Bonus Video: Prohibition Liquor Bottles, ca. 1925
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APPRAISER:
I believe a retail value on them would be $3,000 to $4,000 in today's market.
GUEST:
I am very, very surprised, and pleased. Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Tim, yesterday here in Omaha we went to the fabled Homey Inn to talk about Breweriana and they had just countless examples of older things really starting from the mid-20th century and later on the wall, ceilings and everywhere else, but we didn't see anything from the Prohibition era. And then in walks this collection today at the Roadshow.
APPRAISER:
I know it's amazing. Yesterday at the Homey Inn we saw incredible artifacts, the walls and ceilings were covered with Breweriana and with liquor bottles. What we saw there predominately were all post-Prohibition items. Obviously beer is a little cheaper and you drink more than you do a single bottle of whiskey. Whiskey is more expensive. It's hoarded a little bit more. It's almost a different collectible. There are people that love the whole overall general liquor theme but Breweriana guys are pretty much all about beer collectibles as opposed to distilleries, which is a whole ‘nother side of the coin.
INTERVIEWER: The sort of branding and labeling of bourbons and spirits has been kind of a matter of artistic license over the years.
APPRAISER:
Right.
INTERVIEWER: What do we know about any of these brand names today?
APPRAISER:
Right. Well, this one in particular here, this is a good old solid brand. Old Taylor, and it was around in the Victorian era. Now the name was so good, another distiller has kept that name alive but it's not the Old Taylor distillery. Buffalo Trace now owns the rights to Old Taylor distillery and so they put it out because it's a time honored tradition. For the most part they are defunct distilleries. They were smaller distilleries and I don't recognize many of those brands, no. A big brand name is not always, doesn't equate well with collectors. Sometimes people love the regional distilleries. They really truly enjoy the small distilleries with lots of character and maybe it'll have a real different, quirky flavor.
Appraisal Details
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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