Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

It's been in the family. It belonged to my stepdad's grandmother. And all I know about it is that it came on the boat from Italy.

APPRAISER

What boat?

GUEST

( laughs ) Don't know that.

APPRAISER

They didn't tell you that one, right? Well, that's an interesting concept because the punch bowl is definitely an American punch bowl.

GUEST

Oh, for heaven's sakes!

APPRAISER

And, yeah, so the stories that sometimes come down through the family are not always absolutely accurate. I think we'll take a look at this and I'll see if I can show you why this punch bowl is American. It is signed. In the bottom, there is an "N" underlined right in the center here. And then there's also a repeat of the same mark which might be a little clearer for people to see. And the "N" stands for Northwood; which is a company that was in West Virginia. Northwood established this company after he had worked with a number of different companies here in America. This punch bowl is done in the grape-and-cable pattern. You can see that there are grapes-- bunches of grapes-- on it, with grape leaves. And then this little rope band across here is the cable. It's a very decorative piece and very interesting that it has this kind of iridescence in the same way that a lot of American companies were making iridescent glass at the same period of time. This dates to about 1910, thereabouts. Northwood was trying to make a more reasonably priced glass and this is what is called carnival glass...

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

Sometimes called poor man's Tiffany.

GUEST

Uh-huh. And the carnival glass name came from the fact that glass of this type was frequently given away at carnivals and fairs as a promotional thing. We're talking about a piece here that is common in some ways. It's common because of the design-- that is to say grape-and-cable is not a great rarity. Common in terms of its color. This is called marigold. And it's not the most rare of the group of carnival glass colors. If it were purple or green or even ice blue it would be more valuable. Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER

As it is its value is about $1,500, okay?

GUEST

Wonderful.