Antiques Roadshow

Special: Best of 20

Aired: 11/15/21Premiered: 12/19/16

RUNTIME: 52:59Antiques RoadshowSEASON 20

Experience our favorite moments from all 20 seasons, including a $750,000-$1,000,000 find!

Transcript

GUEST: Frankly, I always thought it was very unusual, but a rather unattractive plate.

APPRAISER: It's what makes all of us people that love antiques tick, you know, things like this.

GUEST: Oh my God! Whoa!

MARK WALBERG: In 2001, Antiques Roadshow made its first trip to the city so nice, they named it twice: New York, New York. There were so many nice objects there, like this fancy feline. Did the values of these treasures stay nice, or has the market been mean to some? Find out in this fresh look at New York.

GUEST: This cat has been in my family probably since the early '50s. And my grandmother, since my childhood, has always said that it would be mine because I loved it as a little kid and I drew pictures of it. And so when my grandmother passed away recently, the cat was left to me.

APPRAISER: Well, let me tell you a little about your cat.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: I'm going to turn him over, and we can see the name of the maker-E. Gallé, which is for Emile Gallé. Emile Gallé is known as one of the founders of the French Art Nouveau movement and is mostly known as a maker of glass, but he also made furniture, and he grew up in a family of potters. And in his early career in the 1880s and 1890s, he made pottery, especially this type of pottery. You can see the white color of this glaze. It's made white by adding tin, which oxidizes and goes white over the pottery base, and we call this "faience"—or tin-glazed earthenware. It's very traditional to the French provinces. Gallé was working in the French provinces in Nancy when he made this faience cat. And he made a wide range of faience, but he particularly liked these cats. And they have been reproduced more recently, so we look carefully at them to see if they're new ones or old ones, but this is an old one. And in many ways, the best way to tell if it's an old one is simply by looking at the face. Your cat has what I like to call the Cheshire Cat grin.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: It's also beautifully made, beautifully colored, and very characteristic of a Gallé cat probably made in the 1890s. Today, these are quite valuable. I don't know if you've ever had an appraisal done of him, or...

GUEST: No, I've tried to find out a little bit about him, and I went on the Internet, but I could only find out about the glass. There wasn't anything about pottery.

APPRAISER: Well, this one today, in an auction, would probably bring about $2,000.

GUEST: Wow!

APPRAISER: Because it's in such great condition, it may even bring $2,500 or $3,000.

GUEST: Wow!

APPRAISER: So a nice find, and a lovely thing to inherit.

GUEST: Thank you, and I don't think I'm going to sell it. I think he's going to be with me for a really long time.

GUEST: My parents were avid antique collectors, and my dad would always go to different shops in the city. And when he would see an interesting piece of jewelry for my mom, he would buy it.

APPRAISER: Where did he find this piece?

GUEST: He found it at a shop in Manhattan, I believe.

APPRAISER: Oh, okay.

GUEST: One of the interesting things about it is, it came with this letter.

APPRAISER: And what does the letter say?

GUEST: Well, the letter says that the piece was made in Canton, China, and the letter is from a jeweler in Boston, I believe.

APPRAISER: And it's dated...

GUEST:1912 or 1913. And the letter states that it was made about 60 years before that date. And it has, according to this, an interesting history. It went from Canton to Shanghai, and it was presented to a captain...

APPRAISER: It's been around. Did it get to Brooklyn, or did it get to Long Island?

GUEST: It got to Brooklyn first.

APPRAISER: Brooklyn first. The letter is interesting, the pieces are very interesting, but the letter is wrong.

GUEST: Uh-oh.

APPRAISER: So the gentleman who wrote that had a good story, but he did not know. And somebody was a sea captain in that letter, so sea captains are notorious in finding heirlooms, in finding treasures and things like that. You have two bracelets, of course. They always came in pairs. This one over here, somebody stole the stones and made something else out of it way back when. When you got it, you got it that way.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: This one's intact. Now, your gold is filigree gold, made in Italy. It's Italian; it's not Chinese, And the work is extremely fine. And it's most likely-- I haven't tested it-- but it's most likely a bit higher than 18-karat gold. It's probably 20-, 22-karat gold. That's what they worked in. All the stones that surround this are made from lava. Each one of these pieces is, basically, a god or a famous person. Now, the age is all wrong, also. This is close to... going to be somewhere around 200 years old. 1812, 1810.

GUEST: So it's... okay.

APPRAISER: So that's where it comes in. And it's in great condition.

GUEST: I wear it, I love it.

APPRAISER: Oh, you do wear it.

GUEST: I wear it, absolutely.

APPRAISER: I love jewelry that's worn.

GUEST: I wore the bracelet a few weeks ago.

APPRAISER: This cannot be fixed. You got to find pieces of lava. It's very hard to fix it. But a piece like this, in today's market, can easily bring at auction somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000.

GUEST: Terrific.

APPRAISER: And on a good day, it could bring $6,000.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: It was made by a company called Kestner and Company, made around 1909 era. It's called a character doll. This particular set's between $10,000 and $12,000.

GUESTS: (cheering)

APPRAISER: It's really that much because of the glass eyes instead of the painted eyes.

APPRAISER: This armlet-- it was an armlet-- actually comes from Central Europe, very probably Germany or Austria. It's called the Hallstatt Period--

that’s late Bronze Age. This would be worth between $2,000 and $3,000. It's quite a rare piece because of the fact that it's an armlet rather than a pin.

APPRAISER: Probably from just about the turn of the century. You can see where they've done hatching here. A little bit later, they'll cross that twice and call it cross-hatching. Probably about a $6,000 to $8,000 pot.

GUEST: You're kidding!

APPRAISER: No.

APPRAISER: This is very typical of furniture produced in the Syrian area, Syria, Morocco, at the turn of the century, around 1900. It's inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Sometimes you see pieces with silver edges and ebony, but it's very, very high-quality, detailed work. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece. You might be surprised to know it's worth about $600 in this condition.

GUEST: Wow, in this condition!

APPRAISER: In better condition, it would be worth more.

GUEST: My parents bought them, oh, probably in the early 1950s. My mother had never attended too many auctions before that experience, and she raised her hand not realizing that she was bidding on these three pieces.

APPRAISER: Oh, no. And she bought it.

GUEST: And she bought them.

APPRAISER: Was she happy?

GUEST: Very happy.

APPRAISER: This is really a history of enamel work in China. The smallest one on this side was converted into an inkwell, so we know this was not the original shape because they didn't use inkwells like this during the Ming Dynasty. This was made sometime before 1644, probably in the late 16th century, and I bet that this actually had a very tall, slender neck that came up this way and it was a different shape than you see here today, because the cover, in fact, is an 18th-century cover, not a 16th-, 17th-century, so it was mixed and matched. Now, we're going to move over here to this one. You've got two types of enamel work: typical cloisonné, with the prunus blossoms, and at the bottom is champlevé-- two different techniques. I think that this actually, at one time, had a Chinese mineral tree in it with jade leaves and hard stone branches that would have come up, like, this big, and that the little flowers are indicative of that... that that was the use. This was made in the Qianlong period, somewhere between 1736 and 1795. Now, finally, this is the... really, the most interesting of the group. This is also cloisonné, and it's copying a form from an ancient bronze shape made in China during the Shang Dynasty, which is somewhere around 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. And they knew they were copying a form from that period because this is the shape. It's called a jue-- j-u-e-- and if you turn it over on the underside, you'll see that there, in fact, are stylized archaic characters meant to remind one of that earlier period when the writing was very, very much in the formative stage. The workmanship on this is absolutely stunning, and it's fantastic. If you look at the mask, exquisite quality. The gilding is exactly what you want to see. It's mercury gilding, beautiful workmanship. The cloisonné design itself is this repeating key fret pattern. You can't get better quality than this. Unfortunately, it's been damaged, and the discoloration at the top is from wax. They actually used wax to repair it. Now, to give you an idea of the value on these, this, I think, is worth somewhere around $2,000 to $3,000, maybe $2,500 to $3,500. This is worth in the $7,000-to-$10,000 range. If this were not damaged, we'd be looking at something at $15,000 to $20,000. With the damage, it's going to bring the price down a little bit, but I'd say probably about $7,000 to $10,000. So you've got a really wonderful example of three different types of workmanship from two different periods, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, and I'm delighted to see them.

GUEST: Growing up, we had a neighbor we were very, very close to across the street that unfortunately had to flee France during the Nazi invasion. And much to my dad's surprise, after she passed on, she gave him this watch through her will. And unfortunately, my dad passed away about a year ago, so myself and my brother have been the owners of this watch and wanted to find out a little more about it.

APPRAISER: First, we'll talk about this piece up top. This is called a chatelaine.

GUEST: Chatelaine.

APPRAISER: Chatelaine. They made them for men and for women. This one's... it's really for a gent because it's so large and so ornate. Now, it's very beautifully done. Now, the base metal is steel.

GUEST: Steel?

APPRAISER: Steel, but it's overlaid with varicolored, or tricolored, gold and silver, and it's held on with rivets. That was the technique they used. There's a clip back here, the clip that's around the pad. This clip would go onto your

sash or your belt. These are little cut-steel swivels here. They would hold different objects. It was kind of like an external type of handbag or purse. You see over here, there's a cut-steel key. This key is for winding the watch. Now we come to the watch, which was made by a fellow called Romilly, who was a Parisian watchmaker. Roughly 1750.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness!

APPRAISER: You first came in and said there's no way this is...

GUEST: Yeah, I was amazed by the condition, and I said, "No way does something go 250 years looking this good," so I was a little concerned it might be fake.

APPRAISER: The good news is, it's not fake.

GUEST: Okay, good.

APPRAISER: It's the genuine article. Next, let's show everybody that it is a watch, and the watch would also serve as a purpose to hang from the chatelaine, and it's a key-wind, and you can tell time. Now, when we turn it over, you see that the watch matches the theme of the chatelaine. Very beautiful, with the layers of gold and a nice scene of two women and a man. It looks like he's presenting her some flowers.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: As you know, condition is everything.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: This piece, fair market value, somewhere around $12,000 to $15,000.

GUEST: Oh my God! Whoa! I don't know if my brother's getting this back after the show.

APPRAISER: I'm sure he's going to want to talk to you.

GUEST: He can have my Casio.

GUEST: Well, I found it in my aunt's attic back in 1973, and I brought it home, rolled it up, put it in my bedroom closet, and it's been there since then. We found a great big box of letters and all sorts of things. And as I started looking through them about six or seven years ago, I realized that, you know, this tapestry might be worth something.

APPRAISER: This was your aunt's, right? Well, we have a letter from her where she said she visited a tapestry factory, and then we have invoices—the original invoices-- for the purchase of three tapestries in Germany. And I believe that the purchase price for this particular tapestry was $140. She ordered this tapestry in 1922, and it took about six months to make. And the subject matter of this tapestry is from a very famous painting by Jan van Eyck, and it's a 15th-century artist, and it is in a church in Flanders. And this is very common for the tapestries to use this early subject matter. One of the clues that this is a newer tapestry is the color palette and it's got very soft, sort of pastel hues, and the early tapestries are very rich greens and blues. The other tip-off is that the faces are very crude, relative to the quality that you would see in an 18th-century tapestry.

GUEST: I see.

APPRAISER: What do you think the value might be?

GUEST: I haven't the faintest idea, but I'm hoping I go home in a limousine today.

APPRAISER: Oh, well, I can't guarantee a limousine, but I would value this at about $8,000 on the retail level.

GUEST: I can't believe that! That's fantastic!

GUEST: I got these posters about almost 20 years ago, from an auction in Paris. A friend of mine is an art dealer there, and I told him that if he ever saw them to please let me know. And within a few weeks, actually, they came up to auction, and he called me and said, do I want to bid, and I did. And I got it. And I have the entire collection.

APPRAISER: And how much did you spend for them?

GUEST: I spent $8,000.

APPRAISER: And how many are in the entire set?

GUEST: 256.

APPRAISER: Now, you realize, these aren't posters.

GUEST: No, they're the Maîtres de l'Affiche, which is the collectors' size of the posters that were originally put up on the billboard. But so many people enjoyed them, that they started ripping them off the billboards, and they decided to make a collectors' edition for a period of about five years.

APPRAISER: Exactly right, and in an analogy, they're like trading cards, where the actual posters were so big, and they had to be issued in a smaller, more easily handled size. Now, originally, these posters were mailed out by subscription, and they all came in one of these envelopes on a monthly basis, sort of like trading card of the month. And the way you can tell that they're all part of the Maîtres de l'Affiche, the "Master of the Poster" series, is that they all... if you can see it, it's a very faint embossed stamp. And every single one of them will have that embossed stamp, and that will tell you that it's part of the series.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Now, the series of 256 represents many, many different artists, and I know you have all 256, and I've selected just a few of them to show everybody here. There are some works by Toulouse-Lautrec. There are some works by Alphonse Mucha. There're some works by Jules Chéret, and a poster by Steinlein. Now, these are definitely the highlights. The question that I think you have for me is, how much are these things worth?

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: I mean, they are reproductions. And generally, we're trained to think that reproductions are not very good. They tend to be worth not a whole lot compared to the original. Well, this is something a little bit different. These reproductions are actively sought out by collectors and by dealers, and everybody really likes to have them because they were printed between about 1896 and 1900. So although they're reproductions and miniaturizations of the original, they're of the same era. So now, in 1980, you paid $8,000.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Do you have any idea what these are worth now?

GUEST: No, that's why I came with them, because I honestly don't, and it's very difficult to find anyone who is willing to tell me a price.

APPRAISER: Well, I can tell you this is the most pristine collection of these Maîtres de l'Affiche that I have ever seen. Each one comes with an original piece of wax paper. You've preserved them perfectly. They're in mint condition. You have all of the original portfolio sleeves. You even have the original envelopes that were mailed to the subscribers every month. At auction, a set in less good condition than this would sell for $40,000, $45,000.

GUEST: Oh, my God.

APPRIASER: It's great to see it. It brightens up the entire room.

GUEST: (laughs) This is great news!

APPRAISER: Yours is absolutely the coolest one I've ever seen.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: Yeah, we've got an Art Deco lady there in a little bit of a risqué pose. One of the ones that we sold which wasn't as good as this one brought $325.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: Which is a lot of money for a lamp. I mean, we're basically talking about a light bulb.

GUEST: I know!

GUEST: These are from the Moravian Tile Works.

APPRAISER: These are beautiful, they're in great condition, and they're worth somewhere between $500 and $750 apiece.

GUEST: Great, that is wonderful.

GUEST: There was a band leader from the 1930s named Hal Kemp.

APPRAISER: You even have this photograph of Hal Kemp here with the sculptor, Max Kalish, with the model. I would put an auction estimate of between $6,000 and $8,000.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: I went through a dumpster in Queens and I found the bear and several other toys at the same time.

APPRAISER: Oh, wow. Now, do you know anything about the bear, any history?

GUEST: No, nothing at all.

APPRAISER: Well, let me tell you, it's a nice bear. It's a Steiff bear. What I like about it is it's a white mohair bear. It has glass eyes. Also, this red tag tells me definitely it's from the early 1930s. Usually, these red tags were torn off. And the condition, overall, is wonderful. And it was just found in a dumpster? You just-- amazing.

GUEST: Just pulled it right out.

APPRAISER: That's great. Well, what's nice is that it has the felt pads, and it is stuffed with excelsior, and if you squeeze the bear, you can feel that there's a little squeaker that was actually right inside the bear. The market is very good for Steiff bears, and I would estimate this bear in the $3,000-to-$5,000 price range for this little mohair bear.

GUEST: You're kidding.

APPRAISER: Not at all.

APPRAISER: So, Grace, tell me, how long have you had this painting?

GUEST: About 45 years, I would judge.

APPRAISER: And all these years, you've had it hanging like this, is that right?

GUEST: Yeah. Well, I had it the other way, and then everybody said, "Grace, you're wrong." And friends came to the house and did it this way, wired it that way, and it's been hanging that way for over 40 years.

APPRAISER: Some friends.

GUEST: Yes, they were smart, they thought.

APPRAISER: Should be... this way. Should be this way.

GUEST: Yeah, but then, the basket isn't sitting on the table.

APPRAISER: Well, we could argue that one, but I think the clue is actually the signature here. Do you see that?

GUEST: Yes, it's very vague.

APPRIASER: "L.W. Prentice." That's Levi Wells Prentice, who was born in the Adirondacks back in around about 1850 or so.

GUEST: Oh, he's from New York state.

APPRAISER: Yeah. Now, where did you get the painting?

GUEST: On Third Avenue, they had art shops, and they were very reasonable. And it had a broken frame, so I put this, quote, "terrible" frame on it.

APPRAISER: I wouldn't disagree with that. It is a terrible frame. It really doesn't help the painting. Prentice is a marvelous artist. He's one of these painters who, I feel, when you've seen one of his paintings, you'll always recognize other ones. He's got a very distinctive realist style. He tended to work in two kinds of painting mode, either landscapes or still lives. You did well getting the still life, you see, because they tend to be much more coveted by collectors. The landscapes he did in the Adirondacks...

GUEST: The Hudson River artists.

APPRAISER: Yeah, exactly, but he was well known for doing these still lives. Often it was strawberries, sometimes raspberries, apples, quite often tumbling out of a basket, as is happening here. Hence the confusion about which way it should be hanging. Now, tell me about when you bought it. Do you remember how much you paid for it?

GUEST: Oh, yeah, like, $50, $50, $60.

APPRAISER: You'll be pleased to hear the market's moved on quite a bit for Levi Wells Prentice, and there's a lot of demand for his work these days, and particularly for this kind of still life. And at auction, these days, it would fetch probably in the region of $20,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: That's ridiculous. I loved it! I mean, it's such a wonderful, wonderful painting.

APPRAISER: It deserves a better frame. (laughs)

GUEST: This is my great-grandfather, and he was a businessman. He owned an insurance company in the early 1900s, and he was very successful.

APPRAISER: You said he was from Pittsburgh?

GUEST: Well, he's originally from Newark, New Jersey, but he started his business in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is where I'm from, and this vase belonged to him. He had a number of things.

APPRAISER: You think he might have traveled a bit, which is how he picked up some of these things?

GUEST: He traveled extensively.

APPRAISER: Do you know if he went to Europe at all?

GUEST: Probably. I'm not sure, though.

APPRAISER: Well, the reason I ask is because the vase that we're looking at is a European vase. It's a piece of Royal Bonn, and this is a very English-influenced piece of German artware, but is exceptional. And we sort of have a joke at the pottery and porcelain table, which we will never do a piece of Royal Bonn because Royal Bonn, by and large, made a lot of reproductions of Royal Worcester, which was a famous English company. They made mostly earthenware copies, usually decorated with transfers, which are decals, sometimes by hand, but not terribly inspired. It was very derivative ware, and so we see a lot of it, we don't look forward to seeing it, and then along comes this piece. This is exceptional, and they made a series of artware pieces from about 1900 to 1910, and they were in the style of Liberty, which is a very famous company from England. William Morris worked for Liberty, Archibald Knox, I mean, really first-rate designers, and they influenced what was going on in the decorative arts around Europe around the turn of the century. The decoration, which is painted in bright enameled colors, is hand-painted, hand-designed. I'll show you the mark on the bottom. It says "Royal Bonn." I'm not sure if that's an artist's signature. It looks like it is; I'm not certain about that. A lot of factory numbers. It's a German piece. They mark things very well. I'll also show you the inside of this piece, which is important because the pot has a wide, open top, and so your eyes are naturally brought into the piece, and you want to have a decoration that continues over the top, into the pot. It was very well-conceived. The tendril-like handles are reinforced by the decoration, and this has a lot going on, and it all works together, perfectly fired. So, we're pretty excited about

this. Most Royal Bonn is $300, $400, $500 on a good day. My friend Nick Dawes said you can name your price on this one, but we're thinking $2,000 to $3,000 is pretty safe on this piece.

GUEST: Wow, okay.

APPRAISER: I also want to point out that there's no damage, and with a piece with this much curvilinear, undulating handles and rims, you would expect to see some flaws, so your family took really good care of it. Great pot.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: We're very happy to see it. Finally, a piece of Royal Bonn we can be excited about, so thank you.

GUEST: I'm glad I was able to bring it.

APPRAISER: It's a pleasure.

GUEST: We actually got it from a dealer in Connecticut who's no longer there. My husband and I for many, many years had been interested in Bermuda furniture. We would always stop by and see what he had, and he showed us this piece and we immediately fell in love with it.

APPRAISER: Why were you interested in Bermuda furniture?

GUEST: Um, my husband's family for many, many years had been going to Bermuda, and shortly after we got married, we had bought a dining room table from Bermuda in Bermuda and that sort of sparked our interest.

APPRAISER: I can tell you our hearts beat very quickly when we see Bermuda furniture as well because it's the only area of the furniture market where the exterior wood—the primary wood-- tells us its origin. In this case, of course, all of this wonderful cedar on the outside was native to Bermuda. It's often plainer furniture than the more high-style furniture which was produced in Boston or Philadelphia or in London. And I'll open the lid and you'll see, in fact, there's a very plain interior. What's very special about your piece, of course, is that they put a little bit more effort on the upper section, which is very unusual. The prospect door and the pigeon holes-- all of this made in native cedar. There are a few condition issues, but I'm going to take out this secret center section here and turn it around, and here are some hidden drawers, all made in, of course, native cedar. What's interesting is, is that the pieces that were made-- silver, furniture, decorative arts-- in Bermuda, they were influenced by the custom, or bespoke, pieces that were ordered from England and from, uh, Boston and from New York,

and so the local cabinetmakers had to compete with that market. So it's a very interesting look at how cabinetmakers sold to a very small population on Bermuda, and, of course, the native cedar was a perfect wood to use, as it inhibited termites and bugs and other tropical problems that would occur in Bermuda. There are some issues with the cornice and some issues with the feet down below-- some repairs. Uh, but Bermuda furniture has a very loyal following, and a piece like this should bring at least $20,000 to $25,000 today.

GUEST: Wow, that is wonderful.

APPRAISER: You have this amazing 18th-century American cream jug. Can you tell me where you got it?

GUEST: It is my great-grandmother's... It was her sister's. And it's been in the family, yeah.

APPRAISER: Your great-great-aunt. And was she from Boston?

GUEST: No, I believe they were from Pennsylvania somewhere.

APPRAISER: Pennsylvania. Well, I think you'd have to go back a little farther in your family tree to find the original owner of this. It's made in Boston. We know that right away because of the mark here of Jacob Hurd, one of the finest silversmiths in the second quarter of the 18th century in Boston. I couldn't believe it when you brought this in, because 99 out of 100 of these American cream jugs are very plain. There's no decoration on them at all. And when you were standing in line, I could see these amazing scenes. Here you have ducks and houses that are decorating the entire surface around this jug. In America, there are about, I would say, 15 pieces with this punched and engraved scenic decoration. It is extremely rare. We think that there was a specialist decorator working in Boston who would have made these borders and would have filled in these scenes based on engraved prints. But with craft specialization the way it was in London, there were very few decorators of silver who could make it just doing that kind of specialty work in this country. So to a collector, this rare decoration, as good as any English one, is complete excitement. And if this were English, with this typical scenic decoration, the value would be $500 only, even though it's about 1745. But because it's so rare and American, the value is going to be $30,000 to $50,000.

GUEST: Oh, my God!

APPRAISER: Yes, it's very rare. It's very rare indeed.

GUEST: I truly didn't expect that.

APPRAISER: Yes, well, I didn't expect to see it, so we're both surprised, huh?

GUEST: It's just always been sitting up on the bookshelf.

APPRAISER: Well, it's a wonderful thing. It's extremely rare.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: Thank you.

GUEST: Wow.

GUEST: My mother used to put her important papers in there. She'd say, "Well, the old man."

APPRAISER: We figure the value of this piece is around $3,000 to $4,000.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: They were made in the late 19th century at a firm called Lobmeyr. And this is what they were doing in the 1880s, this wonderful, deeply cut engraving. I would value these between $1,200 and $1,500.

GUEST: Oh, really?

APPRAISER: These are sterling silver. They were made in Russia. These are 100 to 120 years old. A good, conservative auction estimate is probably somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $2,500 each.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: What did you pay for them?

GUEST: I paid $40.

APPRAISER: $40 for both of them?

GUEST: Both of them.

GUEST: This is a picture of my grand-uncle, Xenophon. It's from the Richmond, Kentucky, area and my grand-uncle, Vulcan, actually carved the frame.

APPRAISER: Could you tell me his last name?

GUEST: Xenophon Irvine, I-R-V-I-N-E. And we believe it's from the Spanish-American War.

APPRAISER: Indeed, this is from the Spanish-American War, but this is a photograph of a photograph from that period. And right here, you see a lovely Nils belt buckle, and this is a Krag-- K-R-A-G-- rifle. And what they did was they took the photograph of the period photograph, and then they colored in some pieces on the rifle. You notice right here that the detail is not accurate, and right down here. This is exciting because it's an identified African-American Spanish-American War soldier, and you are the descendant. Any idea of its worth?

GUEST: No, not really.

APPRAISER: How about $500 to $600?

GUEST: Wow! Great!

GUEST: My grandmother received it from a friend of hers. It hung in her house, and then she gave it to my mother. And as long as I can remember, it was hanging in my mother's house, and frankly, I always thought it was very unusual, but a rather unattractive plate. But I'm curious about what it is.

APPRAISER: Okay, so you've never liked it very much, so you never really found out anything.

GUEST: No, I always thought it was ugly all my life, when it was in my mother's house. I thought it was an ugly plate, but my mother always thought it was very unusual and that it was probably worth something, so we brought it today.

APRAISER: Okay. It is French. It is late 19th century, probably about 1880. It is made by a very famous family of potters called the Avisons, and it's called Palissy ware. It's a sort of revival of a late 16th-century type of pottery that was designed by Bernard Palissy and was revived in the late 19th century and became very, very popular. I don't know, I mean, maybe you won't think it will be quite as ugly as it is if I tell you that on the open market, it'll probably bring $3,000 to $4,000 if it were to sell at an auction.

GUEST: I think it's getting much more attractive.

GUEST: At the time, my mother was looking for a baby grand piano for my sister-- she was learning how to play the piano-- and it happens to be that a friend of the family had to clean out a lady's apartment who'd just passed away, so along with the piano came the painting.

APPRAISER: And where was this?

GUEST: In Manhattan, actually.

APPRAISER: Well, your painting is by Francis Calcraft Turner. You may have noticed, in the lower left is a signature, and it's dated 1835. This is a pointer, not the pointer that you'd find today because they've been bred far differently since, but the British were very proud of their animals, and they were the first to develop animal husbandry as a science. One lovely aspect of it is over in the right-hand side, you have a nice landscape in the background. The painting has a label on its reverse, which is the label of Arthur Ackerman & Sons, which was a famous sporting dealer, and they dealt with sporting pictures, and that's kind of wonderful to have that. This painting has some condition issues. A colleague of mine didn't like the condition. It doesn't bother me so much, because I think you'll find that cracking that you see, or hazing, is only in the varnish, and I think when it's clean, that craquelure will disappear. It's a lovely picture, which I think probably would bring somewhere between $12,000 and $16,000...

GUEST: Wow!

APPRAISER: ...because it will need a cleaning first. The last painting of about this size brought $17,000 in 1997.

GUEST: Well, I brought in a letter from Robert F. Kennedy. Rather poignant letter, because it was just shortly before he was assassinated. This was shortly after the death of Dr. King. I was very, very interested in civil rights. I was very affected by the death of Dr. King, and I knew that Robert F. Kennedy was doing a lot of work for civil rights, and so I wrote to him, telling him how much I was affected, and how much had to still be done for civil rights.

APPRAISER: It seems to me that you must have written a very poignant letter to get such a poignant letter back from R.F.K. I probably have not seen a Robert Kennedy letter as heartfelt as this one, not only talking about the tragic death of Dr. King, but also his interest in civil rights and civil rights legislation. At one point, he does write in the letter, "I believe that the time for bold and imaginative action is now. We must not delay efforts to eliminate the deprivation and alienation of the ghetto, and must take steps to ensure that Negro Americans and other victims of poverty in the United States have an adequate diet, improved education, opportunities for employment, and decent housing." It's a beautiful letter. You've kept it in wonderful condition. Usually, a Robert Kennedy letter wouldn't have a great deal of value. Because of the nature, the content of this letter, I would suggest auction estimates of $2,000 to $3,000 for this letter.

APPRAISER: Queen Victoria traveled, and whenever she wore anything, she only wore it once and gave it away. Because she gave so much away, that's worth about $400 to $500.

APPRAISER: In the 1970s, this image graced the posters in many a college dormitory, and it's also featured on a postage stamp. But an original photograph signed by Philippe Halsman, from the original negative, absolutely fantastic photograph.

GUEST: I bought it at a garage sale, paid one dollar.

APPRAISER: It's Chinese export silver, early 20th century. Easy auction estimate, $600 to $800.

GUEST: How much?

APPRAISER; $600 to $800. So for a dollar, that's not a bad return.

APPRAISER: We've got three stoves, and they're three different things. This is a reproduction-- it's not worth anything.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: This is a nice little toy girl's stove. It's about a $200 stove. But what you have here is absolutely unbelievable. I collect salesman's samples. I love stoves. You never... This is what we call a parlor stove. This was a heating stove that they would have in the living room, and this is a miniature of it. Now, I sold a miniature parlor stove about this big at auction about 12 years ago for $2,000. This is the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately, we're missing a door. It is worth... Someone would buy this and fabricate a door for it because it is absolutely fabulous. It's American. We have a patent date of 1888. Never seen anything like it. I, uh... It's unfortunate that the door's not there. I would have to say it would... a salesman's sample collector would be thrilled to buy this for $2,500 to $3,000, and then go about getting it fixed up.

GUEST: This picture had been given to my husband's grandfather. In the early 1900s, he took in boarders, and this artist was one of his boarders. The artist's wife used to throw him out from time to time.

APPRAISER: I love that!

GUEST: And he would board with my husband's grandfather. So I believe that this picture was given in lieu of rent.

APRAISER: It's a work by T. Willis, who was an enterprising young man. He figured out that New York and Brooklyn was a port town, and so he started doing portraits of ships in silk. So we've got silk threads here, and we've got silk grosgrains at the top of the smokestacks. And then the hull of this ship, which is the Aquitania, is made out of velvet. And it's a remarkable piece. It is probably in a frame that Willis made himself. And it's one of the few ocean liners that he ever did. And the Aquitania, which was part of the Cunard line, steaming into New York Harbor-- that's why you have these American flags here and here. And it's a beauty. It's a honey. This guy must have been in really bad trouble with his wife, because the value of this painting, with the original frame, would be worth something between $7,500 and $10,000.

GUEST: Oh, my! I am amazed!

APPRAISER: Yes.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness. I had no idea.

GUEST: This is a print that was given to my grandfather when the gallery closed. He owned a shop in New York City, and they gave him a stack of prints. My mother didn't particularly care for this one. She thought it was too somber for her, so they stayed under a bed in her room for 15 to 20 years. My wife is an art teacher, and we went over one weekend, and we looked at the artwork, and when I said Winslow Homer, she was like, "Wow, Winslow Homer," you know, "Let's take a look at it." So we researched it out in a library, and I happened to see that this etching-- or whether it was the painting or an etching-- was in the book, and it was called Perils of the Sea.

APPRAISER: So, your mother had a whole stack of prints, and she basically presented them to you and said, "Choose what you like, and you can take it." It is signed by Winslow Homer down here. Have you ever wondered what that is after his name, the "N.A."?

GUEST: Yes, I did wonder what that was.

APPRAISER: It stands for National Academician, and it was basically a society, an artists' society around the late 19th century, that he belonged to which was centered in New York and is still centered in New York. And you can see that below here, the print is dated 1888, and it has the publisher's name there. In the 1880s, Homer was working on the coast of Maine. He was making a series of paintings on the theme of the perils of the sea-- incidentally, the title of this painting-- very dramatic paintings showing man's battle with the sea. They were immediately successful, these paintings. He was one of the most famous artists of his time, still is, and his paintings were selling very well in the 1880s, and because of that, he started to make etchings to sort of increase the output. So after he made this painting-- it was very famous, very well-renowned-- he made an etching, and it was printed in an edition of about 100, and they sold out immediately, too-- very, very well. And this is one of the edition of 100 that was printed in 1888. So, do you have any idea as to the value of this?

GUEST: Um, no, I would think... Well, after speaking to you, I would think it would be worth a couple of thousand dollars, maybe, but I really have no idea.

APPRAISER: It's really in beautiful condition, the signature is very strong. I don't see a single problem with it. At auction, I would estimate it at $20,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Oh, that's fantastic!

APPRAISER: I think it would sell very well.

GUEST: Oh, well, thank you very much.

APPRAISER: Wonderfully famous etching, really one of his most popular etchings.

GUEST: When I was young, my mother never mentioned that she had been married before, and one day, the family history came to light, and we noticed another name with my mother's, and so she finally had to confess that she had been married a time before, and she brought this book out to show us about that part of her life. And the book is about her first husband's father's career.

APPRAISER: The artist is Boris Schatz. He started off as a sculptor. I think he trained pretty classically in Paris and then went to Bulgaria in the 1890s as a court painter for Prince Ferdinand. Then he became an ardent Zionist and traveled to Palestine. And really, his fame was not as a sculptor or an artist per se, but as a leader of the Israeli Arts and Crafts movement. And he's really responsible for trying to generate a style unique to Palestine, trying to blend together what was there stylistically with the international Arts and Crafts movement. This is actually a book of his life and work, which was published in 1925 in Jerusalem. And we start off by showing this kind of interesting comparison. You brought another small item with you today, which is this small bronze plaque, and these bronze plaques are copied after his artwork. Here in his folio, you can see an image of the artwork entitled "Havdalah." These little plaques bring about $100 at auction. They tend to be fairly readily available. I've actually seen a couple others today. His career and his importance to Judaica collectors is becoming more and more highly prized. This volume itself would probably sell in the $750 to $1,000 range. So a nice piece to a puzzle, both for your family and for collectors.

GUEST: Thank you, this is great.

GUEST: My grandmother inherited it back in the early 1940s, and it's been around ever since.

APPRAISER: I want to tell you a few things about the table.

GUEST: I wish you would.

APPRAISER: I've been holding them back, right? What you have is a circa-1765 Philadelphia folding table, which we call today a candlestand because the top folds, but it was used to hold small things. And it's a classic table from the 1765 period. It has a dish top, this edge. It has this birdcage mechanism that allows it to spin, which is kind of nice, and this column, which comes from the classical elements, this wonderful column, this slightly compressed ball with a flare above, coming down to these cabriole legs, with these really articulated claw-and-ball feet. Aren't they really naturalistic?

GUEST: They really are.

APPRAISER: You can feel the pulse of the animal-- wait a minute-- you know? It's got this tension in it. And if we tip this top up and look at the underside, Margaret, the underside and the base is really an archaeological site that's pretty much undisturbed. It's what we like to see as furniture appraisers. It has wonderful color, and there's a difference between the... See how light this is and how dark this section is? That's from the air, and it's darker here, where it's been exposed for 200 years.

GUEST: That makes sense.

APPRAISER: If you come down to this birdcage-- called a birdcage for the obvious reasons, right? And take out this little key-- it's the original key. And this holds this whole mechanism together, which I won't take apart, but the color is dark here and light here, where the air didn't get, and that's just... When I say "archaeological site," that's what we love to see because it's the original key and the original little ring that's in here. If you come down to this area, all this surface is absolutely intact. It really hasn't been abraded. Your family's taken good care of it, even probably 200 years ago, and if we look at the bottom, in the trade, we call it a spider. It's an iron spider to hold the legs stable, has these wonderful rosehead, hand-hammered nails. Come over to here, all the tool marks are on the feet, all the color's there. The scribe line, you see that little line right there? That's the original scribe line to mark out this foot, and the original circle is there, made with a compass. So this just records all the tool marks of the original maker in Philadelphia in the 1760s, and it's what makes all of us people that love antiques tick-- you know, things like this, in this condition, with this stance. Now, probably fewer than 12 or 15 American candlestands with this type of shaft have claw-and-ball feet versus pad. So you didn't know it was quite that rare, right?

GUEST: No, I really didn't.

APPRAISER: One more thing about the condition, and then I'm going to tell you a value. This top is absolutely original, as I said, but somebody brushed on something in the 19th century or the early 20th, like a linseed oil. You can see it coming over the edge, and they just thought... it must have looked nice at one time, but it's changed, so it's kind of changed and turned, and now it's alligatored. Has it bothered you enough to think about taking it off?

GUEST: Take it off? No.

APPRAISER: You'd leave it, right?

GUEST: I would leave it.

APPRAISER: That's what I would probably do with it. But some people might... some people might think otherwise and might try to remove it carefully. If I had this in my shop, because of its rarity, I would put it, um... I would have a price of about $150,000 on it.

GUEST: You've got to be kidding. You have got to be kidding!

APPRAISER: I am not kidding. You didn't expect me to say that.

GUEST: Well, not that much!

(applause)

APPRAISER: Should I come over and hold you up? I'm going to hold you up.

GUEST: I can't believe it!

WALBERG: Coming up, did this Japanese jar hold its value?

GUEST: It was in the corner on a marble pedestal, and we just fell in love with it.

WALBERG: Find out as "Vintage New York" continues right after this.

GUEST: We went to a private sale. The gentleman was elderly, and he turned out to be an Italian aristocrat, and he was closing up his house and going back to the Italian Riviera. He had documents signed by President Eisenhower, so we knew he was some important official.

APPRAISER: What'd you pay for it then?

GUEST: Three hundred and fifty dollars.

APPRAISER: Three hundred and fifty dollars.

GUEST: It was in the corner on a marble pedestal, and we just fell in love with it.

APPRAISER: One thing that identifies something about this piece is particularly there's a distinct color to the blue, and the blue is quite, quite black in certain points, and that's a peculiarity of a Japanese ware called Imari. And Imari is not the place where this was produced; it's a port where it was distributed out of. It was made in Arita, Japan, and it was made between about 1680 and 1720, this particular jar. And these things were made pretty much exclusively for export from Japan to the West. They really didn't have a place in Japanese lifestyle. But they were actually quite expensive when they were made. If you look closely to the glaze in certain places, you'll notice that there's a crackle to the glaze, and that happens to come from the tension between the body of the vase and the glaze that's on it. One of the things about this form, this hexagonal form, it creates an enormous amount of stress on the body of the piece when it's in the kiln. Did you have any idea what the jar was worth?

Guest: No, we had, uh... When we got it originally, we did get an appraisal, and they told us it's worth maybe $1,300 at that time. This is about 1976.

APPRAISER: 1976. Well, the value's come up quite a bit on a jar like this. This jar's worth between $8,000 to $10,000.

GUEST: Wow, $8,000 to $10,000?

APPRAISER: $8,000 to $10,000. It's a wonderful piece of porcelain. The Japanese call these things "brocade wares," nishiki-de yaki, and that's because these patterns resemble textile patterns that are around there. A beautiful, old Imari vase. Wonderful thing.

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg. Thanks for watching. See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.

GUEST: When I was six years old, I decided I wanted to be an astronaut, and I really never gave up on the dream. In 1986, I started collecting astronaut autographs in this book, and I have astronauts who I met autograph by their biographies. And then, it's been signed by 122 astronauts and cosmonauts.

APPRAISER: And you spent the last 15 years going all around the country trying to get these?

GUEST: I've been traveling everywhere I can-- conferences and to the Cape and to Houston-- trying to meet astronauts to get this book completed. Um, the tough part will be the Russian cosmonauts, but I've been to Russia once, and I plan to go back again.

APPRAISER: Well, I mean, it's fascinating, just the whole journey of putting the book together. It's part of the great story of the book. It's hard to put a value on it because, as you said when we were talking earlier, trying to figure out each astronaut, what it's worth. But as a collection, I would say the book at the present moment is probably worth about $10,000.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: Did you know Basil Rathbone?

GUEST: Uh, no, I did not.

APPRAISER: Well, he was Sherlock Holmes in the old B movies, and he was quite a prolific collector of good jewelry.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: This is yellow diamonds with rubies and a citrine. Who did he give it to?

GUEST: Uh, his wife, Ouida Bergere.

APPRAISER: That's the ring that she was wearing. It's roughly 1945. A ring like this could easily bring from $3,000 to $4,000 at auction.

GUEST: Really?

GUEST: I found it at Coney Island Beach.

APPRAISER: On the beach? Well, this is made in Brooklyn in the Greenpoint section, which is just a stone's throw from Coney Island, and it was made at a factory called the Union Porcelain Works. This was probably made right when Coney Island was in its heyday, I should think about 1890. When something's plain and simple like this, it's only going to be worth a few dollars. But because it's Union Porcelain, I'd say it's worth $20 or $30.

Experience our favorite appraisals from all 20 seasons, including a Navajo Ute First Phase Blanket, a signed Warhol collection, and a Tang Dynasty marble lion. Which of these classic ROADSHOW treasures is now valued at $750,000-$1,000,000?

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