Antiques Roadshow

I paid three dollars for it.

APPRAISER

I have never seen one before. Oh, that's good. Just for the jacket, this is the jewel. Oh, my gosh, this was hanging in my closet?

Oh, my word! Holy cow! Well, I know my grandmother would be real, real thrilled. Yes, she would, I'm sure.

Can we cry on camera? (chuckles)

MARK WALBERG

Roadshow's first visit to "the Palmetto State" came in the summer of 2000, when we traveled to Charleston, South Carolina. The world's changed a lot since then, including the ever-evolving prices of antiques and collectibles. Let's find out which values have gone up, down, or stayed the same, in this fresh look at Charleston. This chair belonged to my great-grandfather, Chang Bunker and his twin-- conjoined twin-- Eng Bunker.

This came to me through my grandmother, who was Chang Bunker's daughter. It had been in the family all these years, and as you can see, it's made for two who had to sit very close together. There was another similar chair at Eng Bunker's house. Right.

This one's from Chang's. It was at my grandmother's house all during my childhood.

LESLIE KENO

Well, it's an incredible story about the conjoined twins. They were born in Siam-- which is now called Thailand-- in about 1811 to a very, very poor family. Later on, I think in their teens, they really became a sensation, and they went to Europe and they really were the toast of the town. They were examined by doctors and surgeons and they actually signed affidavits proving, in fact, they were conjoined.

There was a lot of skepticism; there hadn't been that many Siamese twins born. Then they, I think, yeah, as Leslie said, the twins were a sensation to the whole world, really. In every country they went they saw royalty, right? That's right.

They came here, and, as you know-- and I'm just recounting your family story-- in 1843 they married two Southern gals. It was Sarah and Adelaide Yates-- and they moved into houses. You told us this story earlier. There were two houses near each other-- is that it-- that they shared?

Uh-huh, they spent three days at Chang's house and three days at Eng's house.

LEIGH

Okay, and here are the twins. This illustration was done in 1839, when they were 28 years old. But I wanted to show Eng's chair. That was on the other side of the family.

Of course, here's Chang's chair, which really hasn't been published, and here's Chang and Eng with Adelaide and Sarah-- Adelaide, of course, being your great-grandmother. So they were happily married and had how many children altogether? 21 children.

LESLIE

21 children, amazing. And you've brought this chair which really has its original seat and that's what really brings us closer to the history. This splint seat. And it has wonderful turnings and a nice triple-slat back, and...

Beautiful lemon turnings here on the top. It's in nice, preserved condition.

LEIGH

So, we've thought about the value and a piece like this has a very small group of people who are very interested. The value's probably right in the range of $10,000 to $12,000. Well, that's interesting to know but it will never be for sale.

MAN

I think Santa Claus brought it in '46. It may have been '47 and I would have been about six at that time. And you played with this, obviously. Oh, yeah, I played with it.

It had a shirt and a hat. Of course, they went by the wayside from just plain wear and tear, but the guns and the other things, they held up good. Well, you know how excited we are when we get a nice original box and of course, that adds a lot to the whole toy, especially when it has such wonderful graphics.

And I love this line here

"Keeps them happy, healthy and busy." Was that you? That was me, try to be busy. It has all this stuff. That's what is amazing-- these leather chaps and this leather vest.

I mean, this is quite an ensemble. And what is this here? This is the lasso. Step around here in front and show us how it works.

It had a little swivel in it so a kid could make it work like a cowboy. And I think I can work it. Come on. So you could be just like the real...

So you could be just like the cowboys. Well, you have a wonderful thing and I'm really excited that you brought it here to share. I've never seen this set before. I looked it up in the books and I found a set like this in a similar box, but it didn't look like it had all this stuff and I saw it selling for around $700.

But I think this set, like it is, gosh, I'd have to think it would be $800 to $900 maybe $1,200 because you just don't find them in this kind of condition. Well, I sure am glad to hear. This platter was left to me by my aunt and supposedly... George Washington was served off this when his winter quarters were in Valley Forge.

My aunt did the same type of work everyone in here does. She was an appraiser for 50 or 60 years and along the way, she managed to come up with this and there was some connection between this and the Smithsonian at one time. I think they tried to get it when she ended up getting it. We have this letter from the lady that used to have the platter and her attorney.

The fact that the gentleman's grandfather owned a tavern in Valley Forge is the reason they think that it's probably authentic. The platter is made in what's called the transfer printing process, and this is a process that was developed in the 18th century. It involves having engravings that are then put onto a paper that is then put onto the porcelain. This particular kind of platter was made in Staffordshire, in England.

There is a mark on the back of it that helps us identify. That little cartouche there with the word "Pomerania" in the middle. Pomerania is the name of the pattern. And Pomerania was on the Baltic Sea between where Germany and Poland are now.

This platter, because there is a particular Staffordshire factory that used that cartouche, it's identifiable as having been made by John Ridgway. The John Ridgway manufacturer was in business in the 1800s. So unfortunately... Fake....since Washington was at Valley Forge I think the winter of 1777, '78...

Correct....it's not possible for him to have eaten off the platter. Okay. But the platter is not a fake. It is a perfectly authentic Staffordshire large-size platter from what would have been a fairly extensive dinner service and very much the kind of thing that someone having a tavern would have had.

So that's not to say that this gentleman's grandfather didn't have it in the tavern; I just don't think that he had it at the time that Washington was staying there. All right. It's probably worth around $400 or $500. Okay.

And a full service of it would be very desirable. Okay. I got them at a flea market several years ago. It was late in the afternoon and I was surprised when I saw them.

They were on a table and all rolled up, stained a little bit. I saw they were circus posters. They wanted $30, and I asked if they'd take less and they said no. And this was $30 for how many posters?

Seven. The circus captivates the imagination of everybody. And these posters do just that. They re-create the circus as an advertisement to get people to come.

In fact, the tradition of circus posters in America goes back over 100 years. P.T. Barnum started papering America from coast to coast with posters advertising his circuses and he would advertise the funny things. He would advertise the exotic things.

He would advertise the scary things. And in these posters, which are not that old-- they're from the 1950s, 1960s-- we see all of these elements that I'm talking to you about. But I've got to tell you, my personal favorite out of all the ones that you've brought, is this one... Yeah, mine, too.

Because this one has elements of everything. It has animals. It has music. It has humor.

At auction, the clown poster next to you would probably sell between $300 and $400. Oh, wow, okay. The lion and the tiger, which is not in great condition, so I have to give it a lower estimate, would probably sell for $200 to $300. Okay.

But now this one, the one that we've agreed is both of our favorites... Yes. This one would probably sell for about $400 to $600, maybe even $500 to $750 if we had a monkey lover. Oh, okay, great.

So that turned into a really good investment. Yeah, good, thank you. Congratulations. Thank you.

Thanks for bringing them. This was given to me by my father. It's been handed down through the family. I wore it as a boy at scouting events as a boy scout.

My father's grandfather sold the farm in Buffalo, New York, and went to Canada and married an Indian. Unsubstantiated. When would that have been, do you know, approximately? In 19th century or early 20th century?

In the 19th century, I would guess, yes. Well, that's pretty interesting. We get stories associated with objects sometimes that aren't always correct, but I think we... I have a little bit of information about this that might substantiate that.

We have a group of material here that is native-tanned, brain-tanned. Here we have a pair of leggings that have a little bit of yellow pigment in them and some glass trade beads and this material here, which we also see on the coat, which is porcupine quills that have been colored and sewn into the hide. Then we have another pair of actually pants, or chaps, that are beaded. And I believe that this set didn't originally go together, but they're all made approximately the same time.

What's very interesting to me is this jacket. Beautiful craftsmanship here. We have this porcupine quillwork again and we have it very beautifully fashioned and colored. And we can show the back here, across the top here, and we've got beautiful fringe work.

This is almost certainly made by a Metis. Metis people were essentially English and French explorers-- early settlers who married native people. Oh, my gosh. And their offspring were known as Metis.

And unquestionably this was made somewhere in the American-Canadian border, southern Manitoba, northern North Dakota, but without question, what we know as the Metis style. And this is known as a scout's jacket and you wore this as a scout although it wasn't made for you. This was made sometime in the 1880s, 1890s, and we can date that by the fact that all of this quillwork is colored with aniline dyes. It's not vegetal dyes.

Because it's in such terrific condition, I'd say I'm very comfortable with the jacket at about $8,500, just for the jacket. Oh, my gosh. And this was hanging in my closet? And the leggings a little less so we're probably looking $1,500 to $2,500 a pair, but this is the jewel right here.

My mother bought this for me for a dollar at a yard sale to play with. And obviously you're a Barbie collector. Yes. But this is one of the older Barbies.

This is the "American Girl" hairstyle and very desirable, with a bent knee made in '65 and '66. This is called the "Golden Glamour" outfit, and this is really a treasure to the Barbie collector, and she's worth $600 to $700 in this condition. Really a fabulous find for only a dollar. These two pieces came from my grandmother.

My aunt originally had the larger piece and when she died in 1964, I inherited that piece. She had turned it into a lamp, though, so it has a hole in the bottom. Ah! This piece I got directly from my grandmother.

I do know a little bit about the Newcomb College, New Orleans. It's affiliated with Tulane University. That's the extent of my knowledge. Well, that's much of what you need to know.

It was an all-girls college. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College is actually the full name of it. And they made pottery for a long time-- actually made pottery up into the '40s starting in about 1895, 1896. These pieces are special for a couple of reasons, which is why I wanted to talk about them.

Most of the Newcomb that we see are the matte glaze pieces with the bayou scenes and carved flowers, which are quite lovely, but they tend to be a little on the repetitious side. The high-glaze pieces, which are made prior to 1909 or 1908, are all one-of-a-kind pieces, specific designs that you won't really see again. For example, the piece closest to you, deeply carved, nicely colored, there's three or four colors on the surface of that pot. It's artist-signed by Maria LeBlanc, Newcomb College.

That's your date, which puts it somewhere around 1906, 1907. Very sweet little piece. The one closest to me-- particularly nice. Those are wild roses on the side of that pot.

It's a very lyrical, a very flowing piece. The branches have a lot of movement to them. The flowers are extremely colorful, that rich, dark blue, nice yellow centers. It's also particularly large for Newcomb.

Most Newcomb is not much bigger than the piece closer to you. This one is like almost 17 inches tall. It's a really big piece of Newcomb. This has similar markings on the bottom.

That's Ms. Roman, the artist's signature. That's Newcomb College, that's the date. Unfortunately, this was ventilated.

I know. That's what we call it in the trade. There's a label on the top for the lamp maker. Electrified in 1962.

It's a great pot in any case. This piece closest to you, a good classic example, probably right now worth somewhere between $7,500 and $8,000, maybe $9,000. That's a good piece of Newcomb. This guy here, with the hole in the bottom, about $25,000.

That's with the hole in the bottom. With the hole in the bottom? And without the hole, about $35,000 to $40,000. This is a really good piece of Newcomb.

Oh, my word! Newcomb doesn't lose as much value as other potteries do when it's damaged. (laughing): Obviously! I'm amazed.

I just knew we were going to find a wonderful Elizabeth O'Neill Verner today in Charleston. So who are these pretty people? Her name is Lou and she was my mother's nurse and my nurse when I was a baby, and I'm the baby. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, it's just a charming pastel. You know, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner was born in 1883 and died in 1979. And while she studied and traveled a bit, her home and her heart was always in Charleston. Right, right.

And she is really credited with a great revival of the spirit and gentility of your great city. We have the wonderful pastel on linen-- your nurse, you, looking very sweet. The piece is in basically good condition. You do have some foxing, which is a type of mold that can be removed.

I'm hoping that you'll keep it somewhere dark and stable in terms of temperature. It's a lovely piece, and while I know I couldn't possibly put a price on its personal value to you, as a woman artist and as a Southern woman artist, her market has been increasing, and this piece at auction, I would estimate it between $8,000 and $12,000. Okay-- wow, okay.

APPRAISER

Are these your clubs? Yes. Did they belong to someone else before you? They did, to my son-in-law.

He was Jackie Gleason's doctor. Jackie gave these clubs to him. When Jackie had a little problem he would call Art. They became good friends and when he passed away, he left these to Art.

And then Art passed away. He left these to me. The reason why we find them very interesting of course is that they did belong to the man known as "The Great One." Jackie Gleason, known to a whole generation of fans as Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. We've got this wonderful set of irons, this wonderful putter that I have in my hands...

And then we have golf balls specially made for Jackie-- with "The Great Gleason" and then a crown on it. Because not only was he a great TV star, but he was also a fabulous golfer in his own mind. He loved it. And he loved it, participated for many years in Bing Crosby's Pebble Beach Classic, where they raised lots of money for charities.

Also was a great lover of jazz and parapsychology. So the man had many facets. He did. These clubs themselves inherently don't have a lot of value for sports.

I think that these were actually given to Jackie. I don't think that he had them specially made, only because he had a line of his own called the Millionaire's Club with a Jackie Gleason signature in it. So if you're looking at these clubs just to be kind of on their own, they're really only worth a few hundred dollars at very best. But because they belonged to Jackie Gleason, they have such great provenance, we place them around $3,000 to $4,000.

And we might as well get this out of the way because we're doing this segment. "How sweet it is!" And knowing that they're $3,000 to $4,000 then you can now easily say, "And away we go!" "And away we go." (laughs)

WOMAN

My grandmother acquired this set during the '30s, piece by piece, and so it took her awhile to do. It's a luncheon set with a lot of pieces and she gave it to me when I was in high school. And I've just had it wrapped up with nowhere to go. This set was made by the Royal Winton company in England.

Let me show the mark here on the back. It says "Royal Winton Grimwades" and "Summertime" is the pattern name. This company was famous for making these patterns that were covered with blossoms and flowers, which we now call "chintzware." Chintzware. It's like chintz fabric, which is covered with flowers.

The Summertime pattern was the most popular chintz pattern that they made. It was introduced in 1932 and was made all the way until the 1960s. They made millions of pieces and so it's the most common, but there's a huge demand and it's gotten very popular with collectors. When it was originally made, it was quite inexpensive.

Every piece was a few dollars. She could save her money and buy little bit by little bit. It's actually pottery and doesn't hold up very well, but this set is in remarkable condition. You must not have used it very much.

It's really never been used. Right. The reason that people like it now even though the quality isn't all that great is because it's just so good to look at and prices have really gone through the roof, so to speak, in the last ten or 15 years. All right!

Some of these pieces that started out being worth a few dollars are now worth a great deal more. You've got a teapot and a coffee pot. Yeah. Both of those are worth somewhere between $400 and $800 each.

Oh, neat. Cups and saucers would normally sell for somewhere around $75. Most of the middle-sized serving pieces are going to be between $200 and $300. A large platter like this sells for between $300 and $600.

Holy cow! And the luncheon plates, which are square, which is really an interesting feature of this particular pattern, would sell for about $150. Actually, you've got a lot more in the box. Yeah.

We didn't unpack all of it, you've got about 70 pieces. I added up... you had a list written down. And using a conservative estimate per piece to add up the total, this set, if you bought it from a china matching service or through a chintz specialty dealer, would cost you to replace between $6,000 and $8,000.

Holy cow! Well I know my grandmother would be real thrilled if she knew. Yes she would, I'm sure. They were my mother's dolls and my aunt told me that she had had them since she was a little girl.

APPRAISER

And any sort of time frame, time period when your mom would have had them? It would have been in probably '20s and '30s. It's interesting because you have a pair of twins and they were designed by a lady by the name of Grace Cory Rockwell, in New York. And her first doll she made has a very funny name called "Fuji Wuji." And she actually designed these two dolls around 1925.

Grace Cory Rockwell, an American designer. She had the heads produced in Germany by a company called J.D. Kestner. And the dolls were marketed through the Century Doll Company of New York.

Very, very rare to find a pair of them. The bodies are made in America. They're American composition. They're very Art Deco clothes.

In the '20s, most of the dolls were being made in America, so it's very rare to still find the bisque heads on them. The doll on the right has a little bit of a problem. Looks like your mom must have dropped it and broken it at some time, whereas the other one is in good shape. If you turn this one around, you'll see Grace Cory's signature on the back of the doll.

Now, these were luxury dolls in their time. They weren't a five-and-dime item. You would get them at Schwartz's. They probably sold, when they were new, for probably five to ten dollars apiece.

If the one hadn't had the little concussion in its life, the pair would have been worth around $8,000 for the two of them. So the perfect doll is worth around $4,000-- $3,000 to $4,000. The damaged one's worth, I would say, probably $600 to $800. So your mom had two wonderful little dolls in her life.

Oh, she did.

WOMAN

This was presented by the Freemasons of Maryland to my great-grandfather, who was John McJilton. And I see you have a photo album. I do, and the photo album, which is nice. It sounds like you've got some history there.

I have a picture. Oh, he's marvelous, wonderful. And he's got a nice strong face, so I liked it. Very strong, very photogenic fellow.

Yes. As is this beautiful silver bowl. Do you know what it was used for originally? No, I honestly don't.

Well, it's a monteith bowl, and that refers to this notched rim here, which was used to rinse and cool wine glasses. The stem of the glasses would come out of the edge there. That's sort of an old-fashioned thing, so if you don't want to use it for that, you can simply take this rim off and you see, it's a punchbowl. One of the questions I had was regarding the marks on the bottom.

One of the marks was an "11 oz" on it, which I didn't... Yes, that's... I thought it was 11 ounces, but I wasn't really sure. It is.

This is a typical mark made by Samuel Kirk, and he's one of the few silversmiths that indicated in America the purity of the metal, and since there are 12 ounces in a troy ounce-- in an ounce of silver-- he is telling you that he puts 11 ounces of pure silver per 12 and that gets you a standard of almost sterling. It's 91.6 pure silver, and that's what that mark means. The mark is around 1850, but we know from the inscription that it was given in 1859. 1859.

So that's the date of the bowl. And Samuel Kirk is quite famous for this repouss decoration, this hammer decoration. All of this is hand-hammered from the inside and the out and it's very, very typical of Samuel Kirk of Baltimore, which is where your family is from, is that right? Right, my mother's family originally was from Baltimore.

And I would say because it's a 1859 version of an 18th-century monteith bowl, it's very rare and Kirk is very lovely and collectible. And as far as value, I know the sentimental value will be huge because it's a family piece, Right. but it does have a value on the market, and I would say it's going to approach $10,000. Wow, excellent.

My mother bought it from a gentleman by the name of Henry Blount. It's French cameo glass and he collected it.

APPRAISER

Okay, and how much did she pay for it when she bought it? $450. $450, and that was how many years ago? Over 30.

Okay, now, Henry Blount also has a book, French Cameo Glass, and you had said that this vase is in that book? Yes, this was one of the pieces he purchased for that book. Ah, lovely. Well, you have a Gall, mold-blown-- or sometimes called "blown out"-- and cameo glass vase.

These are lovely trailing fuchsia in wonderful colors. You have a relief signature here-- "Gall"-- and then as we come around, we can see that the blown-out part is referring to this floral relief. Gall was one of the master craftsmen of the French art glass movement. One of his mottoes that he had carved in the glasswork doors was, "My roots are in the depths of the woods." He was very interested in botany and he was very interested in the oriental motifs of the time, the Art Nouveau period.

I would put an auction estimate on this at $40,000 to $60,000. Wow. And that's a wholesale valuation, so insurance valuation would be quite a bit more. Wow, thank you.

It's by Charles Dana Gibson, and I obtained it about 25 years ago. I saw it and fell in love with it and put in a bid and walked away so I wouldn't overbid at the actual auction and got it. So you were lucky. And it's very clearly signed down here in the lower right.

Of course, Gibson is well-known for his Gibson Girls, and that's what people tend to always think of when they think of the artist. What we have here obviously is an example of a very different style of work. When we start to analyze a picture, the first thing we do is look for clues, and you have some wonderful clues here because right here on the back... we have this exhibition label, which tells us that the picture was in the retrospective of Gibson's work that was held at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

This also tells us who it's a portrait of, as we have "Jane McLean." And not only that, but it was lent to the exhibition by the artist himself, which is not necessarily a clue to this, but very often, we make the assumption that it's a work the artist particularly liked; that he was pleased with it and proud of it because he chose to have it included in this retrospective. We also have a label up here that just says "Return to C.D. Gibson," which proves to us that it actually belonged to him at that time. Having those clues, we then start to think about where it fits into the artist's total oeuvre, and with Gibson, as with many artists who are known for one particular style of work, the whole emphasis and market orientation shifts when you're talking about something that is totally atypical.

Portraits by Gibson-- which he did quite a number of-- do not tend to be as valuable as the best of his drawings. Even though they may appear to be more ambitious works, they are not what collectors want from Gibson. So, normally speaking, we're talking about a relatively modest value for a portrait. In this case, I think the picture is so lovely and such an interesting and appealing subject with the lovely young woman, whose identity we know; the fact that she's in this sort of early 20th-century kind of country-house interior with this wonderful slipcover, and she has a very socially insouciant kind of look about her.

In today's market, this is probably worth between $7,000 and $10,000. That's a high price for a Gibson portrait, but it's very much superior to most of them that come on the market. Thank you very much.

MAN

My father got it at a garage sale. I think he gave, like, three to five dollars for it, and it's been sitting on a bookshelf for 25 years. It looks like it's got about 25 years' worth of grime on it, or even more. It's French, a type of clock that was made around 1820 or so.

Typically, these clocks have a plinth, the movement inside the pedestal here, and a sculpture on top. The sculpture is cast bronze. It was cast up in a number of pieces and then finished by hand. What I like about the clock more than anything else is the grime on it, because it is actually a gem that's just got a coat of dirt and whatever on top of it, and if you were to give this clock a bath-- and I don't mean give it a scrubbing by any means, but some detergent, some degreaser-- you would find that this clock would just begin to glow because it's made out of gilt bronze and it has a protective layer of gold on it that's prevented it from deteriorating over the years.

The French were very good at making these things. It has a very fine casting. It has a patinated figure on top-- a rearing horse, very nicely sculptured-- and when it's all clean and shiny, you're going to have a clock that's probably worth let's say $3,000 to $5,000. Pretty good for a yard sale.

WOMAN

I bought them sometime around 1975. It was sort of an antique junk store near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They were in the back. I think they'd just been unpacked and they were sort of all covered with dust.

And I asked her about them, and she said, "They're puppets." She knew the family and she said that he was a Pennsylvania puppeteer. Well, one of them we notice in looking at these is signed "E.Z. Allen," so we can assume that he's the gentleman that... That's his name, right.

That was his show, so this was presumably his living. They are really extraordinary. Each one of them is so beautifully carved. They have very powerful expressions-- some of them really a little bit frightening.

One can only wonder what kind of a show he put together and what the plot was all about. The thing that qualifies these, I think, as great sculpture and folk art is just the beautiful articulation of the features and wonderful old surface and color. This one here, particularly. This man has an amazing profile-- look at that.

Is that astounding, or what? Interestingly enough, you say this gentleman was from Pennsylvania, and the sticks on these appear to be made out of yellow pine, which would be indigenous to that area. This is perhaps the most outrageous. Maybe this is how he finished up one of the shows, but you can see this is a huge crocodile mouth.

As far as valuing them, it's a little difficult to say exactly, but they qualify as great folk art sculpture, each and every one of them. And I would think easily that this assemblage is worth $10,000 to $15,000, anyway. Really?! They're just great.

Really? Oh! Really? Oh, absolutely.

I paid $140 for them, which was my entire rent. Maybe we should put that in there. I purchased it about four years ago from a church bazaar that was a couple of miles below my house. It was items that the church had donated and some of the members had donated.

And no one could remember anybody donating it. They thought that it had been an item that had been in the kitchen, that it had belonged to the church, and they had just decided to put it in the sale that day. It was so pretty to me. I thought, "Oh, they can't be selling that." And do you like baskets in general?

I love baskets. I love anything that's American-made, folk art-type, country. Right. I have never seen one before.

It is most unusual in the carved elements that are here above the woven bottom of the basket. We see a very tightly woven bottom, and this is typical of baskets in Tennessee and southeastern Virginia. These baskets were used for a number of things-- possibly egg gathering, although, having found it in a church, it may have been used for some other purpose. Do you know?

I feel like it was an offering basket for the church. Well, it's, um... it's a very unusual piece and 19th-century-- I would say probably before 1880. It has cut nails here.

What did you pay for the basket in your yard sale? I paid three dollars for it. If I were selling this in a shop, I would ask somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000 for this basket. Oh!

Oh, that is good. We had a family estate auction back in 1995 and was the only person to bid on this stone jug. The appraiser had it listed for $100 and the opening bid was $60, so I paid $60. There was a fellow that approached me right outside where we had the auction and asked if I would like to sell it, and I sold it to him for $100.

And my mother said that I should get that jug back because I don't know what... you know, what it is, and I chased him to the car and he gave it back to me. Well, you are very, very lucky. This happens to be a piece of Edgefield stoneware.

It is ash glazed, alkaline glazed, which is something that is typical of this area. Now, what is this little thing around here? This string was just inside, and it's got the cork. Well, it has really nothing to do with this pot, which I will turn around here to see some of the writing on it and turn it on its side, because what it says is "L.M.

says this handle will crack." "L.M." stands for Lewis Miles. And this is a fantastic piece of stoneware made by a slave named Dave. They call him "Dave the Slave" amongst the collectors. He is extremely popular.

And let me show the date. Here we have it. The date is June 28, 1854 and it says "Dave." Dave worked for a number of potters in Edgefield, including the Chandlers, and for Lewis Miles, whose initials are on this pot. He was one of a number of slaves who worked for those Edgefield potters, and obviously their wares were sold by Miles for profit.

But one other thing about Dave

Dave had huge hands. He made some of the largest pots that are ever known out of stoneware, and he was educated because he could write, and it was against the law at that time for a slave owner to educate his slaves, but nobody ever got after Miles or Chandler for doing it. And he potted right on through until late in the Civil War and finally, when the slaves were set free, he went off on his own and sort of disappeared. I love the form, the handle.

It's got a little chunk here out of the spout of it, but it doesn't make any difference. At auction several years ago, one of Dave's pots about this particular size and with this similar date took $4,500. Okay. What do you think of that?

That's more than $60. Right. And if I had this to sell, I would probably price it at about something like $6,000 today. Oh, that's great.

That was in '93 when that thing sold. That's awesome. You were so lucky that you got that thing back from that fellow. Yeah.

APPRAISER

You brought us this folding map-- "Wyld's New Map of the United States"-- and let's open it up and see what we've got here. It's a folding map that's backed onto canvas and cut into pieces so that you could unfold it like this. And you can see here the title says "Wyld's Military Map of the United States, The Northern and the Southern Confederate States," and the date, which is down here at the bottom, 1861. Tell me how you got this map.

Well, I was looking through an antique magazine in England. I was stationed in England in 1961 and I saw this map advertised of the Northern and Southern states, and so I wrote the address and asked the gentleman how much he wanted for it, and he wrote back, told me he wanted about three pounds, which is about $12. I sent him the $12, and he sent me the map. I sort of fell in love with it.

I'm from the South, and it interested me. I also went to the Citadel and it has an insert of Charleston. Right down here is a inset map of Charleston and the harbor, and the Citadel actually appears on that map, doesn't it? Yes, it does.

I gather your wife is not quite as keen on the map as you are. Well, no, she's not, but I think I've made my point, thanks to you. Uh-huh. Any map of the United States during the Civil War is interesting, especially one that highlights the North and the South.

And here it has the label that says the slave states are bordered by blue, and they're indicated here-- which is essentially the Confederacy, although Kentucky never joined the Confederacy. But what's particularly interesting is that this is a London map, and the English were very interested in the Civil War. A lot of the cotton came from the South and went to England, and so they were making a lot of money on it, so they were very concerned about the economy. Now, they never recognized the Confederacy, which is why they still call it the "Southern states" as part of the United States; but they were very interested.

They had all these economic ties, so the English were interested in having a map like this. So this map was made and sold and looked at in London, not in the United States, and that makes it particularly interesting historically, as well as all the information that it contains about the insets of Washington, D.C., of Charleston. My wife, Janet, says it ought to have at least doubled, and so it should be worth about $24. It's worth more than that.

A map like this done in London of the United States at a historically interesting period-- especially a separately issued map like this-- is quite popular now on the market. We would sell a map like this for right around $1,000 to $1,100, and I hope maybe your wife will like it a little more now. Maybe she will. Maybe I'll will it to her.

(both laugh) Originally, I bought them thinking they were guitar molds, and I like guitars, and then I went to purchase these here, and that just happened to be there. During the estate sale, he told me that they were Martin guitar clamps and molds from the factory. You know what a mold form is, it's a form used to form the sides of the instrument, so you actually... these are called outside mold forms.

In order to form the sides of the guitar, you first steam the wood and you press it into the mold form. Uh-huh. This one is a round-back mandolin form. I'll tell you, it's a contraption I've never, ever seen before.

I've seen a lot of mandolin forms. These would have been formed around a big iron molder wooden mold. Obviously, this pivots all the way around so they could have pressed individual staves as a final pressing. Right.

That one's clearly an outside mold form to form the ribs of a mandola. This one here? So it's not a mandolin, but a mandola. And this one has a date, I think?

Yeah. This is 1921. 1921. Something 1921.

In pencil, the Martin company would always pencil in their dates somewhere on the mold form. I've never seen a mold form outside of the Martin company. They're always in the factory, I've never seen them sell one. I think these are because these are discontinued items.

They haven't made a mandola since the 1920s, and these are mold forms from styles that are no longer used. But this one is the mold form for the Ditson standard, or the Ditson style one. Right. Ditson was a company that Martin guitar company made instruments for.

They made about 480 guitars for Ditson, and this one actually says, "Ditson Standard, April 24th, 1919." So Ditson was a different guitar company? Well, see, the Ditson company wasn't a guitar company, it was a publishing house that ordered custom guitars, they ordered a special model made by Martin for their use only. So it wouldn't have said Martin in the back of the guitar. It would have said Oliver Ditson and Company, New York and Boston.

It wouldn't have said Martin anywhere. What did you pay for it? I got them for $11 apiece. I just have to venture a guess, because I've never seen Martin forms ever come up for sale.

Individually, these are not worth a great deal of money. Right. Perhaps $100, $150. These ones in the background for a single O and a double O size guitar are interesting, maybe a couple hundred dollars apiece.

But for the standard style one Ditson, this one is much more important. I think perhaps $1,000 just for the mold form. Good investment.

WOMAN

My father, who was in the service during World War I, traded a package of cigarettes.

APPRAISER

One pack. One pack of cigarettes for this medallion. It was kept in a box with a lot of other mementos. Do you wear it?

I've only worn it about, maybe, a half a dozen times. That's too bad because it happens to be a great piece. I'm going to tell you things about this piece I don't think you ever knew. First of all, it's silver.

WOMAN

Oh! And it has emeralds, sapphires, and rose diamonds. The piece comes from somewhere around 1875. The monkeys that are paved rose diamonds sitting on green emeralds.

This particular piece was never a pendant. This medallion, like you call it, was really a cover of a box. It sat on probably a great agate box or a silver box or even maybe a gold box that was handmade. And we can tell where it was made because there are three distinctive hallmarks in the back.

They come from Austria. All the pearls around the outside are natural pearls, but they were never there originally. They were added on later. The rose diamonds are in superb condition.

The emeralds come from South America and the sapphires are Indian. A piece like this as a collectible, being of its age, could easily bring somewhere around $3,000 to $4,000 at auction.

APPRAISER

It's a Salem, North Carolina, redware squirrel bottle done by a fellow by... well, a potter and his cohorts, whose name is Rudolph Christ. He was Moravian. And the first one of these he made was right around 1800.

And then he made more afterwards in different colors-- made it in green, made it in other types of brown. This one's about 1810. And I would say it's probably worth between $1,500 and $2,000 even though it has some chips and damages in it. That's very nice.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Marcia, your grandfather collected Indian artifacts. Yes.

And what do we have here in these pictures? Well, those are pictures of his collection. He was from Barrington, Rhode Island, and he collected it out West at the turn of the century. At one point, he used to label everything with the prices of everything, but when his wife began to hear how much they cost, he began to code things, so we have...

Smart guy. We have a number of things that have codes, so we have no idea what they spent for them. Now, if I understand correctly, the vast majority of these items were donated by your family to the Yale Peabody Museum sometime in the 1950s or so. Probably, right.

But what I find even more interesting are these wonderful photographs that you brought along that were apparently part of the collection that didn't get donated. Right. Do you know who the photographer was on these? Yeah, it was a man named Fred Meyer.

Many of them are annotated with what's happening in the picture itself. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Fred Meyer, and I can only tell you a little bit because he's one of those photographers that we don't know a great deal about. Fred Meyer was a photographer who traveled in the summer and spent time on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana, and these are all photographs of Blackfoot Indians from around 1900, 1905. And they're absolutely marvelous portraits, very typical of the kind of work that another Montana photographer named Roland Reed was doing.

These photographs in themselves-- the large 11 x 14s-- are great, but what really is the story here are the small snapshots... Right. Because they're all annotated on the back, we know exactly what's going on. These are photographs of the Sundance, a rite of passage that many of the Northern Plains Indians did that was basically an initiation rite of a boy into manhood.

It was a ceremony that was very seldom photographed. They're rare, but in this case not necessarily worth a lot of money because they're sort of this esoteric stuff. The individual large photographs were probably worth between $500 to $1,000 apiece. The small photographs, because you've got a notebook of these, of about 50 different photographs, I'd average those photographs out at about $100 apiece.

So in terms of what you've got here, you probably have somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 worth of photographs. Wow! That's wonderful! It was purchased at auction in England about ten years ago, and we believe it be a 19th-century French bronze.

That's about it. This bronze is by Lon Deschamps. He was born in 1860 and he died in 1928. He won several medals and showed in many salons during the late-19th and early-20th century, and this particular piece is signed on the front, "En Moisson." Okay.

And that means "the harvest." "The harvest." He had a particular penchant for the harvest and he did bronzes like this using, generally speaking, the sand-cast method. We also have a signature of his on the side right here as well as, then, on the reverse side, the foundry mark, the Suss foundry mark, and that was of also a famous foundry in the 19th and early-20th century. It's fortunate that this is the original cast size of the piece. During the mid-19th century, many pieces were cast in a smaller size.

He studied under Hippolite Moreau and he won several medallions in the Paris salons. Can you tell us, Neil, what you paid for this? I seem to think it... say in England, �800, which is about $1,200, $1,300.

On the open market right now and I think by a reputable dealer, this bronze would be worth between $45,000 and $50,000. Ah, no! You're joking! Absolutely.

Oh, my goodness! It is an extraordinary piece of his workmanship. Oh, jeez! Can we cry on camera?

(laughs) My wife's going to be back there falling off her chair. (laughs) Oh, my goodness, me.

WOMAN

I had been given this set of Chintz back in high school by my grandmother, packed it up, really didn't care for it personally, and just kind of traveled around with it, forgot that it was in my attic. It was cute, decorative, but it was worth nothing. As the Roadshow approached and I was trying to decide what to bring, it was definitely a last-minute addition. The night before, a friend of mine said, "Well, why don't you bring it down?" She goes, "It sounds pretty.

Get an appraisal and I'll buy it off of you." She was at the show when we were taping. When she heard what it was worth, if you had ran the tape a little longer, you would have heard her calling, "Now I can't afford it!" It was kind of like a surreal experience that day, just almost shock when I'm hearing what these pieces are worth.

APPRAISER

This set, if you bought it from a China matching service or through a chintz specialty dealer, would cost you, to replace, between $6,000 and $8,000. Holy cow! After the show, I'm thinking, "Now it's worth something, what am I gonna do with it?" All right! I had sold a couple of pieces, and then the majority of the pieces went to a man who runs a replacement china company up in North Carolina.

And he has a museum up in his facility. He was interested, he made an offer. In total, I got about $7,000 for all of it. I was happy.

All right!