Watch ROADSHOW's Season 29 "Best Moments"!
ANTIQUES ROADSHOW was back on the road for Season 29 with binge-worthy episodes from a new set of cities! Watch these "Best Moments" — 15 hand-picked appraisals that feature our favorite laughs, tears and surprises from the 2025 season. Did your favorite Season 29 appraisal make the list?
Nov 24, 2025
1. From grandma's collection to ANTIQUES ROADSHOW!
📺 Episode: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 1
GUEST: So this is my grandmother's Japanese robe, or we believe it's Japanese. So we know that she purchased it in the late 1980s. We believe she paid about $2,000 for it.
APPRAISER: And where did she get it?
GUEST: Um, so, from an acquaintance whose family had worked in the Japanese embassy and in Asia. My grandmother has been a prolific collector for the last 60 years. But we realized as she's getting older, the rest of the family doesn't know about her collection. So I've taken it on myself to help catalog all of her collection.
APPRAISER: It's not from Japan.
GUEST: (gasps) Okay. (laughs)
APPRAISER: It's actually Chinese.
GUEST: Okay, I had no idea. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. We can see right here, that beautiful purple...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: ...that's on here. Well, that's a very good indication of age.
GUEST: Is that mauve?
APPRAISER: It is.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: And aniline dyes, this color purple, in particular, was created in 1856. This is Guangxu period, 1875 to 1908, and I think it's probably 1880s. This was a woman's surcoat...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...for formal and semi-formal occasions. Formal at home for domestic occasions...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...semi-formal for court uses.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So you would wear this, if you can imagine, this is not your formal wear. You would wear this over your actual robe.
GUEST: That's amazing, because it's so fine. I know! I wouldn't think
it would be casual. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: If you look at the sleeves, they are incredibly wide.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: And that is to account for another article of clothing being worn beneath it with long sleeves.
GUEST; Okay.
APPRAISER: It's silk. It has a wonderful feel. It's not a satin, but here the embroidery is satin. This has some couched, gilt metal wrapped thread.
The cranes up here, they have multiple meanings. They are one, primarily, a symbol of imperial authority. Cranes were a symbol of good luck, and heavenly acceptance of whatever you had going on.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: They also are symbols of longevity. I think this was likely something that was created perhaps for somebody's birthday.
GUEST: Oh, okay. Interesting.
APPRAISER: Uh, the wife of a prince.
GUEST: Was this very expensive to produce and own at the time?
APPRAISER: Absolutely.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: It has these wonderful roundels, which are ornately decorated with the eight Daoist symbols.
GUEST: Oh!
APPRAISER: You can see that there are bats on every single one of the roundels, and the bats are symbols of wealth. In these skirts, the... this is called "lishui," the fantastic rainbow of colors.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER; The mountains coming up, the waves, dragons. We have some of the "bajixiang," which are the Eight Buddhist Symbols.
GUEST: Oh, wow, okay.
APPRAISER: It doesn't have all of them. And if we look at the back, we can see that there are one, two, three. There are three on the front and one on each shoulder.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So there are eight roundels total. Looking at the collar, you can see that there's some wear. Well, that's good. It means that this was actually used.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: Uh, but there's not so much wear that it is going to damage the value. What do you think it's worth?
GUEST: Uh... (chuckles) Could we say... $5,000?
APPRAISER: You are right on the money!
GUEST: No way. Really?
APPRAISER: Yes! At auction today, (laughs) this would sell for somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000.
GUEST: Oh, wow. Okay! So I guess I have my grandma's eye for things. (laughs) But, uh, that's wonderful.
APPRAISER: Were we to put a insurance value on this, it would be closer to $12,000 to $18,000.
GUEST: Wow. Growing up, we would just, uh, play around beautiful... (laughs) beautiful pieces of artwork-- carefully! (voice trembling): But, yeah, it was always displayed in her home very beautifully. It's an honor to be able to do this for her.
2. A poignant time in history, reflected on today.
📺 Episode: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 2
GUEST: I brought, uh, an Erna Rosenstein painting. I know that E-Erna Rosenstein was a Holocaust survivor. It's painted in 1955, we've had it for about 37 years. It was from an auction house where they were auctioning stuff for a charity.
APPRAISER: Erna Rosenstein was really a very important Polish avant-garde artist. She was born in 1913 in what is currently known as the Ukrainian city of Lviv. She studied to be an artist. She was very taken by surrealism. She spent a lot of time in Europe learning how to paint from some of the great masters of modern art. In 1939, she went back to Poland to be with her family. When the Nazis invaded Poland, her family got rather nervous about how things were going to go. She and her mother moved to the Jewish ghetto.
Her father went into hiding. In 1942, he was able to secure some false identity documents so that they could try to escape to Warsaw. Sadly, um, they had a very tragic, um, experience while they were trying to escape. Her mother and father were murdered...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...in a forest. She was there. She was wounded in the whole experience, but she did escape. And she spent the next several years living under false identities and moving around, trying to just survive the war, which she ultimately did, she was a Holocaust survivor. She did really spend the rest of her career using those experiences in her art. And we see some of that in this painting.
GUEST: I remember they would say they were going to get showered. They enter here and they got burnt. And they also did experimentations on the bodies and stuff like that.
APPRAISER: Yeah, I mean, I think we have some real tough imagery here...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: That-that I'm sure she didn't like reliving as she was painting IT. But-but it was something she felt really strongly that she wanted to communicate through her brush and-and get that story out. She came back to painting in 1945, but nothing before the war survived, none of her art.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So really the earliest paintings we see are from 1945 on. She went back to spend some time in Paris. She met her husband in the, in the late '40s. His name was Artur Sandauer, he was a literary critic. And eventually she made a life as an artist. But mostly in Poland. She did take a break from her artistic, kind of, forward-facing career during the social realism period from '49 to '55, where she couldn't really paint necessarily what she wanted in the public. So she just kind of took a break from her forward-facing art career. And then in 1957, she regrouped, and made the Kraków Group together, again, with nine artists. And they came back on the scene with the first modern art show, really in the post-Stalin era. This painting is from 1955. This is an oil on canvas painting. It sustained a little bit of damage. Right. But all things considered, it's not too bad. Have you had this appraised?
GUEST: No.
APPRAISER: Do you have any idea what it's worth?
GUEST: Mm-mm.
APPRAISER: If you had to guess what you paid for it 37 or so years ago, what do you think that might have been?
GUEST: I was thinking $700.
APPRAISER: If this were to come up to auction today, we would estimate this painting at $50,000 to $70,000.
GUEST: Wow. Wow. Wow. (sniffles) (voice trembling): Thank you. (exhales) Wow.
3. A picture's worth a thousand ... dollars?!
📺 Episode: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 3
GUEST: These photographs that we brought today are some photographs that we inherited. Our great uncle, he had these photos made of his daughters, Iola and Picola. We knew who the-- found out who the photographer was from a newspaper article that was located with the pictures that said that his name was Mike Disfarmer and it had a copy of that photo.
APPRAISER: Of this one?
GUEST: So we knew--of the first one there--of them in their prom dresses. And so we received other photos along with the same packet. And we were just wondering if any of the other photos were Mike Disfarmer's photos also.
APPRAISER: Mike Disfarmer was actually born in Indiana. And he never really felt like he was part of his family. They were farmers. He didn't want anything to do with that profession. He just always felt like he was an outsider. When he was able to, he moved to Heber Springs, Arkansas, and he wanted to start a photo studio there. People understood him to be very eccentric and someone who was very standoffish and just had a weird demeanor about him.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: In addition to that, when he died, he had no will. So all of those negatives from his studio were left to just rot. And it wasn't until several decades later that those negatives were purchased. And people began to find out about who this photographer was, this mysterious photographer who just appeared in this small town...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:...and created over 3,000 glass plate negatives of the inhabitants. What happened was that people were making posthumous prints from his
glass plate negatives. So there are photographs that exist, that show up on the market, that are actually later prints. But what's much less seen are these vintage prints. This one here is one of my top ten of his images. I think it is so charming, and this is one that you can actually buy later prints from.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: But I have never seen a vintage print of it.
GUEST: Great.
APPRAISER: Who is this here in this photo?
GUEST: Now, both of those, I believe, are younger photos of the girls.
APPRAISER: I definitely think this is one of his photographs, mostly because it has this very strong black stripe behind her. And that is very telltale for his studio. And then the child in the center. The reason why I know it's by Mike Disfarmer is what's on the back. It's the Meyer Studio. He changed his name.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: He was born Mike Meyer.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: And he wanted to really distance himself from his family after his mother died in 1930. So he changed his name from Mike Meyer to Mike Disfarmer, which he thought literally meant "not a farmer.” In auction, I'd be mostly thinking about the value of this print, which is the most well-known image, and I would put an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000 on the group.
GUEST: Wow! (chuckles) Super--$8,000 to $12,000?
APPRAISER: $8,000 to $12,000.
GUEST: Wow, that's astounding. (both laugh) For something--
APPRAISER: Much more than you thought?
GUEST: Yes, and something that was just passed down.
APPRAISER: Somebody should have been taping her.
GUEST: I was looking at my sister's face when she said $8,000 to $12,000, and I go...(gasps, laughs)
4. The original baseball helmet?
📺 Episode: Springs Preserve, Hour 1
GUEST: I bought it because, uh, I was told it was a protector for the head, like an early helmet. Then I got it in the mail, and I was not really pleased. I thought, "Well, what is that thing?" And as it turns out, it's 120 years old, according to the patent date. Uh, it's to protect a person's head when you're a baseball player back in the day. And I don't think it was met with a lot of, uh, fanfare, because, obviously, this one's never been out of the box.
APPRAISER: This is a Reach Pneumatic Head Protector for batters, which we would think of as being an early helmet. And yet it's made out of canvas. Based on the patent date, this was likely made in 1905.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: I love that you found this advertisement on the internet, which shows that they offered this for five dollars.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: But if you look down here, I see it says "Head Protector Left, one dollar."
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: So, obviously...
GUEST: It's on sale.
APPRAISER: Obviously, it's on sale.
GUEST: Right.
(both laughing)
APPRAISER: From the way it's explained, you take this tube and you push it in here, and, and you blow on it?
GUEST: Absolutely.
APPRAISER: And then it inflates.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: Right? To the side, so it protects you.
GUEST: Yeah. But it wasn't a very popular item. When they started wearing it, it was introduced, guys were not into protective equipment. The Hall of Fame has a picture of one, but there's no information, really, as to what became of 'em.
APPRAISER: Let's go back 100, 120 years. The big danger in baseball was the beanball. The beanball was the leading cause of death and major injury in baseball.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: Well, let's go back to 1905. The most progressive player at that time was catcher Roger Bresnahan.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: The Hall-of-Famer for the Giants.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: This was produced in 1905. Two years later, he got a beanball, and he decided to wear this, briefly.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: But he was so ridiculed by the players, and it didn't seem to, to work properly, that it got put back on the shelf and largely forgotten. 1920, the, probably the most famous incident was Carl Mays throwing a sinker ball at Ray Chapman, the shortstop for the Cleveland Indians.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And unfortunately, Ray Chapman is the only baseball player, Major Leaguer, to ever be killed.
GUEST: Yeah, I've heard about that, yes, absolutely. Mm.
APPRAISER: And at that time, they thought about instituting some sort of protective layer, but it never got beyond a certain point, because baseball players didn't want to appear weak. And the other is that they felt that it was gonna be too restrictive, too heavy.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: They hated them. Fast-forward to 1971. Major League Baseball came out with a mandate for all new players. They had to wear plastic batting helmets. When did you buy this and what did you pay for it?
GUEST: Well, it was over 20 years ago. Bought it through an auction. I paid $600.
APPRAISER: The only example that we could find was in the Hall of Fame.
GUEST: Yes. Okay.
APPRAISER: And there's no box.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: So as far as, as we know, this is the only one that exists...
GUEST: I'll be darned.
APPRAISER: ...with a box...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...and all together, and in this condition.
GUEST: That's amazing-- wow, that is amazing.
APPRAISER: We would put an auction estimate today of $8,000 to $12,000 on it.
GUEST: (laughs): Well, that's amazing. That is amazing, it really is.
APPRAISER: I'd insure it for probably somewhere around $15,000.
GUEST: Wow, that's pretty cool--I appreciate that.
5. These are some valuable ceiling tiles ...
📺 Episode: Springs Preserve, Hour 2
APPRAISER: Tell me how you came to acquire these very large and heavy pieces.
GUEST: We took possession of the Farwell Building in 2015, 100 years after it was built. The three main lobby glass tile domes were Louis Tiffany. They were in severe disrepair, they were not restorable. So we ended up removing all those domes and rebuilding them completely. Um, the building had been vacant for 35 years or so. Um, lots of things were destroyed and stolen. So we rebuilt the ceilings completely. And these are the remnants of, of what was there.
APPRAISER: Well, I can tell you that Tiffany was so proud of this that they even published an ad stating that they had just done the work in the Farwell Building. So it, this was something that, uh, Tiffany wanted to advertise prominently. And the building did open in March of 1915. And Tiffany decorated the first-floor corridors with these wonderful barrel-vaulted ceilings with rib vaults. These are the cornices that were beneath where the rib vaults started. We're looking at these upside down, but if these were turned around, you can see these classical-designed vases holding these stylized curlicues and flowers in the middle here and leading up to the bottom of the festoons that continue into the rib vaults. Most of the work was actually done at Tiffany's studios and then it was...
GUEST: Shipped over.
APPRAISER: Yes, which is quite remarkable. What I love about these in particular is, with the Tiffany glass that you see, it's not just an opalescent or an opaque glass. You also have some gold iridescent glass, and you even have some textured glass that you would see in some of the lamps, which is unusual for a mosaic installation like this. You have any idea of value?
GUEST: We have some vague notions without much basis. (chuckling)
APPRAISER: Well, at retail, I would say probably $15,000 to $25,000 on these two. This one, I would say more like $15,000 to $20,000. This one, I would say $30,000 to $40,000.
GUEST: Wow, that's incredible.
APPRAISER: $30,000 to $40,000 on that. And I would say $30,000 to $40,000 on that. And that's the top-end price...
GUEST: Sure.
APPRAISER: ...were they to be sold.
GUEST: Excellent. Wow. That's great, that's great news.
6. Live long and ROADSHOW! 🖖
📺 Episode: Springs Preserve, Hour 3
GUEST: This is a lifetime achievement award to Leonard Nimoy. He actually gave it to me.
APPRAISER: What was it like knowing the man, the myth, the legend (chuckling): that is Leonard Nimoy?
GUEST: He was a very nice man. He rented space from the company I worked for. I worked in a cubicle and he had the office right behind me. So he was 20 feet away, like, every day.
APPRAISER: Interesting, that is so cool. You are correct in that this is a lifetime achievement award. But what this award is actually known as is a Saturn Award. First awarded in 1973, these are given out by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. A Saturn Award might not be a big name like we hear, you know, Emmys, Golden Globe and Oscar. But in the world of everything cool, pop culture, nerdy science fiction, a Saturn Award is a pretty big deal. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror was first created by Donald Reed in 1972, and they still give out the Saturn Award today. In 1986, Leonard Nimoy received this right here, the lifetime achievement award. And when it comes to Leonard Nimoy as a actor, as a personality, his name is synonymous with the world of pop culture. Obviously, everybody knows him from Spock on Star Trek. Spock was such an important character. Everybody remembers that-- I'm gonna embarrass myself. I don't know what it is, but I cannot do the Vulcan salute. I know! I don't have-- I don't know what it is. I don't have these muscles.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: What do you think it's worth?
GUEST: I have no clue as to what it's worth. It almost doesn't matter because it's my connection to Leonard.
APPRAISER: Gotcha.
GUEST: I got to see this thing every day. So when he closed his office down and his assistant asked if I wanted anything, knowing I was a Trekkie, I said, "You know, I look at this thing every day, can I have this?" Not knowing what it was, I had no idea what it was. I just knew it was a statue in his office.
APPRAISER: (laughs)
GUEST: And she said, "Let me ask him." So she went, she asked him, next thing I know, it's on my desk.
APPRAISER: At auction for this award, today, at a pop culture entertainment memorabilia sale, we'd be able to conservatively estimate it $5,000 to $8,000.
GUEST: Okay, time for insurance. (laughing) Wow!
APPRAISER: Based on the other Saturn Awards that have come up, I think this would be arguably one of the best to hit the market. And I wouldn't be surprised if that high estimate was doubled in the $15,000-plus range.
GUEST: Holy cr... I won't say that, um. (laughs) Wow, that's...okay, it's still going back to my house. It's still going to go sit next to the TV, because we watch Star Trek every night.
APPRAISER: I would not insure it for any less than $15,000 because you're not
going to find another one. It's truly one of a kind.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
7. "It was good that you didn't get to play with it."
📺 Episode: Living History Farms, Hour 1
GUEST: I brought a toy that actually belonged to my father. He was born in 1927. And so it was a toy that he had in his childhood. We didn't know he had these toys until after he passed away.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And then my mother distributed the, the four toys. This happened to be the one that I was able to get. So... I got to choose first, before my two sister siblings. But I am the oldest daughter, so it's okay.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: (chuckles)
APPRAISER: So, on the gas tank here, we have what is a "T-C-O," and that stands for Tipp & Company. Tipp & Co. or just Tippco. And they were a German tin toy maker. This toy would have been made in the mid-'30s. And Germany-- we went to war shortly thereafter. So this toy in particular would not have had a very long production run.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: That most likely is contributing to how rare this toy is.
GUEST: Sure.
APPRAISER: Um, in addition...
GUEST: Hmm.
APPRAISER:...a lot of the Tippco motorcycles are... much smaller. Um, this is about 12 inches or so. The more common size we see for a large Tippco motorcycle is about nine inches. And then they make an even smaller one at seven inches.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: The large size of it really makes this a show... a show stopper. This is a nice motorcycle. It has a wind-up motor on the side here, which would propel it. So winding this would drive the rear wheel. You could set your front wheel to go in a circle or a straight motion. And it was just a s... a little wind-up floor toy that could kind of scoot along. Do you have any idea of what a toy like this could be worth today?
GUEST: No, other than my neighbor, who was a toy collector, looked at it and I don't, I don't remember how much he... It seemed like a lot of money
that he thought it was worth at that moment.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Um, how much did he think it was worth at that time?
GUESET: I want to say, like, $1,000, maybe.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: You know, maybe a little more.
APPRAISER: Well, I'm happy to report that, uh, this toy is worth much more than that. So, it's good that you kept it.
GUEST: Good.
APPRAISER: It is all original. All the tinplate is correct. All of the lithography is correct. I've actually only ever seen one other example of this toy.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: The estimate I would conservatively place on this piece would be $15,000 to $25,000.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness. Make me cry. (laughs) Oh, my goodness. My dad would flip over, wouldn't he? (laughs) That's wonderful. Thank you.
APPRAISER: A couple years ago, one had gone to auction. Uh, it had an estimate of $15,000 to $25,000, and it finished at just over $40,000.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness. I think of my sweet dad, what he would think. This toy, he... you know, held back for so many years. So...
APPRAISER: Sure.
GUEST: Thank you.
APPRAISER: And now, looking back, it was good that you didn't get to play with it. With your brothers and sisters because...
GUEST: Yes, yes. We'd have wrecked it. (laughs)
APPRAISER: Here it is, preserved.
8. "When I look at this, I think it's all about forgiveness."
📺 Episode: Living History Farms, Hour 2
GUEST: I brought today a pendant watch that my father gave my mother after they were divorced. It's kind of an apology item because they had had a rough several years, like probably 40-plus years, where they couldn't find any area to communicate on. And they started communicating later in life, probably in their late 60s, early 70s. And they started calling each other and visiting, and they'd go out to coffee, things like that. They went on trips together. And my mom turned to me during that time and she said, "Your dad's my best friend." Well, he gave it to her kind of as a way to say he was sorry for things that had happened over the years. When I look at this, I think it's all about forgiveness. And my mom gave it to me because she knew I loved it. When my dad passed away, I think that at that point my mom got it insured and she did have somebody look at it. And I want to say that it was worth $600, is what they said. But personally, I doubt that at this point, I don't think it's worth that much.
APPRAISER: How many years ago was that?
GUEST: Oh, probably, at least ten.
APPRAISER: We've got a ladies pendant watch that's worn around the neck. You've got a nice 18-inch chain. The chain is all platinum and it's set with diamonds. The watch is platinum. The watch is set with diamonds. We have a little sapphire crown there. We have a little sapphire crown on the other side. It's a very high-grade movement. In the watch business, we call high-grade referring to watch movements that are made by the best companies.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: This one is Blancpain. Blancpain is a Swiss watchmaking company...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...founded in 1735. Blancpain is the oldest watch maker in recorded history. This dates from 1920 to 1925, it really is true Art Deco. I'm going to flip it over and on the other side, incredible, screams Art Deco.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: This is all enameling. That's all done by hand. You have a wonderful
figure in there, surrounded by platinum work and little diamonds. Retail on this, it would bring about $5,000 to $6,000.
GUEST: (laughs) Holy smokes. (laughs) That's a lot more than I thought.
APPRAISER: It's a little treasure.
GUEST: It was sitting in a box and now I'm going to wear it. I love it.
9. This guitar's value was music to the guest's ears!
📺 Episode: Living History Farms, Hour 3
GUEST: This guitar was purchased by my father, I believe, in the year 1962. My dad was a Marine, and when he got out of the Marines, married my mom and moved to Minneapolis area and decided he wanted to learn how to play guitar. So he went to the Minneapolis either "Star" or "Tribune" and looked in the, uh, ads,
the...
APPRAISER: The classified.
GUEST: In the classified ads.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: And he called, uh, the woman who was selling it, and she said, "Well, I bought it for my son, and he doesn't play it, and so I'm selling it." And he asked her, "How much do you want for it?" And she said, "Well, $300 for the amplifier, the guitar comes with a case, and, uh, the guitar." And he thought that was a good enough bargain back in 1962...
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: ...to purchase it, and, uh... That was a good deal.
APPRAISER: This is a ES355. The 335 came out in '58. In '59, this was, model was introduced. This particular one is mono. Usually, these were stereo. The mono's
a little more desirable. The Bigsby is factory. The cherry in, from this era is unlike anything they ever did. It's sort of a watermelon, it's just beautiful.
GUEST: Yeah. Yeah, oh, I love the color.
APPRAISER: And they never really did that again, 'cause it is a stain. This is late enough era that these pickups are patent applied for, or P.A.Fs., as they're known. Sort of the Holy Grail of guitar pickups. There's a certain era, late '59, part of '60, where Gibson ordered the wrong color, or somehow they got shipped the wrong color. They're white coils, so... I'm not going to take it apart. We don't have the ability to do that here. But if those are double-white P.A.Fs....
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER:...they're worth considerably more.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: It adds a lot of value to the guitar. As much as maybe ten, ten grand, more.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: Part of the thing that makes this package, so to speak, is the, the original case, and unusually, the original hang tag accompanies it, still. And a lot of times, those things disappeared. Makes it more collectible because it has all the juju that came with it.
GUEST: My father taught hims, himself how to play guitar.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: He played it his whole life, I've played it off and on. My brother played it quite a bit, 'cause he lived closer. The incredible fun it's created for us...
APPRAISER: I'll bet.
GUEST: ...I, I can't tell you.
APPRAISER: I bet. Well, do you want to know what, probably, market value is on this at this current time?
GUEST: Sure.
APPRAISER: Is roughly around $45,000.
GUEST: My father would be so incredibly pleased to find that out.
APPRAISER: And... And that's if it has the double whites, which, I'm assuming it probably does.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh. That's, that's crazy. My, my dad would be so proud to know that.
APPRAISER: If these are not double-white P.A.Fs., it's going to back it down a little bit. Somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000.
10. Are these antique jeans the strangest thing to be found in a ceiling?
📺 Episode: Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms, Hour 1
GUEST: I was, uh, taking apart an old house probably built in the 1880s, in a mining town, uh, west of Boulder in Colorado. Was pulling down the ceiling boards in the living room, and, and they just dropped out of the ceiling. All of a sudden they were, like, right there.
APPRAISER: It seems a bit strange that that's how you'd find them, but actually, old clothing is often found, kind of, stuffed in walls or stuffed in ceilings as makeshift insulation. So that would be my guess as to why they were there.
GUEST: Okay
APPRAISER: So what we have here is a pair of jeans that I would date from between 1890 and 1910. So one of the first identifiers of it being an early pair of jeans is the cinch right here, which is called a buckleback. These we would be classifying as buckleback jeans. So bucklebacks went away in about the 1940s, as the belt became more ubiquitous, but it allowed for waist adjustability, which was key because jeans were often worn by multiple different people working at the same place. So as someone would clock in for a shift, they might throw these on. So that allowed them to need to own fewer pairs. These are not Levi's, but when we're talking about early denim, it's always relevant to talk about Levi's. So, uh, Levi's was founded in 1853, in San Francisco, California at the height of the California gold rush. In 1873, Levi's patented riveted clothing, which ostensibly was the patent for, uh, denim and for blue jeans. In 1890, the patent expired. And when the patent expired, many brands and manufacturers leapt at the opportunity to make riveted clothing or denim of their own. And I believe this is a pair, kind of, shortly after 1890 when that patent expired for a few reasons. Most notably, here on the label, you can see "Pacific Coast." That's the name of the brand, as well as two bears pulling at a pair of jeans. And this is heavily influenced by the Levi's two horses design, which you still find on the back of Levi's jeans today. Two horses pulling in opposite directions, fruitlessly trying to tear apart some jeans. These are rarer than Levi's. I've only seen one other pair of Pacific Coast that was found in a mine in 2020. But there is a larger collector base for Levi's, since that's the real name. This is great condition for something like this, uh, that's this old. It also shows, kind of, the history of it. There's some marks here of candle wax, which would have been from the miners who would have worn these. And instead of headlamps, they would have had candles...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...and candles affixed to their helmets at times. There's also a very interesting patch right here with a crotch rivet. The crotch rivet was later done away with after someone sat by a campfire and realized that it may burn them.
GUEST: (chuckling)
APPRAISER: Uh, so this is a very unusual patch. I would say, conservatively, at auction, these would be worth $15,000 to $20,000.
GUEST: Wow. That's incredible.
APPRAISER: If these were Levi's that were also bucklebacks and-and from this era, I'd say it would be something closer to the $40,000 or $50,000 range.
GUEST: Okay.
11. "One if by land, two if by sea," three if by ROADSHOW?
📺 Episode: Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms, Hour 2
GUEST: I actually inherited them almost 20 years ago. It was on my mother's side. They got to my mother from her Uncle Robert, and then before Robert, it was with George. So, from what I understand, these spoons were part of a, like, story time. So, for instance, Uncle Bob would, you know, sit all the kids down, and he would display the spoons. He said that they were Revere spoons, as in Paul Revere.
APPRAISER: And how did he know that?
GUEST: Because he had inherited them from his father.
APPRAISER: So as you know, these are marked with the name Revere. This is a set of six spoons that is also engraved with the letters "A.A." at the downturned tip. That "A.A." may relate to a family in Boston, Anna Amory. And I don't know if there's any relationship between an Amory family and your family, but Paul Revere's record books show a great deal of silver made for Anna Amory and Anna Amory's family in 1796, much of which was marked with this same "A.A." intersecting at the bottom. We'll date these right around 1796, because of the possible connection to the Anna Amory service. So besides being a patriot and a Son of Liberty, Paul Revere also came from a silversmithing family. His father, Paul Revere, Sr., was a silversmith in his own right, and I believe died just before Paul could legally take over the business. So he had to apprentice for a little while. Then of course, there was an American Revolution in the middle there. Paul Revere, Jr.--this being Paul Revere, Jr.'s work--has certainly emerged as the more desirable of the Revere silversmiths. What I'd really love to be able to do with these is to dig into that history. His account books are fascinating. They list somewhere around 5,000 silver objects that he made. He was one of Boston's most accomplished silversmiths in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Spoons like these don't come up very often. They're an unusual size, about seven-and-a-quarter inches, which is sort of in between a tablespoon and a teaspoon.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So we'd call these a small tablespoon, rarer than teaspoons and rarer than tablespoons, but tablespoons still are the most desirable. Were these to come up in an auction of like property and well-publicized, we'd expect them to carry an auction estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.
GUEST: Wow. Really?
APPRAISER: If you were to want to have these insured, you'd probably be looking at a value closer to about $50,000 for the set of six.
GUEST: Wow, that's amazing. (laughing): That is--that's amazing.
12. A special heirloom to be passed down to future generations.
📺 Episode: Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms, Hour 3
GUEST: These are two Sam Maloof walnut woven benches... that I obtained from my aunt and uncle's estate. My uncle was a renowned, uh, modernist architect in Riverside, California.
APPRAISER: Mm.
GUEST: And he knew Sam Maloof personally and had quite a few pieces from Sam.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Sam Maloof is certainly one of the "A" guys of 20th century design. There's no two ways about it. He started working about 1947, 1948 in Southern California. He's one of the few people to do wonderful craft furniture in Southern California. It's incredibly well-built. It's incredibly well-designed. He tended to make the same things pretty much throughout his career, so he got really good at them. So these are two great Sam Maloof benches. They're from 1974. You could buy a single, a double, a triple. I don't know if he made longer than triple. I've never seen one.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: But they are incredible. You can see all the detail. So these are signed. Sam Maloof signed a lot of his furniture. He didn't use a lot of hardware in his material. Very few screws or brackets or braces. The walnut is gorgeous. So, it's so beautiful. It's so well-colored. It's also aged very well. His most popular piece is a rocking chair. Maloof rocking chairs.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: The benches are rare. They don't show up as often.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: People really covet them. Do you have any idea what these might be worth?
GUEST: We had a-a-a sheet that I got from my cousin. It was an appraisal from the Sam Maloof Workshop, uh, I believe in 2013... for insurance purposes. And I believe they were appraised at that point for replacement value of $8,000 each.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. Maloof's furniture has become very popular. For insurance purposes, I would value these at probably 12, 13, $14,000 apiece.
GUEST: Oh. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: These are great pieces. They're really rare.
GUEST: Geez.
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: Yeah. Wow. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: (sniffs) Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that's, that's way more than I'd... than we had estimated they'd, they'd go for. Of course, they're great pieces. I mean, they're a great memory of my aunt and uncle's house. And, um, of course, we certainly plan to hold on to them. And hopefully our sons will enjoy them, and pass them down, but, uh, wow.
13. From obscurity to ROADHSHOW!
📺 Episode: Maryland Zoo, Hour 1
GUEST: So my great-aunt was an artist, and she studied under Hans Hofmann and wound up becoming friends, uh, with several of the other artists that, that studied along with him. And one of them was a woman named Lynne Drexler. Lynne wound up leaving a, a number of pieces, uh, with my aunt, and when my aunt passed in 2009, uh, I inherited them. And so I've always loved them. About a year and a half ago, I saw a "New York Times" article that talked about Lynne Drexler, and how this artist, who had been in obscurity for decades, was all of a sudden getting interest. So I thought I would bring these and see if I could learn more about them.
APPRAISER: Sure-- where did your, uh, great-aunt live?
GUEST: Provincetown.
APPRAISER: So these are works by Lynne Drexler. Lynne Drexler was born in 1928 in Virginia, and then moved to New York in the, the mid-'50s to study with Hans Hofmann. Hans Hofmann was a very famous painter. He'd come from Germany, and he had an art school in New York City. He was a teacher, and also, later, he had a school in Provincetown, Massachusetts. And many, many important artists from the second half of the 20th century studied with Hans Hofmann.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: So he's considered one of the great teachers and abstract artists of the 20th century. Lynne Drexler passed away in 1999 on Monhegan Island in Maine, where she had moved for the last years of her life. Lynne Drexler was considered an Abstract Expressionist. These are great examples of her work. This piece is from 1959, and this piece, uh, is from 1961. Both of these paintings are oils paintings on canvas. Both paintings are signed and dated on the back. The smaller one's also titled "Redwood Time." The larger painting is dated 1961, but is not titled. And it was typical for her to sign her paintings on the back-- that way, it didn't disturb the, uh, composition. She was a, really, a brilliant colorist. Like Hofmann, sort of led her compositions with color more than form. A lot of these artists were really overlooked. The, the macho men of that movement were, are the ones that have really been celebrated. But in recent years, there have been several books written and there have been several exhibitions really focusing on the women abstract artists of that period. So your great-aunt was friends with the artist...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: ...and got these directly from the artist?
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: So, she-- so, what did she pay for them?
GUEST: Uh, nothing. A lot of the artists that would stay with her and up in Provincetown would, you know, trade art, or they would work in each other's studios and leave things behind.
APPRAISER: Sure. The works from the '50s and the early '60s are the most desirable. These are small- and medium-sized paintings for her. The market has really shifted in the last few years. There have been a couple of major galleries in New York and in London and overseas that have done major shows. And so they've started moving into major collections. And they've also done very well at auction. If the smaller painting were to come to auction, I believe that value would be $50,000 to $70,000.
GUEST: Wow, wow. (stammering) Who would have known? I, just a small little painting that I've had on my wall for 15 years. That's amazing.
APPRAISER: And the larger painting, I believe if this painting were at auction, it would sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness. I... I'm spee, I'm speechless. Wow, I... I mean, I, I've always just liked them, but I would never have imagined. That's fantastic.
14. What shocked this guest's parents more: finding out about the ring collection or learning its value?
📺 Episode: Maryland Zoo, Hour 2
GUEST: I brought in a box of jewelry from my grandmother that I got when she passed away back in 2020. We were in the hospital and she called me in and then she gave this to me before she died. She told me to put it up in somewhere safe. So I just put it in my closet, and I kind of forgot about it, until I heard I was going on the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW I wanted to bring it.
APPRAISER: Is that when you told your parents?
GUEST: (chuckles) Yes.
APPRAISER: (laughs) I can't believe you hid it from your mother and father. What was their reaction when you...?
GUEST: They were really shocked and surprised.
APPRAISER: What do you know about these rings?
GUEST: I don't know much, but when I was younger, she used to paint my nails, and we used to play with them a lot. And I knew she had, like, a big collection of them.
APPRAISER: Most of the rings in here are real. All of these rings in the top rows are real gold and real diamonds. Now, a few of these big ones, like this... ...and this one and this one, the real big diamonds are not. They're cubic zirconia. But all the smaller diamonds in the rings are all diamonds. The only rings that are not gold and that do not have, uh, genuine stones in them are all the rings right here in this bottom row.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: But over here you have blue topaz. You have blue sapphire. This green one is peridot. You have a real cultured pearl there. You have amethyst. Over here you have more peridot, amethyst, citrine. You know what this one is, right?
GUEST: A ruby, maybe?
APPRAISER: Right, rubies. And this one?
GUEST: Emeralds?
APPRAISER: That's right. You have some rings that are a little larger. Like, this one's amethyst, this one here is synthetic. It's a big stone-- this one here is synthetic. This one here is synthetic. But the ring is still gold. Ten karat, 14 karat. There are some rings here that are manufactured in the United States. There are rings in there that are manufactured in China. There's a bunch of them, especially the smaller colored stones, that would have been manufactured in Thailand. I would say overall, they range anywhere from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s.
GUEST: (chuckling): That's old.
APPRAISER: (chuckling): That's old! If I add up what's here, it's $15,000 to $25,000. That's a lot of money-- your grandmother loved jewelry, no doubt about it.
GUEST: Mm-hmm, yes, she has a lot.
APPRAISER: There's more? More?
GUEST: Yes, I have a lot more at home.
APPRAISER: (laughing): Is it still being hidden?
GUEST: (laughing): Yes.
APPRAISER: Have your mom and dad seen it yet?
GUEST: (chuckling): Not yet.
APPRAISER: (laughs)
15. "We are very proud and honored as a family to have this and to have this legacy."
📺 Episode: Maryland Zoo, Hour 3
GUEST: This is my grandfather's Nobel Prize medal. Which he won in 1944 in physiology, and this is the Nobel Institute diploma that is presented along with it.
APPRAISER: And do you remember seeing this growing up or your family talking about it?
GUEST: I knew my grandpa won a Nobel Prize.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: And I saw the medal once or twice, but he was a very humble person.
APPRAISER: Yeah?
GUEST: He didn't go out and show this off, and nor did any of the rest of us. When I was a really little kid, uh, my family would talk about the Nobel Prize, and I thought it was a "no bell" prize. (both laughing) Until somebody set me straight.
APPRAISER: (laughs) Yeah.
GUEST: I knew him growing up because when he-- I was 14 when he passed away, and we would see him every week for dinners and so on, and he was a, a son of immigrants. He was the first person in his family to go to college.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: He was in the third graduating class of Johns Hopkins Medical School, which is right here, and he was a full professor within about three years...
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: ...because his, his brilliance was already recognized.
APPRAISER: Can you tell us what your grandfather, Joseph Erlanger, won the Nobel Prize for?
GUEST: He did what is fundamental work underlying neurophysiology today.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: Which is the electrical conduction of nerve fibers and differentiation of different nerve fibers. And it was very quickly recognized as breakthrough. He needed to have a cathode-ray tube, and the company that made cathode-ray tubes refused to sell him one because they were afraid, afraid of industrial espionage. So, he built one.
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: This contraption that he had in his basement lab.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: And if he got one or good two tracings...
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GUEST: ...'cause they were doing nerve tracings-- per day, they felt it was a good thing.
APPRAISER: Really groundbreaking stuff. This is his Nobel Prize.
GUEST: Correct.
APPRAISER: It's the most prestigious award in every field. You've got physics, physiology and medicine. Chemistry, literature, peace, and recently, economic science.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And they're given out almost every year since 1901. How you get awarded a Nobel Prize is, for the case of medicine, a committee from the Karolinska Institute would get together, and they would choose and nominate who would get the award. You've got to impress every professor at one of the most prestigious institutes in the world and show them that your contribution is important to mankind.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And not only do you get the lovely calligraphy, you get the medal, you also get a cash prize, too.
GUEST: Yes. And, of course, it was split…
APPRAISER: Mmm-hmm.
GUEST: …because this was a joint prize.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: University professors don't earn a lot of money...
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: ...but they're very frugal, so they kept it invested, and it came down through to us.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: And, actually, for me, my grandfather's Nobel Prize money paid my way through the University of Chicago.
APPRAISER: That's awesome.
GUEST: (chuckling): Yeah.
APPRAISER: That's fantastic. This certificate, it is beautiful calligraphy signed by all the nominating members, showing the joint award to Herbert Gasser and your grandfather, Joseph Erlanger, for their hard work.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And then, we look at the medal itself. These are pretty special.
GUEST: (laughing): Yeah.
APPRAISER: It is solid gold. And there are other medals given out; there are bronze medals, there are ones that are gilt that have just a thin layer of gold on top. And to the awardees, they get their name engraved on the back and the date. And at the very bottom of it here, it says "gold" in Swedish, "1944."
GUEST: Ah.
APPRAISER: Everything about this is exactly what the collector of these items want to see. Even though Erlanger and Gasser are not household names like Einstein, it's still an important name in the field of neuroscience. I would give an auction estimate for the entire package of $150,000 to $200,000.
GUEST: (exhales, laughs): Wow. I know you're not supposed to say that, but wow, that's just amazing. We are very proud and honored as a family to have this and to have this legacy.
