1913 Tiffany Tel-el-Amarna Vase
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GUEST:
My mother… remarried, and this was in the household and when her husband passed away, it went to her, and when she passed away, it went to me. It has "Tiffany" on the bottom. I'm not sure if it's a Tiffany, because I watch the Roadshow enough that they look at the bottom and they say that's not a real Tiffany.
APPRAISER:
You are right, it absolutely is a piece of Tiffany glass.
GUEST:
Oh!
APPRAISER:
And it is true that a signature is the easiest thing to fake, and it's always the piece that you look at first.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
This was supposed to harken back to the glass of ancient Egypt that was discovered at Tel-el-Amarna in the 19th century, so for many years, this particular type of glass was called Tel-el-Amarna. Some people call it Byzantine glass. The Tel-el-Amarna was actually referring to a turquoise color, but when I look at it, when I think Tel-el-Amarna, I'm looking at the zigzags that you see on the collar. Usually, you'll see this zigzag decoration in different colors from the actual body of the vase, and sometimes you'll have interlocking chain link design on it also in a different color. But what's interesting about this piece is, the signature on the underside has a suffix letter H, which is actually indicates that this is a later Tel-el-Amarna piece. The earlier pieces usually carried an E suffix. The H suffix denotes that it was made around 1913, whereas the early ones were made in 1909, when it was first introduced.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
If we look inside, it's got a lot of white sediment on the inside. Initially, I thought, oh, goodness, someone used this for flowers, but I actually think this might have been in the making, because when I held it up to the light, which is what most people do when they're buying glass, they look to see if the glass is sick inside. And it's so opaque that you can't see the sickness. I would say that in a retail venue, because it does have the white stuff on the inside, I would say it's worth between $2,000 and $3,000.
GUEST:
Whoa!
APPRAISER:
Now, if it didn't have the white stuff on the inside, I would put a value probably between $8,500 and $9,500.
GUEST:
Whoa, whoa!
APPRAISER:
So it does affect it to some degree.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
By the way, there's something on the inside here. It's a matchbox!
GUEST:
Yes, it's a matchbook.
APPRAISER:
Yes, nothing to do with Tiffany…
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
This is, um...
GUEST:
I had it and I thought, well, I'll save that, and I stuffed it in the… vase.
APPRAISER:
Okay, and how long has it been in the vase?
GUEST:
Probably since Nixon was elected.
APPRAISER:
I actually spoke to somebody in collectibles, and it doesn't have any value because the matches are all gone, by the way.
GUEST:
Well, I was smoking at that time, not anymore.
Appraisal Details
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