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Eastern North Carolina Bottle Case on Stand, ca. 1800

Value (2009) | $30,000 Auction – $50,000 Auction

GUEST:
This cellarette came from my great-great-great- grandfather's sister. It was her family. We can trace them as far back as the late 1700s to early 1800s.

APPRAISER:
And where did they live?

GUEST:
They lived in northeastern North Carolina, around the Windsor area.

APPRAISER:
And this was a plantation.

GUEST:
It was a series of plantations, and it still is in one of the original houses of the family.

APPRAISER:
There are a number of names that were applied to these. Bottle case is the one that's most preferred in the museum world. But in England they sometimes call them a temporary cellar, because they could move around, hence the name cellarette, which comes from that. That is a supportable spirits case. They turn up in the Tidewater area of Virginia, and then in this northeastern corner of North Carolina. We think that it has a lot to do with the hospitality of this region. It's been said by food historians that strong drink was particularly popular amongst these plantation folk, hence this sort of portable bottle case that they would take around. This one is very good on two counts. One is it's vertical. It has a marvelous, prim, standup aspect to it, with particularly very good inlay. It's suffered a hard life. We notice up here on the top that there are some burn marks from, probably, hot pans. But it's unlike some that I've seen that have handles on both sides, carrying handles where these could be carried down to the cellar to fill. It is made of black walnut, except we found that it does have a mahogany veneer here on the front. And we found that the secondary wood is tulip poplar, a very good indication of a Southern origin. Many of them have a drawer here, but this one only has a slider, which pulls out, with stops on it, for filling glasses and the like. And many of them have square Marlborough legs, but this one has tapering Hepplewhite legs with very nice decorative inlay. We think it dates from around 1800, give or take ten years. Have you ever had it appraised or...

GUEST:
To my knowledge it has never been appraised. My grandmother has some news articles of one similar to this selling for $4,000 to $5,000. But the newspaper may be from 20 years ago. I'm not sure.

APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.

GUEST:
But I've never seen one that looked... they were always much nicer than ours.

APPRAISER:
Well, this is a very nice one, we feel. And at auction today I think that this could bring $30,000-$50,000.

GUEST:
Wow.

APPRAISER:
It's a high quality piece of cabinetwork. It shows the adept hand of a very talented artisan.

GUEST:
That's really fantastic.

Support provided by: Learn more

Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Wendell Garrett
Decorative Arts, Furniture
Appraised value (2009)
$30,000 Auction – $50,000 Auction
Featured In
Raleigh, Hour 2 (#1402)
Event
Raleigh, NC (June 27, 2009)
Category
Furniture
Period
18th Century , 19th Century
Form
Cellarette
Material
Mahogany , Poplar , Walnut , Wood

Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.

Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."

Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.

Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.

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