Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

Well my wife, Robin, and I purchased a house about five years ago and the people who lived in the house had been there about fifty years, and this lamp was in the office off of the master bedroom, and the family was nice enough to leave it for me because I had expressed that I liked it, and they just left it as part of the purchase of the house.

APPRAISER

Your lamp is an original Tiffany double student lamp and it was probably made in the late 1890s. It's one of the earlier Tiffany lamps because of this beautiful wire coiling that you see here and these lovely little dots and this very fine filigree work. This typifies Tiffany's work in the late 1890s. He really enjoyed working with this Moorish aesthetic, and he even decorated his own home in this style. This piece, actually, the base is not signed. A lot of the bases during this period weren't signed. It was early on in his lamp career. However, he did sign the shades, and if you look inside here it says, "LCT," and that stands for Louis Comfort Tiffany. Do you have any idea what this lamp might be worth?

GUEST

I've got no idea. I had one fellow tell me it could be worth about $2,000.

APPRAISER

Okay, this shade has a crack in the back of it and because of that, it does bring the value down of the lamp. It would be worth probably around $20,000.

GUEST

Golly!

APPRAISER

But, I still have good news. With the crack in the shade and because they match well, and you can hide the crack by putting it next to the wall, I would say that the lamp is still worth about between $12,000 and $15,000.

GUEST

Wow. Gee-Whiz. That's incredible.

APPRAISER

That's okay. You got a very good buy on your house I would say.

GUEST

Oh, yes.