Antiques Roadshow

WALBERG: "Antiques Roadshow" is finding treasures large and small in St. Louis.

This has been passed down for generations.

It's known as the "Scary Portrait."

That's very surprising to me.

Well, that's good news.

WALBERG: St. Louis is famous for its history of beer making.

Anheuser-Busch has roots here dating back to the mid-1800s, and the company also has a museum full of breweriana.

These pieces come from the Prohibition period, when beer production stopped, and Anheuser-Busch needed to find other products to sell, like ginger ale.

Back at the Roadshow, we'll take a closer look at this Anheuser-Busch pendant later on, but right now check out this item donated by an international superstar.

We have a black fedora here and signed Michael Jackson photo.

Tell me where you got these.

I bought from a Channel Nine Auction in '94, public broadcasting.

So it was a charity auction for PBS.

Charity auction, right, right.

Great, so it's close to home here with us on PBS.

Yeah, bring it back home.

(chuckles) The piece was up for auction, and I said, "Well, let me see if I can bid on it."

It said... valued at $3,000, so I picked it up for about $800.

First, it's not just the fedora.

If I turn it around here-- Right.

We can see that it's actually signed.

Signed, yeah.

Which is great, he signs it, "All my love, Michael Jackson."

With the little flourishes at the bottom, he did that a lot.

Right, hmm.

And we also have the gold name inside the hat band, which is something you want to see on a Michael Jackson fedora.

He was a generous guy when it came to giving things to charity auctions.

He did this a lot.

If anyone called his management company, MJJ Productions, and said, "We're having this auction, could you send something for charity?"

He would send a fedora.

What a lot of people don't know, and I've spoken to a couple people in his camp who were the ones who did it, there were also a lot of people who did it for him.

Mmm-hmm.

So oftentimes, they would sign the hat.

Okay.

And they would sign something and send it.

And so, while this is a pretty new collector market, we're getting to know all the secretarial signatures that are out there.

But what I can tell you is that yours are actually him.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Yeah, that's what I paid for.

(both laugh) That's good news.

Because a lot of them that have come on the market since he passed away are actually secretarial, and they're being sold as things signed by him, and it's not because people are necessarily trying to be dishonest, they're just not familiar enough yet with some of the other signatures that are out there.

So you not only have the signed hat, you have the signed photograph.

At the time, in 1994, when they sold it, it was probably a little bit aggressive for them to say it was worth $3,000.

You paid $800 for it, which is great.

Today, at auction, it's probably, with the photograph and the hat, worth between $3,000 to $5,000.

Okay.

So it's now worth about what they said.

Oh, so now it's about $3,000.

(laughing) Oh.

I appreciate it.

This is really interesting to me, the fedoras.

I've actually done some statistical studies on fedoras in the Michael Jackson market, because I worked on a sale of his that was canceled right before he passed away.

I've worked on the estate appraisal after he passed away, and so I've seen hundreds of them.

And when he first passed away in 2009, some auctions were happening in 2010, 2011, 2012, the prices for these were off the charts.

Mmm-hmm.

People didn't realize how many were out there yet.

And when the first few started to come onto the market, the record for a fedora was $75,000.

Mm-hmm.

And then another one sold for $37,000.

Oh.

And then they sold for $35,000.

At least 200 to 300 have come on the market since he passed away.

About how many original signatures are... fakes are out there?

I'd say probably 70% of the ones that have come onto the market are him, and probably a good 30% are not him.

WOMAN: It's been in my husband's family.

His aunt passed away about 25 years ago, and she didn't have any children, so everything was passed down to her nieces and nephews.

Everyone got to pick something they loved, and I love turquoise and gold and diamonds together, and so we were given this bracelet.

First of all, it's made out of 18-karat yellow gold.

When you put it on the scale, I weigh in pennyweights, it's 42 pennyweights, so that's a little over two troy ounces of gold.

Wow.

In the piece.

Now, the first design element we notice is what we call this fluted turquoise.

You see how its got ridges almost like a pumpkin, or a piece of squash.

Then, running down the middle, they put this little beaded or hobnail rim.

So there's just a lot of design in that little bead.

You move next to it, and you have here a style that really came about in the mid-'50s, early '60s, a Florentine finish.

There's a special lining tool that puts this texture onto the bright gold.

Then we take it one step even further and you have these diamond rondels.

Did you count the diamonds recently?

Never.

(laughter) Well, just so you know, there's 99 of them.

Really?

When you add them all up, there's three carats, total weight, in diamonds.

It's strung on what we call "foxtail chain."

It's a woven chain.

It used to be used in this period, they still make it today, but you really only see jewelry made with it that's very high quality, and it's very, very, very strong.

Today, a lot of jewelers will use a different type of chain, and I can tell you, it's always breaking.

(chuckles) On the tongue-- this is the piece that you put into the other end to close the clasp.

I had to use some high magnification to figure out what it said.

It says, "Made in France."

I date this somewhere in that 1955 to 1965 period.

A value on this, as I see it right now, I think this is worth, at auction, $6,000 to $8,000.

Wow-- that's great.

I love it, and so... that's amazing, I had no idea.

Well, I'm not finished, though.

You're not finished?

I want to get to the "but" and "if."

I showed it to my colleagues at the table, and a lot of times there are pieces like this that are not signed by a particular jewelry-maker, but they did make them, things did get out unsigned.

There's a strong chance this could be VCA, Van Cleef and Arpels.

It has that look.

It has all those elements, it has the quality.

Really?

Like anything, how do you prove it?

It's not signed "VCA."

Sometimes, in our world, in the trade, we will take a bracelet like this, we will submit it for authentication.

It's a lot of money, it could cost upwards of $2,000, which, right now, is 25% of the cost of the piece.

And there's no guarantee.

But let's say we sent it to them, and it came back, and it was authenticated as being theirs.

Well, then, on something like this, the value would change, and it could easily double to $15,000 to $20,000.

But that's a big if.

That would be amazing.

It's got that kind of quality.

Really fabulous, thank you for bringing it in.

Oh, well, thank you.

I'm really enjoying it, and I'm glad I brought it in.

You do wear it sometimes?

I wore it yesterday.

(chuckles): Oh... MAN: Well, in 1961, my mother was in charge of the crafts committee for a 4-H club up in Lincoln County, and as a family, we went to see "Parent Trap," which had just been released by the Walt Disney Studio.

And Hayley Mills, who obviously was the star in that, came home to her grandmother in Boston with this.

And my mother says, "I've got to learn how to make that."

So she wrote to the Disney Studios and asked for some blueprints or whatever they had, and lo and behold, about two weeks later, this comes in the mail.

Along with a letter saying, "Here's the one out of the movie, and you can have it."

This one is from the 1961 movie, "The Parent Trap."

Yes.

And it was that great scene when Hayley Mills' character first comes home to Boston and gives this wonderful birdcage to her grandmother, who's very prim and proper, upper-crust Boston.

Yes, yes, yes.

And kind of looked at it like, "What am I going to do with this...

thing?"

Exactly.

And you've got a wonderful letter of provenance, and it's dated November 8, 1961, and it's from the property department at Disney.

Not only does it talk about the prop itself, talks about "The Parent Trap," but it gives you all the details on the construction of it.

Made from raffia and Good Humor sticks.

You almost never get a Disney prop with that kind of provenance.

This is Hollywood gold for a Disney collector.

Oh.

At auction, we'd give an estimate of between $5,000 and $8,000.

You're kidding.

(laughter) Seriously?

I think the insurance is going to go up on this a little bit.

(laughter) That's wonderful!

I mom... my mom's still alive, and she's going to just... yeah, she's going to have a trip on this one.

It's been made fun of, and my mother's defended this thing for 50-plus years.

APPRAISER: Now that is unusual, for sure.

I have never seen anything like that, is that from your family?

Yes, it is.

Wow.

What you have here, actually, is a mix of things.

This is from the First World War.

This is an officer's medical syringe kit.

The rest of this is medicine, and cures, and treatment and that sort of thing that you would have during the Civil War.

Value-wise, for the lot, you'd be looking at retail around $350 to $400.

Okay, very good.

It's a high chair which then went down as a little sort of stroller, as well.

These were made in big cities of industry, and then people could order them through mail order.

And, ultimately, they don't have a huge amount of value.

I have kids, and I don't know how comfortable I would feel putting my kid in here.

But if I saw this in an antique store today, I'd say value around about $150 to $200.

Okay.

All right?

It's cool that the mechanism still works, sometimes they don't.

A plow salesman gave this to my husband's great-grandfather, who owned a hardware store.

Well, the wording here, which is very hard to read, but it says "Bissell Plow, South Bend, Indiana."

Well, lets see what was in here, in this very unusually shaped box.

So it opened up, and there's this wonderful pull-behind plow.

And it's just amazing, and the box is astounding too.

It's cast iron, nickel-plated.

Dates from around 1900, turn of the century.

Who's this?

This is the great-grandfather that started the business, and this is my husband's older brother in 1937, and here's the sample plow.

Now, we see a lot of salesman sample plows.

An average plow like this, auction biddings could be anywhere from $600 to $800.

But what makes this one special, just like toys, we like the original boxes.

So this means a lot, and I would say at auction, with the box, we're probably looking around $1,200 to $1,500.

And I'm so glad you brought it in.

Thank you.

This has been passed down for generations on my mother's side of the family, and she's from the East Coast, Providence, Newport, Rhode Island area.

It's known as the "Scary Portrait."

(laughs) When I grew up, this was in our summer house in a back room.

It wasn't presented to everybody, because we were all scared of it.

But I've grown to love this portrait, and it's in our dining room at home, and we have dinner parties, and it's always the main topic of conversation.

I asked my mom, who's no longer alive, and she doesn't know who they are.

This is a very finely painted portrait, and the children are just done beautifully.

This is an oil on canvas.

The parents chose to include the crutches and embrace the disability of the older sister.

She's got her hands on her brother.

That's typical of an upper-class family and the way that a young boy would've been dressed.

He was probably, maybe, four years old, three, or four, five years old, and she looks like she's maybe six or seven.

The thing that I love about it is their faces are so animated, and if you look at the room setting and just the way they're dressed, I would say the date is probably the 1870s, maybe the 1880s.

One of the folks at the folk art table ran the folk art department for a major auction house in New York for almost 30 years, and she cannot recognize the hand yet.

But what this is is a great folk portrait of two children that has this immediacy, so unusual to have the crutches included.

And the other thing is that it's what I would call quasi-academic, because this painter was trained and knew how to paint faces, he or she knew how to paint hands, and it's just so nicely done.

Normally, portraits from this time period, because they're so large, sometimes that affects them negatively in the way that the market receives them, but in this particular case, I think the subject matter and the way that it's rendered and just the poignancy of the whole scene draws you in.

I guess that's why you have so many people in for dinner that want to talk about it.

Right, I mean, just walking through here, today, every other person was like, "Wow."

It's just a fabulous thing, and a conservative auction estimate would be $6,000 to $8,000.

And we think for insurance purposes, it probably would be around $15,000.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

I love these kids.

As you should, I think they're wonderful.

These are my relatives.

I brought my parents' rolling beverage cart.

They moved into our home in Cleveland, Ohio, in the early '50s, and Mom and Dad's decorator took them to Chicago to the Dunbar showroom, where they picked out a number of Dunbar pieces.

This was their favorite piece, but it was very, very, expensive.

So although they bought other pieces, they reluctantly left this one behind.

And when they got back to Cleveland, their decorator was able to get them a discount, and it's been in my family's living room ever since.

Well, you're right, it's by Edward Wormley for Dunbar.

And he was a furniture designer who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.

He went to work at Marshall Field's as an interior designer, in Chicago.

And then he met the president of Dunbar Furniture Company, who then hired him to sort of upgrade their furniture line.

It actually has the Dunbar tag, it's a brass plaque in here.

Dunbar's based out of Berne, Indiana.

And, you're right, it's a beverage cart, it's made out of walnut, it's got cedar, and this up here is laminate.

And it's something that they would have used for entertaining.

Dunbar was known for making quality furniture.

There were other makers.

When one came out with something, then, like, Herman Miller, Noel, someone else would come out with one almost identical.

But it's a great design, you haven't had it refinished or anything like that.

No.

And so you obviously probably know how it works?

Yes, I do.

So it has this leaf that swings up and then slides over.

Then it's got storage in the front and then some storage over here, and you have the perfect place to mix drinks for a party.

The perfect place to have cocktails.

People collect cocktail shakers, the artisan drinks, everyone's a mixologist these days, and this is the perfect size for an apartment, and it's a perfect size for a dining room.

It's great for entertaining, because it's not going to take up a ton of room.

So do you know how much your parents paid for it in the 1950s?

I do not, but I know that it was very expensive, and that's why they didn't originally purchase it the day... That they waited?

Yes.

Okay, so, it was designed in 1954.

Dunbar was top of the line, and when your parents purchased this, they probably paid around $375 for it-- Really?

in the '50s, which was a lot of money back then.

There were other manufacturers that made similar items, and they were lower priced, probably in the $175, $200 range.

In a good, modern auction, it would probably be estimated in a $3,000 to $5,000 range.

It could probably bring at the upper end of that, because it's so popular right now.

For insurance-- you might want to insure it, because that's retail replacement at around probably $10,000.

$10,000.

Yeah.

Well, I will soon be moving it into my new St. Louis home.

Oh, nice.

And I can't wait to welcome my new St. Louis friends and make them cocktails on my mother's bar.

This was the biggest surprise of my life.

I knew it was special.

I didn't ever think that it would be on "Antiques Roadshow."

I mean, how cool was that?

APPRAISER: The quality is there, but the changes in the market mean that it's become more of a buyer's market for this.

This chair is probably a $300 to $500 chair.

What I would suggest is sending this off to get the signatures authenticated.

They look wrong to me.

If they are not right, then, you know, it's a script that's just a copy, so it's not original with annotations.

If it is right, then I would say $2,000 to $3,000.

I don't think that the signatures are right.

I will send it off.

The hammer would hit the friction primer, on that cap, and it would set off the charge in the barrel and shoot the ball out the end.

Do you think it's operable?

Probably, but I wouldn't shoot it.

(laughing) Okay-- I'm not.

Good idea.

WOMAN: We believe it to be the Anheuser-Busch logo.

My great-uncle had a jewelry store out in El Reno, Oklahoma.

And when he passed away, my grandfather liquidated the jeweler store and picked this up and brought it into the family.

At some point, my mom had it evaluated at the brewery by the historian, and she could date it to 1919, based on the positioning of the eagle's foot, but we really don't know a lot more about it.

Well, Anheuser-Busch started this logo around 1880.

So we have their typical "A" for "Anheuser" with the eagle set in silver, and the beautiful workmanship on that silver.

And then you turn it over, and you have the same workmanship on the back of the wings, too.

The spread eagle motif is a little different from the first motif in that his wings are over the "A," so that helps us date it as well to the early 1900s, 1919, like you said.

Because it's so well articulated, the silver, it's also with rose-cut diamonds on the branch, and it's in 14-karat gold as well, I would say, auction estimate, you would be looking at around $1,000 to $2,000.

Very nice.

Very happy to know that, finally.

MAN: Originally, a friend of mine from Fairview Heights bought it.

He paid like $3,900 for it.

Okay.

And he wanted to get rid of it, so I traded him out of it.

What was your trade value?

At that time, it was high, it was like $7,500 or something.

I traded it to a fella in Peoria, Illinois.

Well, I traded him quite a bit of African, but he had quite a collection, and he decided he wanted to get rid of all his African.

So I ended up trading the African back from him, and then I traded to a fellow in St. Louis.

And after he had it for a while, I decided I wanted it back again, so I traded him out of it.

After that, I just kind of hung onto it.

What was the date that you acquired it, approximately?

Somewhere between 20 and 30 years ago.

And so in the course of the many times that you owned it, was $7,500 the highest value that was placed on it?

Right.

So did you do any research on what you think it is, or-- Well, I thought it was a Chokwe mask.

Okay.

And I thought it was from the 1800s.

So if we look at it stylistically, it does conform to what we would expect to see in the Chokwe Complex.

And the Chokwe Complex is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and some of Zambia.

These marks on the cheeks are very important because they're idiosyncratic of this particular tribal area.

So whenever we see markings on the forehead or the cheeks, we can say, "Oh, that's a Chokwe marking," or "That's Kuba," or "That's something else."

But it's diagnostic in telling us where the mask is from.

Okay.

I think the teeth are probably bone.

The hair is a fiber material that's been painted a little bit to make it look like an animal skin.

Now, we're going to find out whether this thing is right or not.

So when we look at the inside of a mask, there's a couple of things that we want to see.

Now these holes would have raffia in them, and as the dancer is dancing, he's moving up and down, and this raffia is rubbing those holes, and you see like a teardrop on the holes where the raffia's rubbed.

We don't see that.

So, the holes bother me a little bit.

Now, let's look at the inside of the mask.

Now, I want you to imagine yourself in Africa.

You're a dancer.

It's hot, and you're dancing like crazy, and your perspiring.

Now, there's going to be a mark for foreheads, noses, cheeks, chins, because you're going to be rubbing against the inside of the mask.

But as we look, it's pretty consistent, except right here, in this area in the center.

And I could tell you now, that's artificial.

So this is really made to fool you.

So we've looked at the outside, the outside conformed, the inside didn't.

So what we have-- we don't have a decorative mask, what we do have is we have a fake.

Because this was made to deceive.

This mask, as a fake, is worth $200 to $300.

Wow.

That would be a good retail value.

I've sold Chokwe masks to museums, and you know how expensive they can be.

Oh, I know.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars now.

I'll probably put it on my mantel, leave it there until I die.

You know what, it's attractive to look at.

You got this piece...?

From my mother-in-law's estate.

It was in a kitchen cabinet with the soup cans.

When we were breaking up the house, I just thought it was a pretty color, and I liked the shape.

And I liked the idea that flowers would arrange themselves well when it fell into three compartments.

They didn't need a lot of arranging that way.

Was she a collector of art pottery?

Not at all.

So she could have ended up with this, sort of having been given to her?

Very possibly.

I'm not sure if she even liked it.

You know who made this?

I think it's Grueby, and I've heard the name on the "Roadshow" before.

Yes.

There's a reason why we show Grueby on the "Roadshow," and there's a reason why, in 2017, the name Grueby is still so relevant.

There's something about the Grueby shapes and the Grueby decorations, and most particularly about the Grueby glazes, that are so special and so superior.

A piece like this with the Faience stamp, which is the earlier stamp, was probably made around 1905.

This lobed shape is so pleasing.

It's such a great, organic shape.

So you have this three-lobed shape, you have these three fat leaves, and you have these three buds.

What would make this particular vase better was if there had been a second color on the buds.

Oh.

Which they were able to do better later, to fire it exactly.

The way the glaze clings to the buds, but also how it goes into the leaves and not on the edges is so good.

William Grueby won many medals, but won one here, in St. Louis, in 1904, won a gold medal for their pottery.

The World's Fair?

Yes.

Grueby became so successful with this matte green glazing, this became so much a part of the vernacular of the American Arts and Crafts, that he was copied over and over again by so many other makers, really almost none of whom got to do this as well as he did.

Eventually, they went out of business, because there was so much competition.

By 1909, they were pretty much done with the pots, they really went into tiles more.

Did they make their own glazes?

Each pottery made its own glazes-- Yes.

So this is not a commercial glaze?

No, you couldn't do this anymore, this glaze is full of very toxic elements-- Lead.

Yep, yeah.

This is worth, at auction, easily $1,500 to $2,000.

You're... well.

That's good news.

I hadn't any idea of that.

Very nice.

But it's not leaving the house.

Lillian Thoele is well-known around this area, and we were looking online and noticed she had done several pieces of artwork for murals and different things, so we want to know more about.

Okay, okay.

I'm going to check on something real quick.

I don't know if you know this artist... Oh, Lillian Thoele, yeah.

So, Lillian Thoele was a St. Louis artist.

This would probably be $200 to $300.

Okay.

Curtis Jere, it's dated 1979.

He called it an "Urchin," that's the name of it?

Yes.

They're pretty wild.

You're looking at around $1,000.

Okay.

In all likelihood, it had a paper label at one point.

Yeah, probably.

And most people take the paper labels off because they think they look tacky.

Basically, you know That's right.

(laughter) But never take the labels off.

In terms of value, probably about $50.

Really?

Yes.

Okay.

Many years ago, my husband and I, on a weekly basis, we would go to estate sales and hunt for treasures.

And we went to this estate sale in the city here.

These glasses were available for sale and we bought them.

And have you worn them since you bought them?

I wore them one time to... out, to the Central West End on Halloween night, yeah.

Okay.

They're just an amazing pair of glasses.

They're made in France, they're hand-painted, they have rhinestones applied to them.

Very fanciful shape from the 1970s.

And I would put a retail value on them, in today's current market, of about $300 to $350 for the pair.

What did you pay for them when you bought them, do you remember?

$20 or $25.

Well, that's a pretty good difference.

Would you like to try them on for us?

Oh, okay.

Let's see.

They're fabulous, they really are.

MAN: Well, I inherited it from my mother.

I have no idea where she got it.

She bought it in probably some shop, maybe 40, 50 years ago.

And was she a collector?

A little bit.

We had a lot of art around the house.

And did she ever tell you anything about this?

She told us it was valuable, and that was about it, and not to break it.

Do you think she paid much for it?

I don't know what she paid for it.

Uh-huh-- it's a wonderful sculpture, it's by the French artist Antoine Bourdelle.

And he was born in 1861, and he died in 1929.

He was one of the leading French sculptors of the late 19th and early 20th century.

He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with leading sculptors, and later on, his work was admired by Auguste Rodin, who was probably the most famous of the French 19th century artists, and he was a studio assistant for Rodin.

And they had these ateliers, and they would train other sculptors.

So this is sort of a long list of other sculptors who were trained by Bourdelle.

He was very successful in his day.

He actually exhibited in New York City in 1913.

There was a famous Armory Show of modern and contemporary art, and he exhibited in that show.

He received a huge number of commissions for public works and public monuments, so his work is really prominent in France.

What's interesting about him, also, is that his home and studio is now a museum in Paris, the Muse Bourdelle.

It's a wonderful sculpture, fresh and lively, it has a real personality and expression.

I love the way the hair is done in this very impressionistic way.

It's beautifully cast.

It was probably made around 1900.

So it's very clearly signed here on the side, "A. Bourdelle".

And then on the back, it has the foundry mark.

There is a number on the side of this, it's a five, And sculptures were usually made in very small editions of five or six.

This was cast with the lost-wax process, and it's a process that yielded wonderful, wonderful detail.

And I think what's important about Bourdelle and major artists is the way they're able to capture the personality of the sitter.

It is sort of small, most of his work is much larger and monumental, but his work is very, very desirable.

A piece like this in a gallery setting would be worth about $6,000.

Wow.

That's great.

My father worked for Woolworth his whole life.

He started out as a stock boy, here in St. Louis, at a store, and as he worked his way up in the company, he ended up as a vice president in New York.

We lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1963, and his store was the site of quite a lengthy sit-in by the people there.

Afterwards, we found these when he died, in some of his memorabilia.

He had saved these letters, and they were letters he received.

He interpreted them as a threat.

We later found out that, when we were older, because I was just a child, that he also received phone calls, and my mother told me at one point that she woke up one morning, and there was a cross on our front yard.

So it wasn't too long after that that the company moved us to St. Louis.

Moved away from Pine Bluff and to St. Louis.

In Pine Bluffs, what was going on was there was sit-ins.

Do you know how that first came up with your father, or what the reaction was?

He really didn't talk about it too much.

I know he handled it as best he could, and knowing him, he probably deferred to whatever the company wanted him to do.

But he didn't really talk about it much, and I was actually surprised to find these after he died, that he'd saved them all these years.

Obviously, in Little Rock, there were the high school, there were sit-ins in the Carolinas.

I think one of the interesting parts about this, and this letter in particular, is obviously saying that they were going to integrate the lunch counter.

And that's where... he's obviously got the death threats.

Pine Bluffs Agricultural College, they were seeing what was going on.

It was a black university, and so they decided to have sit-ins.

And in many ways, the sit-ins at the counter were probably more dangerous than some of the better-known and publicized.

I know that they couldn't get the Justice Department to send federal troops in to help them.

This is a little brochure from the National Patriots' League-- Yeah.

Basically saying how terrible it would be if it got integrated.

Right.

This letter here is sort of a little verse-type poem, but it's a veiled death threat.

Right, right.

There's no question when you read through it, it's saying, "Well, you're going to be rich, "you're going to be this.

And there will be no downtown."

This letter to your father, when he was the manager at Woolworth's, is interesting.

I'll paraphrase it a little.

"It is a real regret to me to learn "that after so long a time, "you are accepting Negroes in the business.

"Going to the demands "of the out-of-state Negroes and renegade whites, "that you have agreed to their demands "and are accepting their business at your lunch counter."

With the integration, there wasn't a central directive coming from Woolworth's.

No, no.

This was 1963.

Right.

This was a time of tremendous upheaval and change.

It was, it was.

I think what the significance of these are is that they're a lot of history, and people know what's going on.

Like I say, in Little Rock, they were on national television.

But you didn't see as much what was happening in the small towns like Pine Bluff.

Right.

And I would imagine that he probably had death threats, and I'm sure that he was worried about his family.

He was very worried.

The value on these is hard to determine.

I would say, easily, these letters, at a retail store, $2,000, $3,000.

Really?

That's very surprising to me.

Very surprising, I had no idea.

MAN: It was a painting done by my great-great-aunt when she was visiting Tunisia.

In her 30s, she decided to become a painter, or she went to art school in Chicago and then traveled abroad to Europe and North Africa.

So this painting has been in your family for a while, then?

Yes.

Okay.

And, let's talk about your great-great-aunt.

Yeah.

And here is a picture of her right here.

Her name was Grace Ravlin, and she is actually a very well-known artist.

She was born in the 1870s, and she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later with William Merritt Chase.

And then she left for Europe, which a lot of female artists were doing right around 1906.

Yeah.

And she left specifically for France, but she was traveling all over Europe, and from 1906 through about 1921 she was painting there, but she was also traveling a lot.

What's interesting about her, specifically, compared with a lot of the other female artists who were going to Europe, a lot of them went there to study a little bit, and then came back.

But your great-great-aunt, she was an intrepid person.

She was traveling all over.

She was going to places like Tangiers, Morocco, Egypt, by herself, as well, which, we can imagine, at that time, was not exactly the most common thing to do.

Right.

Right around the time of the war, she went to Europe to be a nurse.

She was traveling back and forth, but in 1918, she did go-- she was working for the American Red Cross, and then she went over to Tunisia again around 1919.

Yeah.

Now, this painting, lower left, is dated 1920.

It probably was made in Gabes in Tunisia, which is a town on the coast.

This is an oil painting on canvas, and it appears to have been laid down on board, which was a typical thing that was done.

She was an accomplished artist, with training from a lot of important artists, as well, so it shows this atmospheric quality to it.

This wonderful composition, this bringing down to color forms, this progressiveness in her painting, it wasn't just representational, it was progressive.

She was winning a lot of awards, so she was a known quantity.

She had gone to Europe, but she would also go to the Southwest.

Now, today, she's very well-celebrated in the United States for her Southwest paintings.

But these paintings of Tunisia and Orientalist paintings are also in high demand, specifically because Orientalism is in high demand.

And Orientalism is the paintings of Arab scenes, Bedouin scenes, things that were exotic, and she described herself as an ethnographic painter.

If I was going to put this painting at auction, a conservative auction estimate would $15,000 to $20,000.

Oh, cool.

That's wonderful news.

My father-in-law, he, after World War II, brought these back.

He was on a supply ship in the Navy.

We're not sure which port they came from.

These came from the Philippines.

The Philippines.

Yes.

I would never-- They were carved in the Philippines, right around 1940 to 1950.

APPRAISER: This particular lamp has a paper sticker from Phoenix Lamp Company, first one I've ever seen with a paper sticker on it.

Wonderful, wonderful lamp.

APPRAISER: Somewhere along the line, she went to a doll hospital, and someone put a new wig on her, and they reset her eyes.

These are called dolly face dolls.

They were made for the American department store, so they're fairly easy to find, even today.

And her retail value would be between $125 and $195.

Well, that's fantastic.

Isn't that great?

That is great, thank you.

WOMAN: I have been told that it is a canteen from the Spanish-American War.

It belonged to my grandfather's uncle.

He joined up as a volunteer when he was 18 years old, and, unfortunately, immediately got sick and died of typhoid.

And he was in Florida when he died of typhoid fever?

Right.

This is a great souvenir from the Spanish-American War from Cuba, and it was carved by a sergeant, Wilbur Satterfield, who was a sergeant in this Illinois unit.

Okay.

So, you suspect that this was given to your family-- We thought maybe it was given in memory or in honor of him to the family.

Let's just flip it around to look at the great decorations, here.

American eagle on the side with the American and Cuban flag, and then, uh, crossed arms here, a wall tent.

I love the bugle and the tune, and the Spanish-American War sergeants sleeping there.

But really the story here is about the Spanish-American War.

The Spanish-American War lasted less than a year.

Oh, okay.

More people died of disease than were killed in combat.

This is, believe it or not, the first bamboo canteen that I've ever seen from the Spanish-American War, and I would think, at auction, it's probably worth somewhere between $1,500 and $2,500.

Wow.

We were thinking a couple hundred dollars, so... That's amazing.

I've got a Civil War sword of my great-great-grandfather's and a picture of him in his uniform.

And who was your great-great-grandfather?

General Stephen McGroarty.

And what did he do during the course of the Civil War?

Well, he was from Cincinnati.

Okay.

And he was in, I think, 61st Regiment, and he fought in many battles.

Okay.

He was injured many times.

Yeah, we were looking at some of his history.

We noticed that he had been wounded multiple times.

He started, I believe, in the 10th Ohio.

Okay.

Was wounded so much he was sort of mustered out of service, and he came back, eventually as the colonel of the 61st.

Well, what you have here is a beautiful presentation sword that was presented to him in honor of his service by his men.

It's made by Clauberg of Solingen, Germany.

It was probably purchased from a high-end retailer like Schuyler, Hartley and Graham in New York, or maybe even from Tiffany.

As you can see, it's engraved with presentation information on it, the scabbard and the hilt are enhanced with faux rubies.

It's really probably the highest-grade sword that Clauberg ever made.

I would assume the sword was made between 1862 and 1864-- obviously, there's some time lag, particularly on an import sword between it being made and brought over here.

And it's entirely possible that all of the extra decoration was just done by the retailer.

If we look here, we see a listing of battle engagements he was in, including one of those magic names, Gettysburg, here at the bottom.

Yes, I saw that.

But, that's not all the battles he was in.

If we look at this side of the sword, we see more information about what he did, where he was, the people that presented the sword to him.

It's an entire listing of his record in service during the American Civil War.

Yes.

We know it's a Clauberg sword, because we've got the Clauberg maker's mark, here on the ricasso.

And like most presentation-grade swords, it has an etched blade with floral patterns and a panoply of arms.

But probably the nicest feature of the sword is this beautiful Lady Liberty statue hilt.

Absolutely gorgeous.

The hilt still retains some of the original gold gilt.

Instead of a plain quillon on the top, you've got this dragon's head, and it's just a beautiful example of an incredibly high-grade sword.

Great.

Ordinarily, a sword like this, which has a little bit of condition issue in terms of the blade, it's not bright and shiny, is going to have a value of $5,000 to $7,000, maybe a little bit more.

Mm-hmm.

This sword has great history, has a wonderful hilt on it, is the highest-grade sword, essentially, that Clauberg made, and I think realistically, at auction, with all the history and with those magic words, "He was at Gettysburg," Yes.

you've got a sword that's going to bring somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000.

Great.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful piece, and it's fabulous that it stayed in the family.

Yes.

WOMAN: This is a picture of a beautiful lady that has been in my family for decades.

It was my mother's picture.

I don't know who the character is.

I would like to know who it is.

Well, the painter is Charles Bosseron Chambers.

He was born here in St. Louis in the 1880s, and then went to St. Louis University before moving to New York City in 1916.

And he joined the Society of Illustrators.

In the hierarchy of portraiture, of American portraiture, the most sought-after works are portraits of beautiful women in lovely gowns, made up.

This is probably from the 1920s, we can see from her flapper dress and her hair.

The artist is very interesting.

The bulk of his output was religious works, but he was also a society portraitist, and he also painted a lot of portraits of the Vanderbilt family.

We can't necessarily know who the sitter is.

Okay.

Because we don't have it marked on the back of the painting.

It is an oil painting on canvas.

When he was painting in this style, he was living in New York, so it's very likely that she's a New York socialite.

She's probably dressed to go to a party, or she's meant to be appearing as though she's going to a party.

And there's this beautiful decorative patterning also in the background.

If this painting came up for sale in today's market, it would probably have an estimate of about $5,000 to $7,500.

Oh, okay.

Now, if we were able to determine that it was one of the Vanderbilts, or some other named society individual, then the value might be much higher than that.

Yeah.

MAN: I brought you my Rolex watch, which was given to me as a gift from my uncle back in 1975.

He purchased it at Tiffany's in New York.

He was a physician who had relocated to the Netherlands from New York, probably in the mid-'60s.

And right before I was going to go to college, he noticed that I wasn't wearing a watch on my wrist, so he literally took it off of his wrist, gave it to me, and that's how I acquired it.

Do you know why he picked this model watch?

I don't.

Unfortunately, he passed away a few years back, but he was always one of those people who always like the newest things.

And when he gave it to you, did you know about Rolex?

Had you heard of Rolex?

I had no idea.

I found out later, I was on a plane one time and I sat next to a jeweler, and he asked me how I liked my GMT Master, and I had no clue what he was talking about until he goes, "Oh, your Rolex."

Did you wear it often once you got the watch?

I've never taken it off.

I've worn it almost every day.

Oh, long time.

Yeah.

Over 40... about 40 years, you've been wearing it.

Absolutely.

Wow-- you told me you tried to get it serviced at a Rolex dealer?

Yes, I did.

What did they tell you?

About 18 months to two years ago, I took it in to get it serviced at a Rolex dealer.

The person at the jewelry store told me that if I did send it in to Rolex to be serviced, they would remove the face, put a new face on the watch, and then keep the old face.

And I didn't want to do that, so I took it to a different watch repair shop.

When Rolex generally restores a watch, they like to put new parts on them.

They don't like their old parts around because people use the parts to make counterfeit watches with them, or they can take a real dial and put it on a fake watch.

So they don't want those parts floating around.

In this case, I'm glad that you didn't change the parts on the watch.

What caused you to think that?

Because most people would want the watch refurbished and all shiny and new.

It was especially interesting to me that the watch was purchased at Tiffany's in New York, and I thought that was a really wonderful feature about the watch.

And I knew that if they replaced it, it wouldn't have that, and I thought that was especially unique.

Your watch is a GMT Master, as you've mentioned.

It's one of the earlier versions.

I looked up the serial number of the watch, it was made around 1963, 1964.

I would say the original retail price was somewhere around $275 to $350.

It has an unusual dial on it.

It's an earlier model dial, we call it gilt dial.

It's got a few features on it that are really very interesting.

One of them is at the very bottom of the writing, there's a little line, it's underline.

Collectors refer to this as an underline dial.

Also, it's very unusual that you have the Tiffany name on the dial.

It's a co-branded watch-- you have the Rolex name, and you have the Tiffany name.

Tiffany no longer sells Rolex watches.

They used to sell Rolex watches, but one day Rolex decided that they didn't want to print the Tiffany name on the dials anymore.

Tiffany took the stance that "We're a brand name, "and we don't want to sell anything that doesn't have our name on it."

So they took the corporate decision not to sell Rolex anymore if they could not have their name on the watch.

The fact that it has the Tiffany name on the dial adds to the collectability of the watch.

What do you think the value of the watch is?

I have no idea.

I've taken it in to various Rolex stores, from time to time, and I've heard everything from, when I first had it serviced in the early '80s, $1,200, to people telling me well over $10,000.

Well, your particular watch, if you had it serviced by Rolex and had them replace the bezel insert here, which is all faded out, and replace the dial, polish it up and make it beautiful, your watch, today, would probably bring around $10,000 to $12,000.

If you had it serviced.

Wow.

I'm very happy that you did not have it serviced that way.

Collectors like things totally original.

They want the original dial, even with the oxidation on it, even the faded bezel is very collectible.

Today, in the retail market, your watch is worth $50,000.

Oh, good grief.

That's, uh... that is absolutely stunning to me.

I mean, I think the highest I ever heard was $30,000, which I thought was crazy and outrageous, but the fact that it's worth $50,000 is startling to me.

If the dial had no oxidation on it, and it was really a mint dial, this is a $100,000 watch in today's market.

WALBERG: You're watching "Antiques Roadshow" from St. Louis.

WALBERG: And now, it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

We brought our gauntlet that we bought 30 years ago in England.

It is from 1540.

It is authentic.

And it's worth about $1,600.

And I told my grandson that if we got on TV, I would do the dab.

(chuckling) It was made from sheep, it took 300 hours to... Yeah, it took a long time to make.

300 hours to make, and I would have not spent my time on that.

I would've done a lot of other things.

And, you know, the thing is, is that I thought it was a placemat, and come to find out, it's a rug, so, we've learned a lot today.

These are German beer steins from the 1700s, and I thought they were reproductions.

They hold quite a bit of beer, and I may go to the bar and fill them up.

We actually got more compliments on the carrying case that my dad built than on the actual painting.

I had my ring appraised, which I was surprised-- over $5,000 in the diamond just alone, which was amazing.

I got this paperweight from Lauren's grandmother, probably about 20 years ago.

She was 94 years old when she died, and it's a paperweight from the Baltimore Orioles in 1895.

So, thank you, Grandma.

I thought it was a dud.

(makes whooshing sound) $10,000.

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."