Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

My father-in-law passed away in '08, and this was in some of his stuff. It's in our possession now.

APPRAISER

As I leaf through it a little bit, there's a lot of newspaper articles, there's some poems, there's a lot of things that don't look like they're too valuable. But glued to the inside cover is this wonderful Plains pictograph drawing. They call these ledger drawings, and this one has a history, and I think whoever owned this book, it looks like her handwriting that did the poem and that wrote this underneath. And underneath this ledger drawing is written, "Drawn by Bad Eye, chief of the Cheyenne, confined at Fort Marian at St. Augustine, Florida, 1878."

GUEST

Yes.

APPRAISER

Now, the Southern Plains Indians-- the Cheyenne, the Comanche and the Kiowa-- surrendered in 1875. Some who committed depredations, so-called depredations on the Plains, were sent to Fort Marian-- they were sent to prison. While there, they did pictograph drawings in ledger books. There was actually a Bad Eye listed as a Kiowa who had drawn a ledger book. This is a wonderful pictograph of them at the height of their glory with all their accoutrements from the Plains days. And you can see the horses are decked out in German silver bridles, the saddle blankets look like they're saltillo serapes from Mexico. There's three name glyphs up here. This looks like a wolf, this looks like it could be a mule, and this looks like a buffalo up here, and I'm sure they refer to the warriors below. It's just a wonderful example of Plains Indian art in the 1870s, after the free-roaming buffalo days were over. Do you have any idea what it's valued at?

GUEST

No, sir, I sure don't.

APPRAISER

What did you pay for it?

GUEST

My father-in-law, we got a receipt. He paid $100.

APPRAISER

He paid $100 for it. Do you know when your father purchased this book?

GUEST

7/7/94.

APPRAISER

We'd have to do a lot more homework on this to see if there was anything of value. At auction, this Plains pictograph drawing would sell for about $8,000 to $12,000.

GUEST

(gasps) Oh... oh, goodness. That's good.

APPRAISER

That's good.

GUEST

That is good.

APPRAISER

It's a beautiful work of art.