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Edward Curtis Orotones, ca. 1908

Value (2011) | $15,000 Auction – $22,500 Auction
Watch  

GUEST:
They belonged to my grandmother, and I know nothing about where they came from or anything.

APPRAISER:
Okay, what you've brought in today are a group of photographs by a very prominent photographer named Edward Curtis. Edward Curtis had his first studio in Seattle, in the late 19th century, and he became very interested in Native American culture and how the rituals and the life of Native American peoples was rapidly disappearing. And he decided that he was going to chronicle this culture and develop a series of books that he called "The North American Indian."

GUEST:
Hmm.

APPRAISER:
And he actually went to Teddy Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan and they were his first patrons, his first champions that gave him the seed money and the support to start what became a 30-year-long project. He developed a photographic technique called the "orotone."

GUEST:
The what?

APPRAISER:
Or-o-tone,

GUEST:
orotone.

APPRAISER:
And what that translates as is "gold tone."

GUEST:
Oh.

APPRAISER:
The orotone is a special photographic technique. The image is a positive image on glass, and the back of the glass plate has an emulsion of banana oil and gold-colored pigment.

GUEST:
For goodness' sakes.

APPRAISER:
So the image really has a very special quality, almost a three- dimensional quality when the light strikes it at the right angle. The pictures are actually signed in the plate, and this is the signature image of the North American Indian Project. It's called The Vanishing Race.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
And this is an image from the Northwest called The Rush Gatherer. And then the image nearest to you is The Old Well of Acoma. What's interesting about the presentation of these photographs is that Curtis also designed the frames that they're in.

GUEST:
Did he?

APPRAISER:
Of all the different types of photographic images that Curtis created-- and he worked in virtually every photographic technique-- these are the most desirable.

GUEST:
My goodness.

APPRAISER:
The Vanishing Race, at auction, a pre-sale estimate would be in the $5,000 to $7,500 range.

GUEST:
Oh, my.

APPRAISER:
The image of The Old Well at Acoma, that would be in the $4,000 to $6,000 range.

GUEST:
My goodness.

APPRAISER:
And The Rush Gatherer, which has some paint spots on the surface of the glass and also on the frame itself-- they're somewhat minor, they can be removed-- this photograph I would estimate at $6,000 to $9,000.

GUEST:
My goodness.

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Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Daile Kaplan
Photographs
Appraised value (2011)
$15,000 Auction – $22,500 Auction
Featured In
Eugene, Hour 2 (#1605)
Event
Eugene, OR (June 04, 2011)
Category
Photographs
Period
20th Century
Form
Photograph
Material
Orotone

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.

Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.

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