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Cigar Store Trade Figure, ca. 1890

Value (2017) | $25,000 Retail – $35,000 Retail
Watch  

GUEST:
She belonged to my maternal grandparents, and they purchased her in about 1960. And I think that she was originally part of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller collection, and they sold her at a sale at B. Altman department store in New York. And my grandparents, who lived up around the St. Lawrence River, I don't know how they heard about this particular sale, but they went to New York and brought her back.

APPRAISER:
And the year they bought it would have been...

GUEST:
Around 1960, maybe 1962.

APPRAISER:
When I first looked at her, I thought that she might be by one of the big carvers in New York City, like Samuel Robb or Thomas Brooks.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
But after talking to a couple of colleagues, we all decided that she was made in a different shop, probably in the 1880s or the 1890s.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
The heyday for trade figures like this would have been in the 1890s. It would take a lot of more research to figure out who exactly carved her, but that's kind of secondary at this point because it's such a great figure.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
She's very attractive, she has a great face. She's had kind of a rough life. She fell over somewhere along the way.

GUEST:
Oh, dear.

APPRAISER:
I noticed that she had L-brackets on her legs.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
and she also has a stick over there on your side.

GUEST:
Yes.

APPRAISER:
One of the things most people don't know about with these is that they started out as a single log. And if you look right here in the top of her head, you can't see it, but you can put your hand up there and you can feel... You feel that plug?

GUEST:
Oh, yes, uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
When she was first made, she was a big log, and that was where she was attached to the lathe where they rough-turned her down to get her to a certain size. But here's where the story gets really interesting. You see that number over there on the bottom?

GUEST:
Yes, number eight.

APPRAISER:
Well, in 1956, Sotheby's did an historic sale of cigar store Indian figures.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
And other American folk art. It was the Haffenreffer Collection.

GUEST:
Oh, okay.

APPRAISER:
And this was one of them. So what must have happened was, Colonial Williamsburg-er Abby Aldrich might have bought this or more of them, and then decided which one they wanted to keep later.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
And that makes the story from your grandparents completely believable.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
As far as her paint goes, she's probably second-generation, you know.

GUEST:
Okay, I was wondering about that, whether she'd been repainted.

APPRAISER:
Anybody ever talk about what she's worth?

GUEST:
No. I remember my mother saying something about maybe my grandparents paying about $3,000 for her, but I think that that would have been more than they would have been willing to part with.

APPRAISER:
I read a "New York Times" article from 1974 about the Sotheby's sale in 1956.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
And the highest price for one of those in 1956 was $2,050.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
So if Colonial Williamsburg had played at the upper level in 1956, in order for anybody to make money, it probably would have had to have been $4,000.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
We feel like a good retail figure for this would be $25,000 to $35,000.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
They were not trying to be historically accurate about the figures. They were trying to create a figure that would advertise tobacco and the tobacco products.

GUEST:
Yeah.

Support provided by: Learn more

Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Ken Farmer
Decorative Arts, Folk Art, Furniture, Musical Instruments
Ken Farmer LLC
Charlottesville, VA
Appraised value (2017)
$25,000 Retail – $35,000 Retail
Featured In
Newport, Hour 2 (#2217)
RECUT: Newport, Part 4 (#R0106)
Event
Newport, RI (September 18, 2017)
Category
Folk Art
Period
19th Century
Form
Carving , Figure
Material
Wood

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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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More on This Appraisal

Article
Cigar Store Indians: Trading on Stereotypes
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