces like this come to auction a lot.

They bring good money, not only great money, but they make good money.

So piece like this at auction will sell for about 3 to $500.

Okay.

Okay.

And I'm.

I would be pleased that I still have it.

And I think she'll be pleased that I brought it here.

these are pictures that were purchased from Clementine Hunter on my Life in about 1968, 69 at the time, she was going to school in north Louisiana and had heard about the artist and drove to Melrose Plantation and asked if there were some pictures available.

And Clementine offered these two pictures to her and was very apologetic because that's the only two the she had that day show.

And my wife, both of them, and paid $10 apiece.

My wife's impression was that she was very humble individual who was almost embarrassed to be asking money for what she loved to do.

These are great.

They're really good looking.

They pop.

Visually, the image is somewhat naive.

Typical of Clementine style, obviously really captured with great honesty figures in everyday life, whether fishing.

Whether involved with hauling cotton.

Baptisms, weddings and funerals.

There was a feature about her in Look magazine in 1953, but it was really around the 1970s that people really began to take note the art community at large.

It's interesting, depending upon what you read about her, she painted thousands of paintings.

I don't know that we know exactly the number.

It's worth noting that there are paintings on the market that bear the distinctive initialed signature of Clementine Hunter's The Sea in the H joint.

There are some on the market that are dubious, that are not right, that are fakes.

I believe each is an original oil on board.

Each was probably executed right around circa 1960.

I would note that the frames appear to be later than the paintings.

Did you have the frames put on afterward, or were they acquired this way?

No, they were put on afterwards to try to protect the painting.

The market for artists who during a lot of their lifetime were not recognized, were not really given their due by the art world.

Times have changed on the supposition that each is genuine and given the extraordinary provenance as you've explained it, I think I would probably want to insure the two together for $10,000.

Well, that's incredible.

That's a big jump from $10.

But I'm gonna have to do that now in a venture for the $10,000.

Now, that's just incredible.

Kudos to my wife.

This small structure referred to as the single pen slave cabin, was constructed around 1840 and moved here in 1971.

It was originally on the Whelan plantation in St James Parish, Louisiana.

The cabin across from it has two units designed with the double fireplace in the center of the building.

Boards would be put across the ceiling beams and layered with quilts, making space for seven or more people to sleep in this tiny cabin.

You brought this great pair of Michael Jordan.

Not single sign, but double sign kicks.

You got to tell us, how did you get them?

It's the 1997 All-Star Weekend.

Michael Jordan gives the shoes to Mr. Eric Martin.

Eric Martin played for the Saints for nine seasons.

He was a Pro Bowler.

He's in the Saints Hall of Fame.

Eric Martin then gave the shoes to Dr. Tommy Kam.

Dr. Tommy is the head of marketing, the sports branding for Lce Players.

TOM He's been a mentor for me most of my life and Tommy then gave the shoes to me as a nice gift for Christmas holiday graduation.

and you're graduating from LSU, LSU.

Gonzalez Go Tigers.

When he gave them to me, I kind of pushed him back at them because I did tell him with the story and I, look, I don't have anything this nice.

What does Michael Jordan mean to you?

he's the best.

He's the goat.

He's the all around player.

He was a fierce competitor.

And I love it.

And he's a bigger brand today than ever.

Jordan not only revolutionized basketball when he entered the league in 1984, he revolutionized the sneaker industry when he was drafted by the Bulls in 84.

He could have signed with Adidas because Adidas and Converse.

Those were the two big manufacturers of basketball shoes.

And Nike was a distant third.

If if even that, they were best known for track and field sneakers and they were having a problem with sales and they put it all in the line, they offered Jordan's family, these parents, they did the deal, 250,000.

But his parents came back and said, Michael wants a percentage of every shoe sale and they gave it to him 5%.

So the first year of sales, they thought maybe we'll sell 3 million.

They sold $126 million of Air Jordans.

It's ridiculous.

That is insane.

And part of the marketing was they had an aerosol technology they were using and they decided to go with Air Jordan for the air sold.

Hey, you.

Fast forward today.

Michael Jordan has made probably 15 to 20 times more through his deal with Nike than he ever did in his career in 2022 alone.

And remember, he retired in 2003.

Michael Jordan Brand.

Air Jordans sneakers, $5.1 billion when we're valuing sneakers.

Right.

We've got signed.

We've got game issued and then we've got game used.

And you had the sneakers he used for the bulls and the sneakers that they produced for the All Star games.

And they would produce editions because every time that would be more sales for Nike, the ones that we found that were in the game.

You see this little Air Jordan, the logo here, the logo man that was actually in red.

We've got dual signed Michael Jordan sneakers.

We know.

We know your provenance, Right?

But we don't know how much he wore them or if he wore them.

So an auction estimate on these 10 to $15000, that's that's a lot higher than I was expecting.

But I know that the market just constantly growing of more sneakerheads and people are just falling in love with collecting these shoes.

It's cool to just kind of be a part of this whole sneaker scene and to have just such a cultural icon like Michael Jordan and to have something of his is.

It means a lot.

Don't wear them.

Never wants no shot.

You're talking anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands if they're worn in an actual game.

Inherited this from my mother about three years ago where she got it.

I don't know.

But she had it for a long time.

She was from Oklahoma.

Okay.

And I'm assuming this would be from Oklahoma.

It's from the southwestern plains made by a Kiowa woman.

The Kiowa people.

An extraordinary tribe, Horsemen, equestrians of the first order.

And they chased the buffalo from north to south, east to west.

They originated in Western British Columbia.

Canada.

Came down through western Montana and the Rocky Mountains migrated following the buffalo herds on horseback, down into the southern plains, just post-Civil War.

Things were changing dramatically for Native Americans, particularly west of the Mississippi.

Reservations were being established.

The ability to roam freely was being seriously eroded.

In 1867, a treaty was signed.

The Medicine Lodge Treaty, and they lost their freedom to just roam.

And thousands of kayakers were sequestered on a reservation in South western Oklahoma on about 2.8 million acres.

A large amount of land, but not not so large when you consider what they had come from the Kiowa today or a proud nation.

And this is a tribute to their heritage.

It's a vital, vital tribe.

This dates to 18, 19, 1900.

This is a young woman's dress.

The hide is dear.

It's made of tanned, would have been softened and prepared with the mashed up grains of deer that would provide both acid and lanolin.

And then we have quite a bit of trade material on this.

The glass beads from Europe.

The ribbons may well have been from France.

I'm not certain about that.

But Europe.

These shells are from Africa.

They're cowry shells.

At the very bottom there are tin cone dangles.

Those would have been appropriated from food containers or snuff boxes.

The long, long, long fringed the Kiowa are famous for their ability to fringed garments.

If it got wet, the hide sheds water quickly and it evaporates.

But in addition, when the lady is moving, the fringe moves and it's just very, very poetic.

The Kiowa, they are renowned for their beadwork and their design.

Every element of this is carefully considered.

This woman is really quite skilled.

It's not the first dress she made, I can tell you that much.

This was an individually owned object.

Yes.

Not a clan object that would have affected the potential sale ability.

A native tribe might wish to have certain things back in their possession, rightfully so.

I don't believe this is one of them.

On a retail basis, I would value this at around $7,000.

It's highly desirable.

I can't tell you how much we enjoy seeing this.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I really do.

How much do you have to pay for it?

$10.

Because I'm always the one that says, Don't buy it.

Don't get that.

We don't need it.

But of course, if you do that, that's a great.

I know that it's from my partner's grandpa, and we use it every day.

We looked it up and tried to find the sleeping Charlie Chaplin, and we couldn't, so we thought maybe it was worth something.

I should have wiped it down.

I feel bad shoe.

This is my husband's grandfather's watch.

It was a watch that we actually found while cleaning out a home after his aunt passed away about two years ago.

My husband's grandfather served in World War One.

After the war, he stayed in Europe and toured a little while.

And we think that's when he purchased it, possibly in France.

This watch, which is a Patek Philippe, probably the finest watch company in the in the world, was probably made between 1915 and maybe 1918.

It's an early luminescent dial and the condition is like untouched.

Patek Philippe, which is one of the earliest watch companies.

They started as a pocket watch maker in 1839 and they transitioned into wristwatches.

This is probably one of the first versions of their wristwatches.

This is an 18 karat gold yellow case.

This particular watch was a man's watch.

The luminescent dial was really distinctive of Patek Philippe, which kind of set a style for everybody.

It was a ground setting kind of watch.

Their production has never been large.

It still isn't today.

They don't make a lot of watches, but they make the finest watches in the world.

This was handmade, probably one off movements, one off cases.

They probably only made one a day of this style case.

The condition is really, really nice to see.

Most of them have been refinished or damaged.

And your watch is immaculate.

The dials, all original dials probably made out of sterling silver with a luminescence.

The dial says Patek Philippe, and it's actually in Boston enamel.

Most of the time when these dials deteriorate or they get refinished, the enamel comes out.

The swatch has all the right characteristics.

Even the crystals original.

When this swatch was manufactured, this dial probably glowed.

You could see it in nighttime when you walk down the street.

That's the loom part of it.

A watch in this condition, which is really rare probably in today's market, would be about a 40 to $50000 watch retail.

Okay.

And very collectible and very desirable.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I think there may be a fight to the finish on who's going to wear it next.

Even rolled this now as I was blown away.

What's the story with this?

After high school, I hooked up with a carnival and traveled around for a couple of years.

And during that time, the owner, Don Moyer, taught me to eat fire.

I had to teach my magic show, basically.

And then?

Then he gave me the banner.

He gave me the banner years later, or just at the end of the know during the carnival.

I used it.

Yeah.

So.

So kids, I've had this for for over 40 years.

Is there a secret that you.

Well, there's lots of secrets.

I really don't share that with too many people, though, because this is fairly dangerous.

I had to ask.

Yeah.

Did you ever get burned?

I did.

And you were the fire eater.

You were.

Wait.

You were this guy?

Yeah, This was me.

How old were you?

I was probably 21.

The wonderful thing is that, as you know, part of the story.

But you brought in a Fred Johnson circus banner, which is great folk art, first of all.

And it's a great document of our our country's history of having circuses, traveling circuses.

And here I am with the guy that ate the fire.

Right.

That's so cool.

Fred Johnson has been called the Picasso of Circus Man.

That's how major he is.

This is an impressive one.

And the great thing is that it is signed down here in the lower right.

Fred Johnson And you have O Henry Tent and Awning Company in Chicago, Illinois.

And right there is the date, 1940.

So this is rather early in his career.

He worked for the O. Henry Tent, an awning company in Chicago, Illinois, from 1934 to 74.

It's wonderful folk art.

It's very visual.

I would say conservatively you could put a value of 4000 to $6000 an auction estimate.

Okay.

And it's but of course, you're never going to sell it, right?

No.

You're ever going to sell it.

Now, could you show me?

Not now.

Now that I've done some for you have.

Give me.

Can you do the firing?

No, no, no.

Okay.

All right.

The Re Vigor tour water dispenser was an early 20th century version of an enhanced water product, but one that posed more of a health risk than benefit.

The ceramic croc was lined with radioactive materials like uranium that would leach into the water.

Although the makers claim the water created in the croc, which year everything from arthritis to flatulence to senility, it actually held potential for radon toxicity, arsenic and lead poisoning.

This is a shield that's been hanging in my dining room, my husband and I.

His mother was an avid anti collector and she passed away.

And after she passed, we found this in the attic probably around 1999.

And my husband thought it was really cool.

And so we hung it in our dining room.

He has since passed away, but it was something that he very much adored.

He loved the roadshow.

This was one thing that he always talked about whenever we thought about things that we would bring if we ever got a chance to go to the roadshow.

He always said that he would bring this shield.

So it's very special.

Yes, it's a electroplating silver shield.

It's made by Elkington and Company out of Birmingham, England.

They sort of were on the forefront of the electroplating process.

It's a thin, thin layer of silver over a base metal.

And it was designed by Leonhard Morrell Le Doy.

He was a French artist.

He died in 1888, but he designed the shield, having in mind that he was going to design it for the 1867 Paris exhibition, where it did win a gold medal.

And after that, the gold medal and the shield are the original shield, which was in silver and Sterling, are now at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

After that, the Elkington company produced many replicas and sold them.

They were replicas in electroplating.

So on the front, after the artist's signature, it's dated 1866.

Copies of these were sold after 1867, and this is one of those copies.

It was purely promotional to help them sell their more everyday wares that they made.

This is called the Milton Shield, because the imagery that inspired this buy by the sculptor was John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost.

In the Middle.

You've got the Angel Rafael and Adam and Eve, you know, being cast out.

And they were made for purely decorative purposes.

They come up at auction in varying degrees of condition, and they consistently bring around 4000 to $6000 at auction.

Wow.

Well, thank you.

We were going through my grandmother's attic after she had passed away in 2004, and we found this in her belongings.

I brought a program from the Wisconsin Iowa game and a letter.

My grandmother was a big football fan, and she and my grandfather went to the 1939 Wisconsin game.

When they came back home, they brought the program and gave it to my mother and her sister.

They were twins.

And each of them looked to the program and decided to write to one of the players.

And my and ended up writing to someone from Iowa.

My mom wrote to someone from from Wisconsin and who was written to for Iowa.

For Iowa.

My Aunt Jean wrote Volcanic Oak and for Wisconsin, my mother wrote for Bert Connelly.

Well, the Kinnick pick was probably the smarter pick problem.

And why?

Well, he was a Heisman Trophy winner that year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So now Kinnick was the fifth ever Heisman Trophy winner of 1939.

She got the letter back in November of that year.

He won the Heisman Trophy a month later in December.

So technically, it's a pre Heisman Trophy letter written by now Kinnick.

If you don't mind, what does the letter say?

It says, Dear Gene, may I say that you and your sister are very cute.

Very cute indeed.

Best wishes.

Now, Kinnick, that's fantastic.

So here in the photo we have we have the.

The two girls.

Yeah, I put it.

That's my Aunt Jean.

She wrote the letter, and the one on my side is my mom, Jane.

He didn't go on to play professional football.

He won no part of that.

What did he do after he won the Heisman Trophy?

He went to law school like my husband, because the world needs more lawyers.

So he went to law school, did that for a year, Did well.

He was a third ranked law student in this class, but he didn't finish that ever the high achiever.

He enlisted in the Navy.

He enlisted as a Naval air reserve.

And that's part of what becomes morbid about his story, is that's where he met his tragic end on June 2nd, 1943.

He was training routine training expedition off the coast of Venezuela.

His plane had an oil leak.

He followed all procedures, everything he was trained to do.

Tried to land, ultimately died when he hit the water.

Wow.

But he was never found.

And ultimately, now Kinnick became the fifth Heisman Trophy winner, the first to die.

And now what we have today is the because of the circumstances, the most rare Heisman Trophy autograph out there.

He was 24.

He was a month short of BP becoming 25.

What a loss.

my gosh.

You've got.

I didn't know that I knew was a Heisman Trophy winner, but I didn't know that.

I love the provenance.

I love what the girls did and how they wrote.

When my 11 year old daughter watches this, I can't wait because this is how you that's how you write to people.

You know, Dear Mr. Kinnick, I am eight years old and my name is Jean.

When my grandmother went to the Wisconsin football game, she gave us a program.

It's just so polite.

And sure enough, you wrote back.

They're very cute.

Iowa one, 1913.

The condition of the program.

Yeah, it's taped along the spine.

It's got some creasing.

It's got some tearing that action.

Let's give it $100 value because we like, we love.

Now, Kinnick, you've got a card in here.

It's a 1955 bomb and this probably grades at a two, which on a 1 to 10 scale.

it's on the lower end of that spectrum.

Not a lot of value.

I'd be remiss to say that's more than $100.

Well, that's more than I pay for.

It is 25.

There you go.

Have you any idea of of the value of such a thing, of such an autograph?

No, not from what you're describing.

$1,000 or something.

We think that at auction, this piece could sell for 15000 to $20000.

You're kidding.

my God.

My husband's going to be so excited.

I'm excited.

Are you sure?

Pretty confident.

my God.

That's.

Wow.

Gosh, We think you could ensure this piece for $50,000.

my gosh.

Yes, I do.

Sorry.

Listen.

Well, thank you.

Think.

this one.

Listen, when you came, I was very excited.

I was right.

Well, I'm excited now.

How are we going to get it home?

Very carefully.

Carefully.

I've owned it for 12 or 13 years.

Bought it from a woman that she said her mom owned it in the sixties, early seventies.

It always stayed under plastic.

She was never allowed to sit on it.

I've never seen another one like it.

Well, you know, I've done this since the 1980s.

I've done modern furniture, 20th century design, and I can tell you that I've never seen one either.

The plastic did help, but it's in fantastic condition.

I wanted to add some sort of, like, medicinal purpose, you know, that could hurt your back or possibly if you just drank way too much because it goes both ways, right?

You know, you get from this side or this.

Exactly.

That's as far back as I can get.

there you go.

When I was a little girl, probably about nine years old, my dad had a peanut farm in Charleston, South Carolina.

And one day he came home with this old gentleman he found in the woods.

He was just had an old shack.

He was homeless.

And so dad said, do you want a little job?

And he said, Yeah.

So he brought him home and all of us kids fell in love with him.

He had this plus other little things of interest.

And so I like that.

And so he said, Take it.

Just don't play with it.

It's not good for you to play with it.

So I said, okay.

Years ago, I sent pictures to a Smithsonian Institute and they said they couldn't check it out unless they had it visually, but they thought it could be 1200 B.C.

This was made in Persia, present day Iran, and it was made in the mid-19th century circa 1850.

It was made in the Khazar dynasty when they ruled Persia from the late 18th century to 1925.

And the reason we can be so certain is the fact that there are human figures which are on the grip.

Yeah.

Now, generally in Islamic art it was considered profane to make the human image and it wasn't until the Tojo dynasty in particular that because there was nothing in the Koran that prohibited it, right?

So suddenly it appears and flourishes during that period of time.

This type of dagger is called The Gambia, which I believe is Arabic for dagger.

And it basically refers to the curve of the blade, this form of dagger.

You will see from Morocco all the way through Persia and even India.

It was a very popular design and it has this wonderful carved walrus ivory crib.

The good thing about it being walrus ivory as opposed to elephant ivory, is that it comes with fewer restrictions on selling it.

Walrus ivory is regulated under the Marine Mammals Protection Act due to the level of decoration.

I would guess that this was more of something one would wear as a dress, as opposed to actually use as a weapon.

Yeah.

The other thing that's wonderful about it is, is that it's got it's appears to be its original wooden scabbard covered in leather and it's in excellent condition.

And you almost never see that at auction.

It would probably make somewhere between 5 to 7000, 5 to 7000 without the scabbard.

I would think that the values only 3 to 5000.

It really elevates the value.

Yeah, well, good.

I brought my ten of Madam C.J.

Walker's wonderful hair grower.

It was a gift from my boss.

I had gone online and seen it and I wanted to bid on it and he decided he was going to outbid me and give it to me for my birthday.

So this was my opportunity to get an authentic piece of black history.

Madam C.J.

Walker was the first female millionaire self-made in the United States, so I thought that was pretty awesome.

But that's all I really know about it.

She developed cosmetics and hair care products, right In 1905, by the height of her career in the 1920s, she was worth millions of dollars.

She was also a social activist.

The cant alone can be worth several hundred dollars, $5 plus, but the boxes are always where I put an auction estimate of 500 to $800.

You're kidding me.

I had expected to sell for about a grand.

Wow.

I had no clue.

Wow.

That is incredible.

Thank you.

I have a violin from 16th century Violin.

Got it from a yard sale and looked like a good deal.

Supposed to be 16th century.

We'll see.

This one has an 18th century label.

This one has a 17th century label.

And I'm afraid to tell you that both of these labels, I think, are fake labels.

The instruments get all kinds of labels, and it's easy to switch labels on violins.

I can take a label like that right out of my soaking it with a Q-Tip and pulling it right out of the sound hole.

Wow.

I can put another one in in 20 minutes.

My parents bought that when I was very young in New Orleans.

They like to collect art and paintings and they really liked this artist, but they couldn't afford her paintings.

So they found a book that she had painted in and purchased that her name was Gertrude Morgan, and she was born in Alabama in 1900 and moved to New Orleans in the late thirties.

Women in the Baptist Church were not allowed to preach from the pulpit, so she had a church at her home in the Ninth Ward called The Everlasting Gospel Mission, where she would have sermons.

She also had an orphanage.

At one point, much of her life was guided by what she said were these revelations that she received from from God.

So in 1956, she began painting.

She met a art dealer, and he started selling her paintings and promoting her reign.

And in 1970, she had three major shows at three major museums, along with other Southern folk artists.

So she started to become pretty well known.

And so this art dealer published this book of different biblical quotes with her paintings as illustrations, and in some of them she painted them.

The book actually sold 300,000 copies, which was a huge amount.

You can see that she signed it and then she painted herself.

So this is the artist sitting in this green chair.

She always wore white.

And the different members of her congregation on the inside of the book.

So that makes it special.

She did about 800 works of art between 1956 and 1973.

This was this book was published in 1970.

So a couple of years after this book was published, she stopped making art.

And because she thought she'd gotten to Famous and that God wanted her to focus on her, her preaching and her spiritual life.

She died in New Orleans in 1980.

Do you know what your parents paid for the book?

They said it cost $60.

Her paintings started at 350, so there was one that sold at auction a few about ten years ago for $600.

And some of her works on paper, which aren't much larger than the opening pages of this book, have sold for almost $70,000.

So I think that this book illustrated painted the way it is, is probably worth between four and $5,000.

Wow.

That's great.

More than I thought.

It's really special.

She's an artist that a lot of people are very interested in right now.

The Rural Life Museum explores how people of past generations lived and died.

Check out this Fiske Mummy Coffin patented in 1848 by Holman Fisk, marketed as the Fisk airtight coffin of cast or raised metal.

The burial case was designed to better preserve a corpse and prevent grave robbing at a price of about $100 compared to the $2 pine box coffin of the period, The human shaped container was an expensive choice.

Well, it's 1905.

It's a Navy recruiting poster.

It's a Cromwell lithograph.

I acquired it about 80, purchased it in a phone auction.

I enjoy collecting American history and Spanish-American War is a period of time of interest to me.

This poster pictures a ship very similar to the main.

Then it had antiquity to it, so I enjoyed it.

Can I ask how much you paid for it when you bought it?

$575.

Do you happen to know what ship it is?

I have no idea.

So the funny thing is, I had no idea either.

And I did a little research and I figured out the name of the ship online and then like a thunderclap, it hit me that the sailors rowing out to the boat are wearing hats that bear the name of the ship, which is the USS Connecticut and the Connecticut built in 1903.

1904 was the last pre dreadnought class of battleships in the United States Navy.

The important part of this is the history, right?

A few years after the end of the Spanish-American War and two years before another seminal naval event in America, which was the sailing of the great White Fleet, where 16 battleships, 14,000 men under orders from President Theodore Roosevelt, sailed around the world, showing off America's naval might and.

That explains, I believe, why this battleship is painted white in preparation for that.

And that's just wonderful.

From a military history point of view.

There are other Navy recruitment posters that say the exact I have the exact same text young men wanted for the Navy.

And there are two main differences with these other posters.

One is that it was a slightly later poster where the pay is $17 to $77.

So we see how inflation hits.

The other thing about that other poster is that I have never seen an authentic copy of that poster.

I've only seen reproductions.

And frankly, when you came up today, I saw this poster and I was like, it's that reproduction.

I'm going to tell this nice gentleman.

His treasured artifact is no good.

And then we looked at it together.

And you're right to a point, it's not a chroma lithograph.

It's a lithograph poster printed in Washington by Andrew B Graham.

In the world of posters, unlike paintings which can be unique, there's no such thing as a one of a kind.

This was a recruiting poster.

They would have printed thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, distributed them across the country.

And yet in my entire career, which I'm embarrassed to say has been almost 30 years in the business, I have never seen an original copy of this poster before.

And I'll go one step further.

When I went online to look for this poster, I found nothing.

It has zero digital Trace, which is very surprising, in fact, in this day and age.

So it also speaks to its rarity.

In 1905, when this poster was printed, it was really the dawn of the modern American Navy.

In the years following the Spanish-American War, the ships were mostly older Civil War era.

As America entered into the 20th century, we realized that we needed to improve our fleet, and these Connecticut class ships were among the ways that we did that.

In what research I was able to do today, I have not found an earlier American lithograph recruiting men into the United States Navy.

There are broadsides which are typographical there are political cartoons.

But I believe this might be the earliest American naval recruiting poster to have been printed.

It's not in the best condition, no.

Right.

There are some damaged pieces here.

The colors are a little faded, specifically the reds, which would've been a brighter red.

And you see a few spots of actual bright red that still are there in front of the letters.

Those are not parts of the poster that didn't fade.

What that is, are places in the poster that years ago were touched up with paint in red to match the existing red.

But when you get your hands on the Holy Relic and there are some chips and some flaws, you excuse those because there's no opportunity to find another one in better condition on the market.

But when you have a piece that hasn't come up for sale before, it's very difficult to find comparables.

So conservatively is the best that I can be.

And I would think that an auction today, this poster would sell for between 4000 and $6,000 sounds good to me.

So yes, my dad brought back from World War Two.

He was with Patton, General Patton's Battalion.

He acquired it somewhere there.

I don't I don't think it was purchased.

He brought this back, tried and tried to get some information on it.

Never could.

So a family mystery.

Yeah, it really is dead.

He's gone now.

But I wish he could have known what it was because he loved it.

So it's in this fitted box and it's a personal cutlery set.

So if you were of high income, prestigious person in Europe, this is probably made in the late 18th, early 19th century.

Really, You would have traveled with your own your own personal set.

You never knew what you're going to find when you went someplace, Right.

You want to be prepared for.

Right?

Right.

And this really has just about everything you would need for fine dining.

Probably made in August.

Berg Germany there are hallmarks on and I don't you know what this piece is used for.

No it's an egg cup egg.

So you'd be able to have your here hard or soft soft will egg and it has a hallmarks on the front here, you know, quite small but there's an August berg, Mark, which helps us know where it's made and very much in the Baroque style that would have been popular from the 17th century.

We know that it's not quite that early because of the marks and also the shape of the knife to the knife is not a point in life.

this early in France, right at the cusp of the 18th century, a sharp knives were outlawed because of of too many, I think too many dinnertime fights.

And the fork is a traditional fork that we're used to seeing was four times.

So not an earlier form that only had two.

That was more for securing items.

Okay.

The small box next to you is probably a personal salt salt container and salt or spices.

Again, you wanted to bring your own so that you were certain that they were safe.

They haven't been tainted.

Yeah, there's a little sort of scoop in front here, which is a marrow scoop for digging out marrow from the bones.

my gosh.

Okay.

And there's a pick there.

Beautiful design, beautiful quality.

It's silver with a gold wash on.

It's a silver gilt.

Okay.

And at auction, I would say a value between $6,000 and $8,000.

Okay.

Well, I love that.

I don't know whether I comport with it, though.

My brother, you know, he'll be willing.

So I just hand it over to him.

I'm assuming it's a liquor dispenser.

I bought it in Chemotaxis about 20 years ago at an estate sale.

What?

You have to pay for it?

$100.

We have not tried using it.

This is locked up and I couldn't find any information on the internet.

We got this at an antique store in Greensburg, Kansas, and they were hesitant to sell it to me.

I guess it survived like an EF five tornado and 2007.

And so I loved it.

And we actually went back twice on our way home from Colorado, from our honeymoon, and they still had it.

And she sold it to what?

You have to pay for it.

I think it's like 750 or 700.

Yeah, they all look very ill.

I hope that the medicine fix them.

I hope it hangs in our basement bathroom.

It's all over.

Yes.

Yeah.

Entertaining décor.

This painting was done by a student of my grandfather, who was an artist in New Orleans, and evidently he complimented him on painting.

And it was gifted to my grandfather, the artist in question.

Here it goes.

By the name of Clarence Malay.

Yes.

And was born right outside of New Orleans in a town called Bonneville.

He made his way to New Orleans right after public school.

So he was 17 years old when he arrived and for a brief period, worked with an engraver and was sort of knocking around, really?

Looking for a livelihood.

Eventually LEE He was sort of discovered he was a struggling artist and was discovered by a couple of notable painters, one being Louis Oscar Griffith and another named Robert Grafton, both of whom were quintessential painters of the New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Subjects Millais pursued an artistic career.

He went to Tulane and graduated as a fine art student and also went to the Art Students League in New York.

And when he came back, he really started working in earnest.

This is an oil on board.

It's signed in the lower right.

It's also dated what looks to be 21 for 1921.

It's also in a period frame and the subject is almost undoubtedly New Orleans.

This is a wonderful garden, probably a little courtyard scene that Millais was best known for.

He was born in 1897, died in 1959 over a span of many years.

He was very prolific.

I think it's a real gem and a nice example that shows that he was a relatively mature artist.

Even at a young age.

In today's market, his work has become very collectible.

It's a must have for a New Orleans collector of their regional artists.

And an example of this size, I would imagine, would be estimated in the region of 5000 to $7000.

Nice.

Very nice.

I would suggest an insurance value of about $10.

About 20 years ago, my husband and I were in New Orleans and I love the auction houses and we happened to walk by and I saw a barrenness.

I was having a bunch of her pieces being auctioned off.

I saw that ring and I knew it was mine.

And when I found out it was from a baroness, Well, that's even made it more special to me.

And I decided before purchasing it to have an appraiser come and take a look at it.

And they had a list of appraisers that would come to the shop and, and look.

And the particular guy I chose decided he wanted to purchase it from the auction house right in front of me while he was there being paid by me to look at this ring.

Wow.

The auction house was pretty upset about it, and I told him he had to come the day of if he had any interest in it.

But they were not going to just go ahead and sell it outright to him.

Sounds unethical to a point of paying someone to give you a professional opinion.

And here he tries to buy it.

Did you get a refund for the appraisal?

No, I should have.

And can you tell me what you paid for it?

I was talking to my husband earlier because I do remember exactly.

But we think it was around 20,000.

Don't have it insured.

Work out in the garden all the time with it.

So what you have here is a European cut, a diamond.

So it's an older cut.

Of course it's in the setting, so it's hard to pinpoint exact carat weight, but by measurement it's about 5.80.

It has a little bit of warmness to it.

It's hard to get an actual color grade on it because of this setting.

But we all agree it's about a cake color.

It was very difficult to find any type of inclusions in the stone.

So we're going to call it a visit to, though I do believe it's a better quality.

Stone Wow.

VOICE two is what we feel comfortable at the moment, calling it so it's not insured.

Okay, so I quit working in my garden with it.

I would say yes.

Okay.

Retail value on the diamond, we're looking at $130,000.

you're kidding me.

my gosh.

Really?

And the setting adds another $8,000.

That's unreal.

That's.

I really got a good deal.

I guess that's why the guy wanted to buy it out from under me.

Thank you so much.

Care.

Welcome very much.

It's.

You're enjoying Antiques Roadshow from Louisiana State University Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge.

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Now, the people who make Antiques Roadshow possible.

We always had questions.

Who do we belong to?

Who are our ancestors?

I know we have them.

I found that immigration record on Ancestry.

She came single as a nurse.

October 9th, 1943.

I feel like a time traveler.

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Today we brought in a bracelet and a painting.

My bracelet.

I thought it was a piece of junky costume jewelry.

It turns out it's worth, like, $300.

And I got it in the antique store in the nineties, so I'm really thrilled with that.

I got this at an auction.

No one was bidding on it and that's probably right because it's actually a replica and it's worth all the joy it brings me.

I've got a ring I bought back in 1984.

I paid $1,176 for it, and it's worth $1,176 today.

So that's the fee for I was hoping that it was worth more, but at least it's not junk.

Yeah, so I'm good.

This is my great grandmother's 1850s Japanese face.

I promised my grandmother I'd lug it down here to the Baton Rouge Antiques Roadshow and see what it's worth in Naenae.

I think you'll be excited.

It's worth about 800 bucks.

I came and brought jewelry.

I have two pieces of gold bracelets here and pearls.

This is the whole lot was worth about 3 to 4000.

And I'm happy.

And I brought these on.

I don't really know what they are, but the story was that they were pre-Columbian out of artifacts, but it turned out they're only from the 1950s.

But we had fun anyway.

Yes, I think where Excited Roadshow is number one, and we were so blessed and delighted to be here.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.

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The lady I was named after left it to me when she passed away in 1952.

Her name was Mary Nelson.

Shall we have a clue to that here, don't we?

Because most of them, I think, are engraved with the S for sure.

And we've got everything you need for a really wonderful dinner.

You've got a big soup ladle here.

Fish slice.

You've got two serving forks, you've got smaller sort of sauce.

Ladles Vegetable serve as two sets of carving tools.

Also got the meat skewer, which I love.

I know.

Yeah.

Two sets of forks, two sets of knives.

It's everything.

And it's all contained with this wonderful mahogany box.

It was made around 1898.

The patent for this is very art nouveau in style.

So you have all of these scrolling ten drawers and flowers.

For insurance, you'd have to cover it for at least $15,000.

Mama used it every weekend, but we don't.

We use it for the holidays.

I'm really happy that you still use it, though, and it's important to have these things and use them and enjoy them for this.

I believe I paid 35 and for those I believe I paid about 18 for both.

They're both American made.

This is made by a company called the Federal Glass Company, which is located in Ohio around the thirties in a really kind of called depression glass.

They usually sell for about five or ten or $15 apiece.

And this is a juicer.

It's American made.

I'm not sure exactly who made it.

If you're not paying huge amounts of money and you're buying something that you love, it's worth it.

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The way humans make sense of the world is through stories we've got to go ahead and start training to go to Mars.

And let's God, we pay tribute to all who serve and who have served.

Civilization is precious life is precious.

Artists here are making a difference.

I'm trying to seek redemption.