Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

About 15 or 18 years ago, I did some horse trading, and traded a wrought iron coffee table for it.

APPRAISER

You traded the table and you got a lamp. Well, it's a very distinctive form by a maker named Dirk van Erp. The first thing we need to do is look at the mark, so we'll just take off the shade... And turn it over here, and it's got his classic windmill mark with the name "Dirk van Erp" underneath.

GUEST

Yes.

APPRAISER

So it's well marked. Not only is it an authentic Dirk van Erp lamp, but it's a very rare example. Now, each one is hand-made so each one is unique, but of this form, there's only six known, so that makes it quite special. And another special thing is that this was originally made for oil. So it's an early example, right around the time when people were converting to electricity, probably around 1910. And he developed this very distinctive form of hand-hammered copper, combined with mica. And it's got a nice patina. At some point, this was converted to electricity. So it's a very rare thing, but with the alterations, converting to electricity and then back to oil with not an original font, those things work against it. The rarity of the oil font also gives us this rare shade because it's open on the top, where the electric lamps weren't open on the top. Because of the alterations, probably worth around $50,000 to $75,000. If it hadn't been altered and it was totally original, probably $150,000 to $200,000.

GUEST

Good news!

APPRAISER

So it's a great thing, thank you for bringing it.

GUEST

Thank you very much.