Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

Well, the one on the left I actually got from a collector for about $200 at the time at a trade show. He was blowing them out, and I bought that because I like the look of it. And the second one actually has a very interesting story. I was at an antique shop and this was sitting on the shelf, and they were charging $125 for it, but it had a crack, a couple small cracks in it, and I offered them $100 and they took it, so...

APPRAISER

Great!

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

These are two classic ukes. This one is Leonardo Nunes.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

His father is attributed as being the father of the ukulele, the inventor of the ukulele, that's what he called himself, and Leonardo was his son, so of course his ukes aren't quite as valuable, but it's a classic handmade Hawaiian uke, flamed koa wood, very nice. The other one is called the pineapple uke. Of course, you can see the pineapple on the front, but the shape is like the pineapple. This was made by Kamaka. This would have been made in the late 1920s.

GUEST

Oh, okay!

APPRAISER

So both of these instruments probably date from the late '20s.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

It's a little hard to be exact on this. The tuners have been replaced on this, and like you say, it's had some cracks. But it has a beautiful rope binding on it, on the neck and the body. Do you have any idea what the values of these are today?

GUEST

I don't know. I'm guessing maybe $1,000 for the...?

APPRAIER

Right, well, they're close. The uke with the pineapple, that's... On a retail level today, because of its condition, would be around $1,200.

GUEST

Oh, okay!

APPRAISER

And the Nunes, probably around $1,000.

GUEST

Oh, good, so I did well, then.

APPRAISER

You did very well.

GUEST

Okay, great!