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French Porcelain Vases,ca. 1878

Value (2013) | $5,000 Auction – $7,000 Auction
Watch  

GUEST:
They've been in our family only since 1972, when my mother got them at an estate sale in Westchester County, New York. Aside from that, I really don't know much about them. She bought them intending to make lamps out of them, which I think might have been a shame.

APPRAISER:
Absolutely, good choice not to make that. These were so intriguing when you first brought them in that they actually created a little bit of mystery, and part of the mystery was the ceramic itself. The ceramic here is a very buff colored ceramic, which spoke to me of it possibly being Japanese. And certainly what comes to mind would be Satsuma. Satsuma is a Japanese porcelain that made these wonderfully decorative objects using a lot of gilding, a lot of enamel colors, but with a buff ground porcelain. Some of the decorations that we have here are very japonesque in style. And certainly you have all this different influence. You actually have the influence of cloisonné as well. The quality of the piece as we go around is just wonderful, with all these little vignettes in the aesthetic style as well as on the top, we have this wonderful foo dog or foo lion. So everything here is pointing to them to be Japanese. Included in that, which mystified me even more, I'm going to take this one down so that we can look at the underside. And it's very hard to find, but on the bottom of them, right here, there is a very faint underglaze mark using chop marks. So the Japanese lettering's here. So right away, we have all the decorations for them to be Japanese, we have a ceramic that resembles Satsuma, everything we want about it is Satsuma. Except the character marks, they're gibberish. They don't mean anything. The combination of all of the enamels and the combination of the decoration, the ceramic, the modeling that we have on the covers and all don't speak of being Satsuma. It has the whole package. So where's the mystery? The mystery is that they're French.

GUEST:
Huh! How do you determine French?

APPRAISER:
The particular period of time that these would have been produced would have been in the 1870s or 1880s, and at that time, in 1878, we had the French Exposition, which was the French World's Fair. Lots of companies were making very special things for that exhibition, and I think these were made for that exhibition. They're just too high-ended, too wonderful not to be part of that. Impossible to know specifically who manufactured them, but just really, really wonderful examples for what they are. And absolutely perfect condition. At auction today, I would suspect, as nice as these are and as eye-catching as these are, for them to realize in the range of $5,000 to $7,000.

GUEST:
Apiece?

APPRAISER:
As a pair.

GUEST:
As a pair. Very nice.

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Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Stuart Slavid
Decorative Arts, Pottery & Porcelain, Silver
Appraised value (2013)
$5,000 Auction – $7,000 Auction
Featured In
Kansas City, Hour 3 (#1812)
Event
Kansas City, MO (August 10, 2013)
Category
Pottery & Porcelain
Period
19th Century
Form
Vase
Material
Porcelain

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.

Opinion of value: As with all appraisals, the verbal approximations of value given at ROADSHOW events are our experts' opinions formed from their knowledge of antiques and collectibles, market trends, and other factors. Although our valuations are based on research and experience, opinions can, and sometimes do, vary among experts.

Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.

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