Major funding for Arkansas Treasures was provided by the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council and the Susan Howarth Fund at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.

Additional funding provided by Annette and Phil Harrington, the Arkansas PBS Local Production Fund and by viewers like you.

If you have any idea what the book is worth.

It's my guess by.

Which I think you'll be surprised that it's a little bit higher.

We're not going to say, Well, but I did anyway.

I should have said what?

The natural state is chock full of interesting history from the Toltec Mountain Scott to the hanging judge Gallows in Fort Smith.

There is something interesting around every corner.

This is a peanut and.

Popcorn vending cart.

It was my grandfather's gas tank.

And here for heating, this'll still turn clean.

This would stand like the little balance thing.

I think they would put it in here and go in the inner motion as it would heat, it would expand and move out.

Here at Arkansas, Treasures, our dedicated team of producers, of connected folks from across the state with knowledgeable evaluators who can give them an idea of what their item might be worth.

She thought it might be able to get $45 for this, 15 for use, anywhere.

From $3,500, maybe 4 to 600.

Dollars worth, about $150.

The value is less than $100, which that's fine with us.

And we've had some surprises along the way.

My father wrote to my mother during World War Two letters to Ruth.

She said it would be worth to a collector thousands of dollars.

And but to my family, there's not a price that you could put on it.

Let's see if we can find an even bigger surprise.

I want to thank you for coming out to Arkansas treasures.

And truly, you have bought one of the great treasures of American history.

Tell me what you brought me today.

Yes, it is a Winchester over and under rifle that belonged to my great grandfather.

Yep.

The lever action rifle that won the blast.

I mean, this is iconic Western guns.

What's interesting is this is a bottle 1876.

It's also in the caliber that is is really pretty.

It's a 4560, which is a little bit different caliber.

It's in great condition.

It's got a long octagonal barrel, which was used for certain types of accuracy.

I don't see anything that is not complete on this gun.

Have you ever had anybody look at it for you.

Know, I haven't.

Was that he would sit on the back porch and shoot squirrels with this?

Well, I used to have it above my fireplace.

Okay.

But someone told me that was.

All about the best.

Place to keep it.

Have you have you personally ever shot it?

No.

My dad shot it.

Okay.

Did his shoulder recover?

This is a very, very powerful gun.

And it's why they don't really make that caliber anymore.

It sent him head over heels.

I bet it did.

You know, in today's market, collectible firearms are very hot.

It's probably one of the things that keeps up with the Dow Jones Industrial better than anything else.

And if this were to come up in a gun auction, this would probably be looking this fair somewhere between five and $7,000.

Really?

It really would.

It's a it's a great piece of Americana.

And I want to thank you for bringing it in.

How much do you think my great grandfather would have paid for it?

100 bucks.

$100?

Yep.

Wow.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It's a remarkable piece.

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

What have you bought for us today?

It looks like a big just set.

It is a big chair set.

I've had this for probably about 25 years.

25 years?

Where did you get it?

I got it at a flea market.

Here in town.

In Searcy.

And Saatchi Saatchi, Arkansas.

Stock is certainly.

Interesting.

And they didn't know much about it.

They didn't.

Is it a big flea market?

There was at the time it was.

It's not there.

About 25 years ago, you found this awesome papier maché Mexican thing just.

That's right.

I was just fascinated by it.

It's all handmade.

It's all handmade.

Hand-painted in.

Mexico.

Even though I don't play chess, it just drew me to.

It doesn't make you a world champion.

You're not.

Have you ever played it in person?

Yes.

And close friends.

Yeah.

Tell me what you paid for.

25.

Dollars.

You paid $25 to this guy.

I did.

All right.

This is probably back in the fifties when they sold.

I think still produces on a limited basis.

Yeah, they are handmade out of Mexico.

Don't you have any idea what the value is?

I have no idea.

I hope it's worth more than 25.

I think you'll be very happy with this figure.

How about 1200 to 1500 dollars?

I would love that.

That's correct.

We'll bring it in.

It is really.

1200 to.

12 to 1500 dollars.

I can't believe that.

I was hoping.

A couple of hundred.

Maybe.

The last one at auction sold for about 1300.

13. well, thank you.

That is really a good surprise.

Thank you.

To bring in share with us.

Thank you.

It really is all connected to my dad and that spot.

Really sweet spot for me.

Welcome.

What do you brought to us to look at today?

Well, I brought a couple of Mike's that were my daddy's.

And your daddy?

Did he work sound at Robinson Auditorium?

And that's located in Little Rock.

And in the eighties, they had a renovation.

During that time, these microphones with a bunch of others were found in a dirty old box.

They were going to throw them away.

And so they asked Daddy if he'd want them.

So he took them home.

And this one still works.

Then the other one's had a little bit rougher shape.

Okay.

Then after a few years, I found out that Elvis played at Robinson Auditorium Coal fields.

Later, I found a picture of Elvis singing into a microphone that looks a lot like this.

From 1956 concert, I called it the auditorium.

At the auditorium.

All right.

I call that Daddy said, Hey, those microphones that you had, did they have a sticker on them?

It's like, yeah, they had a sticker.

It was their inventory sticker.

Okay, Daddy, don't take the sticker off.

Whatever you do, don't take the sticker off.

And I'm saying there's a picture and out there somewhere that shows these old microphones with a similar sticker in the picture.

Yes.

So that's a pretty interesting story.

But let's talk about the microphones.

Okay.

Do you have any idea what they are from?

I believe there are shades, of course, but 77.

These 70.

70.

Two model number.

And they're in a nice little price tag these days.

Do you have any idea what they're worth?

I know that you can restore microphones, so sometime for parts, I think like 2000.

And 8000, this one's working in decent condition.

You look at that one 500 to 3000.

You're the one you call at work.

You're looking at 700 to 1000.

Okay.

Thanks for bringing them in.

Thank you.

But you know.

Well, welcome.

Thank you.

Tell me.

A little bit about what you brought.

Today.

What I brought today was a painting that my grandmother, my granny, acquired in New York City, probably back in the fifties or early sixties.

I remember this painting from my entire childhood.

No kidding.

Okay.

So she had this next to the dining room table and I would stare at it because of the colors.

Sure.

All right.

So this is by Samuel Halpert and he was more or less a impressionist slash modernist that painted.

He was a Russian born, came to the United States in 1898, I believe.

He traveled to France early on and was influenced by a group of artists called the Forests.

Now the focus were artists like Cezanne and Matisse, Le Manque, all of these artists that were using strong, bold colors, which was a departure from the Impressionists.

Impressionists were painting more or less time of day the light, but true, true to form.

Okay, so if you look at the mass there, there were like a bright red, right?

And the boats are purplish, you know, not the colors that you would expect.

Right.

So the fauvist used color and you brought up when you were little.

The color is what fascinating.

And well, this is a really uncommon and rare example of how Alpert's fauvist works.

Now, Fauvism was the movement that I told you about that the artists were working right around 1905.

They exhibited and a art critic called them the Fauves, which is the term in French for wild beasts.

And they called them wild Beast because they were using that so cold and powerful colors.

Now, in the time that I've been in the business, in American paintings of what I'm primarily known for, I have seen very few of his fauvist works.

So this is a direct result of his exposure in 1905.

They're uncommon.

He started to get much more representational in color as time went on.

I've really only seen a couple.

So when we go to look for valuation, this is extremely uncommon for him, and it's exactly the kind of point where he started to become his own painter and painting in a style that was he was very respected by the French.

For an American, that wasn't always that tough, but he adopted that Fauvist style.

So in terms of value, you know, you see his works go through the marketplace that of the later works from the teens and twenties, and they can exceed, you know, they can get in the four and five and $6,000 range.

Some of New York City have brought much more because there of New York City right now, we think this is probably the grand the Grand Canal in Venice when I'm assuming it is okay.

But it's a it's a it's a fantastic work.

It's a fantastic folk piece.

It's uncommon to see this.

So although we're seeing prices in the five and six range, four works, the size again, being of that kind of more representational color being a fauvist work, I think 8 to 12000 is not an unrealistic figure.

And I think if you went to a public auction, it could exceed that because of its rarity and because it's a fauvist painting.

my goodness.

But it's in good condition.

It's always been in this frame.

Yes, it's probably a much lighter frames from 1940s and fifties.

My guess is probably when she bought it.

Right, Right.

It's a beautiful painting.

It is.

Is it for a halpert?

It's the best of the best.

It's it's really, in my opinion, one of the better ones out there.

So it could exceed that potentially.

But conservatively, it's 12.

Wow.

But thank you for bringing it.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Arkansas treasures.

Evaluators have found some truly incredible things of impressive value.

But sometimes what's most impressive is how folks came by their treasure.

One story we heard even involved rock n roll royalty.

So I grew up in North Little Rock.

Pretty idealistic childhood.

My father's a surgeon.

My parents traveled to Las Vegas quite a bit on the junkets back in the sixties and seventies.

They would fly out there pretty much for free, and you just had to show some action on the tables.

And so they went a lot.

And so he was the International hotel to see Elvis, his act in the fall of 72.

It was his comeback.

And dad ended up at one of the front tables in a show at the International one night.

And he would come out and in this particular outfit he was wearing, so he would come out in that and do his big, you know, the winged look that he was famous for.

In this case, he took the cape off with Velcro and little hooks and he took it off and he saw it in the audience.

It landed between two people.

When he did that, Dad stood up to see the two guys fight over, and when he stood up, he wasn't looking at the stage anymore.

But Elvis had thrown the jacket and it hit him right in the face and he set down with it.

And when he did that, of course, the lady's there, just poof, right on top of it.

And one of them got hold of him.

It hit the sleeve and ripped off three of the buttons.

So it had three buttons missing, not one sleep.

So they have an Elvis jacket and they put it in a plastic bag and brought it home.

And, well, we wait.

We just played with it.

It was a it was a kind of conversation piece.

I took it to show and tell it in sixth grade.

And Andy and Andy Miller had his dad's sharp knife from scuba dive, and I beat that.

But I didn't know he was going to beat the sharp knife with Elvis's jacket did.

But I got a fortune.

I got a a a stain chocolate ice cream steak on the thing.

And that made it to the auction that later that slice.

My claim to fame is I got chocolate on Elvis's jacket.

So I'm a little embarrassed about that.

So don't tell anybody.

43 years later, we put it up for auction at Julian Auction House in L.A. and it it pulled a pretty good song.

It sold for $56,000.

I think I was a little chap because I thought the gavel came down on fast, you know, It was.

It was there in a pocket.

Yeah.

And I'm really glad you brought.

Thank you so much for coming to Arkansas treasures today.

I was glad to come.

I'm really glad.

Every time I think I've seen my favorite thing, someone brings another one along and I'm surprised.

How are you?

I was very surprised by what you brought in.

Can you tell us about it, please?

Yes.

This is the 1950 Dyess, Arkansas Yearbooks, and it's got Johnny Cash.

Well, I see that right here.

Johnny Cash and Senior.

It says Johnny Cash, vice president.

Be a livewire, then you won't get stepped on, right?

That's right.

That's pretty good.

But so how did you come to have this?

Well, like I said, I went to school with him.

Okay, so.

I've got one of the books.

Well, did you know him?

No, I was in the second grade.

Okay, so you might not know he was a big senior You might not have known about better than known him.

Right.

I see you have a couple of signatures on here.

You've got Rosanne Cash and Joe and Cash.

I can't make out that.

I've never made that one out either.

All right, so tell me how you came about these signatures.

Arkansas State runs the Johnny Cash, StoryCorps said.

And so there was a big festival with.

A big festival.

And Rosanne was there and saying and Kris Kristofferson.

how wonderful.

And some of the other cash, Roy Cash in the Cash Bureau.

That was Miss America in 1984.

But I. Goodness.

Well, so you had the foresight to bring your 1950 year but to the 2017 festival and get it signed.

Yes.

Yes, I did.

I managed to do that.

Now, as far as value, do you have any idea what this is?

Value now some some organization up north sent me a letter one time in 1994 and offered me $150 for.

Well, how dare they?

Yeah, it's just ridiculous that you.

Well, I know it's invaluable to you and your family.

yeah.

And that.

And, you know, I'm sure you'll make sure it stays in Arkansas.

It's very hard to value something like this because it just doesn't come up.

no.

And then to see I was born and dies right there from tonsils taken out there to start to school there.

So they have a part had a part of you in dies before you left in addition to going to school with Johnny Cash and you know, without the signatures, I would probably have said this is this would be easy, easy.

$500 with the signatures, I'm going to bump it up to 750.

But with the caveat that if you get to Johnny Cash collectors in the same room, the sky's the limit.

Yeah, and because, as I said, when something doesn't come up for sale, it's hard to value it.

yeah, There are just wonderful collections out there of Johnny Cash that would love to have this piece, I'm sure.

So I think at auction, the sky's the limit.

Well, that's nice.

Thank you so much for bringing on.

Yeah, but I'm not going to sell it.

Well, I didn't think you would as much crowd as you had coming in and showing us.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend time with us at Arkansas Treasures.

Well, I'm glad to do it.

Thank you.

That person.

Hello and welcome to the show.

What have you brought in for us to take a look at today?

I've brought in some tin type photographs that were passed down from my mother, from her mother, from her parents.

Okay.

And so these would be family members, these.

Possibly family members.

They were taken sometime after the Civil War.

I'm pretty certain of that, either here in Arkansas or perhaps in Georgia.

Okay.

And do you ever remember seeing these images as a boy?

I don't remember seeing them.

My mother gave me these from where?

She received them from my grandmother shortly before my grandmother passed.

So this was like 35 years ago or so.

Okay.

So my first time seeing them.

Okay.

Well, great.

So, yes, we have some Tim Tintype photos of African-Americans as your family.

We're going to say possibly my family.

And we have the gentlemen are all wearing suits in this image.

Yes.

This image.

This image.

And then we actually have one that's holding an instrument.

Yes.

And then we have two ladies and one actually has a floral design here.

Yes.

Dress.

Yes.

And so what I'd like to speak about a little bit at first is condition.

And so we do see that because these are actually these images are on ten.

We have a slight chip here and here and here and this one as well.

And so what's going to be very important as you continue to be the keeper of these objects is that they are kept flat to prevent any more damage and chipping on them.

You want it to be acid free material so that it doesn't take away from from the images.

Okay.

And so that's going to be most important.

The other thing that I love about this is unfortunately, with African-American imagery, sometimes they are quite separated from the families.

And so we have all of these pictures and we don't know who they were, their names, know who their family members were.

And so the fact that these were handed to you by someone in your family and you're able to know that at least possibly that these are family members, possibly.

Yes.

And so when we talk about African-American tin types in the market, we're talking about a market range of 6 to $900 for all six images.

And so I thank you for bringing them in and hope that with these tips on how to preserve them, that you'll be able to share them with future generations.

Thank you.

Just my first name.

Yes, sir.

Dub.

And I'm from Hot Springs, Arkansas.

So when you brought this in, what did you think you had here?

I had a sure enough saké jug.

Okay.

Well, everybody agreed with you.

In the world, smaller than it used to be.

I thought the same until I pulled out my phone and use Google Translate.

Yes.

And what did it say?

Right there on the jug?

Water jug.

Drinking water?

Yes.

Yeah.

And, you know, usually we can't know that these have a specific date and we don't know exactly how old they are.

They turn up in the antiques trade and a lot of people like them and they're all over the Internet called PSAKI vessels.

What do we find here to date it?

We found it right on the site.

How long have you on this thing?

probably 15, 20 years.

Well, I don't know if this company won some awards or what happened, but there's a bunch of medallions there.

And one of them has a little English rating and a date.

1880.

Eight.

Yes.

And I've been speaking English for all 76 years.

Right.

Right.

Sometimes we need to look at our stuff if we want to understand it, right?

That's right.

I think that.

You know, it might be a little after 1888.

Sometimes these things are put on things because, you know, they won an award, they did an exhibit.

They have a trademark, they have a copyright for the show purposes.

I didn't have time to do enough research to figure that out.

But I was pleased to note that it had a date of 1888 and to figure out it's a drinking water vessel.

How do you feel about that?

I think that's wonderful.

That's the only thing I got right was that it was in the Meiji era.

Well, yeah.

Meiji goes from 1868 to 1903.

This is right in the middle of it.

This would have been kind of highfalutin.

I think I see a lot of stoneware vessels from the southeastern US all over the U.S., earthenware and stoneware and a lot of the things in Japan are also made out of different materials.

That's correct.

Especially in earthenware.

It helps keep water cool because it can leach through and the process of evaporation helps keep it chilled.

That's right.

What's is made up like think porcelain?

Yeah, porcelain doesn't leak anything.

So it wouldn't do anything to help with evaporation and it's a huge piece of porcelain.

A lot of these that I've seen are significantly smaller.

This is probably made for some type of commercial use, maybe for workers to use.

We might find out more if I get, you know, to spend some time doing some research for it.

What did you think this thing was worth?

When I got home from Japan and O3, I looked on the internet thinking it was like a job and it was worth, according to the internet.

$1,000.

Now, here again, I was like, It was like a joke, right?

It's $1,000.

But here, before I came on the show, I couldn't find anything.

Right.

Well, I think there are a lot of people who collect stock and people collect liquor jugs in general, and probably more collect things related to alcohol than with water.

But this is big.

It's so it's got a date and there's probably more information written right there on it that we haven't translated.

That's true.

And I don't think that it would be reasonable to think this is worth a lot less than that.

And depending on what's written on it, it might be worth more.

So I think you've you've done your research well and learned a little bit about it by bringing it here.

Well, thank you for finding out that I can't read English.

Thanks for supporting PBS.

thank you very much for your help.

You know, a first on Arkansas treasures, because many people try to blow their own horn, but we've actually got a horn to blow to the side.

Tell me, you know, you came up to the table with a whole slew of luggage and kept pulling out more and more pieces.

What have you brought in today?

We have got some horns.

That we would have got some.

More.

We do.

We've got horns that once belonged to Doc Severinsen, which.

Explains why we were playing the old Tonight Show opening.

That is correct.

Doc was.

He joined The Tonight Show in 1962 and knocked out.

A little bit about because we've actually got a trumpet and we've also got another instrument.

This is Doc's very first trumpet.

It's a Jetson aeterna Doc Severinsen model.

And what do we have here?

This is a turn of flugelhorn that Doc had gets and make for him with a five inch bell.

Most of them have a six inch bell.

This has got a smaller bell.

It gives it the mimic the same size as the trunk.

Yes.

And here we have a line of mouthpiece that he also contributed to many of their designs.

Yes, it was the jet tone company, Bell Ratzenberger, along with Amato.

And they designed these.

And Doc was just one of the many artists who had mouthpieces made it.

Ferguson had his jet tone Bell.

Chase had his jet tone.

These are silver and gold jet tone mouthpieces of Doc Severinsen.

And it's taken me 25 years to collectors.

Well, and you have other pieces that relate back to this time period of both musical instruments and Doc Severinsen.

But, you know, when we look at this, this is almost a whole collection.

And many times we've seen musical instruments of well-known musicians.

Right.

Come on.

The market.

And they they do pretty well.

Know, I think of these two pieces plus some of the other ones that you've got with the innovations that you show coming through there.

You know, we came up as a group of items.

I think the total out on that could be upwards of 250 some thousand dollars now.

You know, and particularly the demonstrated ties back to Doc's every year.

You know, Doc's not been playing for a while, but he's still out there.

And I think PBS has a has a couple of pieces on him right now.

Yes.

On the.

Air.

Never give up.

Never give up.

But I want to thank you because there there are still a few of us who remember Doc Severinsen and Johnny Carson and that big man.

I figure I'm Johnny Carson.

So that makes you Ed, because we got dark.

Here last night.

I want to thank you all for coming out and playing and being a part of Arkansas treasure.

Thank you for having us here.

Well, that's it for this edition of Arkansas Treasure.

Thank you so much for joining us on this vintage adventure.

Until next time, keep your eyes peeled for that next great discovery.

You never know where you might find your very own Arkansas treasures.

This is Papa Naylor's corn whiskey.

And he really did drink out of it.

His corncobs are down in here that he stopped.

It, that we had.

We have no information or history about it, and nobody's been able to tell us anything.

So we brought it today to hear from the experts.

And I think we've stopped the experts.

It's a part of Arkansas history, whether you like them or not.

He he was a force to be reckoned with, so to speak.

She had been told it was worth a lot more, but I found out today it's worth the silver it's made out of.

So the grandkids thought they were spooky looking.

So nobody wanted them.

So I carried them from one place to the other.

I'm so glad, though.

I'm still the man.

And she brought.

Yeah, he is my favorite antique.

It certainly is.

Major funding for Arkansas Treasures was provided by the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council and the Susan Howarth Fund at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.

Additional funding provided by Annette and Phil Harrington, the Arkansas PBS Local Productio