Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

These were my grandfather's. In the early part of last century he did a lot of traveling in Eastern Europe and in Asia, and I think he collect... had a whole collection of snuff bottles. And what I understood from my grandmother is he kind of bartered for them, so he had about 30 of them in a little case that was over the fireplace in their house.

APPRAISER

Well, he had good taste. The one over near you is lapis lazuli. And it's 19th century and probably about 1850, 1860.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

Nicely carved with birds and flowers. And a good piece of lapis lazuli, very, very well-hollowed. The value on that bottle is around $400.

GUEST

Uh-huh.

APPRAISER

Good quality, nice work, but $400 on that one. This other bottle is another story completely. This other bottle was made by the Imperial workshops.

GUEST

Oh.

APPRAISER

For the empress.

GUEST

Oh, wow.

APPRAISER

And one of the reasons why you can tell that is this bottle is also equally very well-hollowed out, and that's an enormous waste of what was a very, very precious material in order to hollow that bottle out.

GUEST

Oh, I see, yeah.

APPRAISER

Because this bottle is very, very thin. And it's also beautifully carved on the side with a Foo Dog mask and foliation that's typical of that Imperial workshop. The top is a tourmaline, the little white piece is a piece of Peking glass, and then there's another jadeite piece that's there on the top. But that is great, great color. Really like an emerald green color jade and uniform, not much mottling or anything like that. This jade bottle was probably made between about 1780 and 1820. What would you think that bottle is worth?

GUEST

So I... I thought they're all worth a couple hundred dollars, that's...

APPRAISER

This bottle's worth between $50,000 to $60,000.

GUEST

(laughing) Oh, my God! Oh, my God.

APPRAISER

And $50,000 to $60,000, that would be an auction estimate and it could even go higher than that because these things are very desirable.

GUEST

Wow. Wow.

APPRAISER

Everybody wants a bottle like that in their collection. (laughs) So I think you picked the right bottle.

GUEST

I did, I'm speechless. I had... I had no idea.