Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

It's a kachina doll. It was my father's. He taught school in southern Idaho during the '20s, when they relocated tribal people from different places. They sent children all over the United States, and this young man became a friend of my father's, and, and when he left school, he gave my dad the doll, so...

APPRAISER

Do you know where it came from?

GUEST

From hearing what my dad talked about and what he said, you know, that it was from Southwest America somewhere.

APPRAISER

It's from northern Arizona.

GUEST

Northern Arizona?

APPRAISER

It is a kachina doll, but there's some different things about this one that makes it a little bit special. It's not like most kachina dolls. We actually know who made this doll.

GUEST

Oh, really?

APPRAISER

Yeah. It was made by a guy named Wilson Tawaquaptewa.

GUEST

Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER

And he was the Hopi chief at Oraibi, but there's two Oraibi villages, and I'm not sure which one it was.

GUEST

See, that name sounds familiar.

APPRAISER

Yeah, but... Because he was the chief, he wasn't going to do something traditional and sell it, and so he made these kachinas that are like no other kachinas.

GUEST

Really?

APPRAISER

You go through the books and you're not going to find one of these, because they most often represent a badger, or they have characteristics of a mouse or some animal in his world out there that's not a traditional kachina, and this is one of them. The way that we spotted it is, he liked to use this indigo color, and... It's this really faded blue here.

GUEST

I never noticed it.

APPRAISER

Yeah, we almost didn't, too. (laughs) Tawaquaptewa worked from about 1930 into the early 1960s. If it wasn't one of his and it was a kachina that looked like it was from the '30s, like this one, that's worth some pretty good money-- $2,500...

GUEST

Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER

...to $3,500. But because it's a Wilson Tawaquaptewa, there's a group of collectors now who recognize his work, who buy his work. On a bad day, this is worth $7,500 to $8,500. Uh...

GUEST

(chuckles)

APPRAISER

If it's a good day and the right collector's in the room, $9,000.

GUEST

My goodness.

APPRAISER

So it's something real special that you ended up with.

GUEST

Oh, no kidding, and to know that you can recognize the maker, you know...

APPRAISER

Yeah.

GUEST

That is, that is amazing. That surprises me, surprises me a great deal.

APPRAISER

Great.

GUEST

Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, it does.