Antiques Roadshow

MARK WALBERG: Antiques Roadshow found a ton of treasures in the rock and roll capital of the world: Cleveland, Ohio.

WOMAN: I haven't only worn it except one time because it's a very fancy necklace.

(chuckling): Whoo!

That's crazy.

WALBERG: At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Antiques Roadshow was blown away by so many incredible pop culture treasures.

These glamorous items radiate the energy and passion of popular music to thousands of fans every year.

Check out this 1965 Gibson guitar, played by blues legend John Lee Hooker.

Hooker inspired bands like the Rolling Stones, who were inducted in 1989, two years before Hooker's induction.

Back at the Roadshow, this old treasure was still showing people a rocking good time.

MAN: Well, we were living in Fairport Harbor, which is along the lake, outside Cleveland.

And we went to a garage sale one day, and I was kind of looking through some old books, and my wife was kind of standing like this, looking in the garage, and she kind of motioned for me to come over, and there was Big Bronco.

We asked how much it was, and they said $100, and my wife, without missing a beat, said, "Would you take $75?"

And the person said yes, and I thought, "Ooh, we should have said $50."

We had to figure out how to get it home, so we borrowed a neighbor's truck, and I got on one end and she got on the other, and we tried to lift it, and this thing was going nowhere.

So we ended up pushing it through the streets of Fairport on a dolly to get it to our house, and then we had to have, like, five guys come over to help lift it into our... we had, like, an entranceway, and we had it there.

And it works.

I mean, our kids rode it through the years, and still, adults have been on it, and we've had it in our basement ever since.

We did find out that it came from Joe's Funhouse in Geneva-on-the-Lake, which is a kind of a turn of the century resort.

That's where the guy said it came from, and it was in a funhouse there that they had, like, arcade games and things.

How many years ago was it that you bought the horse?

We purchased the horse in the early, like, 1990s.

It was like 1992.

We did absolutely nothing to it.

I mean, this is the way it came on the dolly, and it's been that way in our basement.

We haven't really touched it at all, aside from play with it and ride it.

Well, when we find commercial objects, oftentimes they've been heavily worn, or been restored, or been damaged beyond repair.

And what makes this exceptional in my opinion is the great surface that it has-- that it really possesses this honest wear.

Both on your side and my side, you can see that there's a tag that identifies the manufacturer of it, which was Exhibit Supply Company from Chicago, Illinois.

This one's also identified as model number one.

When we look at the paint here, just the original surface with the denomination in which it took, and we come up to the top and we look at the original leather saddle, the wear that occurred and how the paint came off, all these high points where kids' hands would go-- honest wear.

Well, we have five kids, and they all have ridden it.

I mean, the oldest is in college and the youngest is in second grade.

Yeah.

So how it would work would be you drop a coin in the slot, and you could pull the reins.

It would be in a gallop.

And then if you pulled the reins, which is not actually working right now, it would turn into a trot.

Oh, I didn't know that, okay.

So give you two speeds.

Interesting.

I think in this surface, the way it sits, at auction, we'd put an estimate of it of $1,500 to $2,500.

Excellent.

Good, shall we see it play?

Sure.

All right.

We drop the coin in here, which triggers it.

And there goes Big Bronco.

MAN: I have some artwork by Bill Watterson, who illustrated Calvin and Hobbes, and his high school yearbook.

The 1976 Zenith yearbook from Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

Correct!

Now where did you get these wonderful things from?

Well, I taught at Chagrin Falls High School from 1991 to 2015.

I acquired them from a teacher who commissioned him to illustrate a story about how to play baseball.

So was the teacher an English teacher or an art teacher?

He was an English teacher, he was also the baseball coach.

And he asked Bill to illustrate and explain the mysteries of playing baseball.

Now, did the teacher have any stories to tell you about Bill Watterson?

Not really so much stories about Bill.

I know that Bill did a lot of caricatures of the teachers in the school, and he enjoyed drawing them in kind of a funny way, so... Well, apparently he got away with it quite well.

I mean, he's made quite a career.

When did Bill Watterson actually draw these?

I'm not exactly sure.

I think he might have been a junior or a senior in high school.

They're pretty mature drawings.

Bill Watterson, best known for Calvin and Hobbes.

He wrote it from 1985 to 1995.

And he's a very private person, doesn't give a lot of interviews.

Very little of Bill Watterson's art has come into the public market.

When it does come up for sale, it sells for extraordinarily high amounts-- $100,000-plus for one of his full-colored paintings.

And having these great pieces from very early in Bill Watterson's career... You've got the 1976 Zenith, his high school yearbook, and you can see down here it's got his signature, "Bill Watterson," and it's got these great character sketches.

Little character up here that I'm sure is of one of the teachers.

And you can see in the drawings hints of Spaceman Spiff, or Calvin, or his parents.

Being such a private person, there are very few pictures of him on the internet.

So what we're going to do is turn this around and look at...

I love this.

"William Watterson II," and it has all these little things about him-- "Bill," "Handbook," "What a joke."

And at the very end, "A little subtle humor."

"Cartoons" is the last thing.

I mean, it's just so astonishing.

And actually, that's a great photograph.

Yeah, it's better than mine.

Far better than mine was.

And wonderful little pencil drawing with the corrections on it.

This is just fantastic, fantastic art, and there's so little of it out there.

And you can see even then, he had a tremendous talent.

Do you have any idea what this might be worth?

I have no idea.

I'm not interested really, other than maybe insurance reasons, but I would never sell them.

For insurance purposes, we'd estimate that each of these drawings would be between $2,000 and $5,000 for insurance.

(chuckling): Oh, my God, wow.

That's crazy.

Wow.

The yearbook... Yeah.

Which this yearbook is astonishing.

This is probably the rarest Bill Watterson-illustrated book out there, period.

Really?

Well, how many other copies are probably extant?

I don't know.

You have a couple hundred for the kids at school, and that's about it.

And it as such an early, wonderful piece, our estimate for this one is between $3,000 to $5,000.

Wow!

I had no idea.

That's crazy.

So for insurance value, you're probably looking at $7,000 to $15,000.

(chuckles) That's crazy.

I had no idea.

Wow.

MAN: Oh!

It's naughty.

WOMAN: No, it's a nice bronze sculpture.

(laughter) Well, they were rose bowls to float a rose and float a flower, and they're actually vases.

This is English.

WOMAN: Well, they're related somewhere to royalty, my family was, way back.

Well, that's good.

I don't think the bowl is royal.

WOMAN: No, but there is, you know... APPRAISER: Great, late 19th century baseball player doorstop.

If I saw this come up in a good sports-themed memorabilia sale, I could say an estimate of around about $400 to $600.

That's great, thank you.

Thanks for coming in.

WOMAN: I brought in a Tiffany cigarette holder.

I had it home for my drawer for 50 years.

In Ridgewood, New Jersey, they used to do auctions every week.

I had bought some things at the auction, and at the last minute, they had boxed lots, and I wanted a piece of pewter.

So we waited till the end of the auction and I bought the box with the piece of pewter in it for five dollars.

And this was at the bottom of the box.

It's a cigarette holder.

You know that it's signed "Tiffany and Company" right on the edge.

Yes, and it's on the box, too.

Right, it's in the original fitted box, which is always nice to have.

You have this part that's made out of gold, 18-karat, and then it's engine turned, and then on top of the engine turning, they put this translucent enamel.

And that's guilloch enamel.

Usually, you see it on a box, which is flat.

It's from about 1915 to 1917.

Really?

When this was made.

It's most likely made in France.

And today, if we were selling it at auction, it would be $1,000 to $1,500.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, so there's still a lot of interest in them.

Holy cow.

Oh my, I...

I don't even know what to say.

I mean, I thought $100 maybe.

WOMAN: It belonged to my grandmother.

I never saw her play it.

She passed away in 1984, and I inherited it.

And it's been in my attic ever since.

Now, the attic turned out to be a pretty good place to store it, right?

I guess so.

And do you know anything at all about it?

I know that it's Martin because there's a little sticker inside that says "Martin."

That's all I know.

The C.F.

Martin Company has been in Nazareth, Pennsylvania for a very long time, and they're known as the premier maker of guitars in America.

And they have styles of guitars that are virtually unchanged from many, many years.

We can appreciate the simple lines of this instrument and the beautiful way in which it was made using a spruce for the top, mahogany for the back and sides.

This is a model designated as the O-18, and it was built to be played in the Hawaiian style.

Now, do you have any recollection about your grandmother playing Hawaiian guitar?

Yes, I can see her with it on her lap, and a steel thing plucking the guitar.

So you remember this.

I remember the Hawaiian guitar, but I didn't realize it would have been this one.

Oh, so it definitely was this one.

Okay.

And this dates from 1928.

It was meant to be a very simple but elegant guitar, virtually unchanged since the 1850s-- both in the materials and the decoration, which is simple but elegant.

One example is this very subtle edging around here, and that's called the binding, and that's made of rosewood.

And the other materials used on it are ebony for the finger board, ebony for the bridge, and there's one thing that I have to point out: there is a very, very small amount of ivory in this guitar.

And it's an important thing to point out because currently, there are laws in place to protect against the illegal poaching of elephants.

The laws concerning the sale of ivory do vary a little bit from state to state.

And in order to sell the guitar, what has to be done is the ivory saddle right here be taken out and replaced with another material, a synthetic material, or perhaps bone.

The great thing that I love about this instrument is the condition.

She was either very, very careful with it or played it very seldom.

Probably played it very seldom.

Well, these have always been quite popular.

However, lately, the models with the 12 frets clear of the body have been a little bit difficult to sell.

But there are enough people in the market who would appreciate the condition of this guitar.

It's practically a time capsule.

We've even got this case that's in practically perfect condition.

In the retail context, the price range on this currently runs in the range of about $3,800 to about $4,200.

Oh, my.

So it's a pretty nice little package.

WOMAN: Well, this is a portrait.

It's my great-great- grandmother.

It was in my grandparents' house for years and passed down through the family, my dad, and now it's hanging in my home.

APPRAISER: And where did your great-great-grandmother live?

She was born in Essex, Connecticut, and that's all I know other than the year, I believe it was 1836.

Essex, Connecticut, is located on the Connecticut shoreline.

It's about halfway between New Haven and New London.

This is a primitive portrait.

It's an oil on canvas that was done by an itinerant artist.

We have not been able to identify the hand yet, so we need to do a little research.

This child is two to three years old, so we're looking at a portrait that was done about 1838.

And she's just glorious.

It's what you want in a portrait, and it's what you want in a child's portrait.

We see that she's wearing this wonderful coral necklace.

And she's just decked out.

She has two coral bracelets, and she's dangling yet another coral necklace.

Coral, gold, all expensive commodities back in the 1830s.

So they are displaying and showing that they are a wealthy family.

We love the blue dress-- it's one of the great colors when it comes to a child's portrait.

Red is exciting, blue is also exciting.

This wonderful vase of flowers.

I love the blend of going from light to a darker shade.

There is some damage that has been repaired very professionally, and I think very well done.

Well, I'm glad it was done.

Yeah, this painting has not been over-cleaned.

And you can see a slight line there.

Mm-hmm.

But the key here is nothing in the face.

The face is untouched, all original, it's wonderful.

When it comes to not identifying the artist who did it, you get to a point where you look at it and you say, "It doesn't matter."

Wow, okay.

Because it's so terrific, and that's what people are buying now.

They're buying the portrait, and the image of the girl is just extraordinary.

So what we're going to do today is put a conservative retail value on it.

Okay.

In the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000.

Oh my goodness.

And I really feel that I'm being conservative here, and that we will be able to actually identify the artist.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

Oh, wow.

So we're thrilled that you brought it today.

Well, thank you for that wonderful news.

I am, like, thrilled about this.

And I will continue to enjoy this.

It's just such a nice piece.

MAN: It's a pocket watch that I bought from the Andy Warhol sale in the late '80s.

I purchased it at an auction house in New York.

Do you remember what you paid for it?

I think approximately $1,500.

The Andy Warhol sale at the time was the big thing going on in New York, and I tried for maybe 50 or 60 different items and got three, and this was one of the items.

Besides just being a fabulous piece from an Andy Warhol estate, you also have a Jules Jurgensen from around 1921.

It's got the original papers, original box.

It would be worth a fair amount of money just as a Jules Jurgensen.

They were a fine company, they made some of the finest watches in the world back in the '20s and earlier dates.

This watch was probably given as a presentation watch.

It's in a beautiful fitted box.

It's a little more special than most, great piece of 1920s mechanical watch, fabulous design.

It has beautiful enamel, triangle kind of case.

This watch was manufactured in Geneva.

On the box, it's marked "Grand Prix Paris".

In the turn of the century, they won a lot of awards for their quality of pocket watches.

After they won the awards, they put it on their boxes as part of the presentation.

Do you have any idea what the value of this would be?

No, I wasn't sure if I paid a premium at the time for the Warhol frenzy and maybe that premium would wear off over time.

And actually, I'd wondered if it was worth less than I paid.

Well, I would say that the frenzy for the Andy Warhol stuff has kind of increased.

Andy Warhol has become iconic.

I don't think any of his items have waned.

They've actually become more valuable, people are still discovering him.

On the retail level in today's market, it has a value of around $5,000 today.

Wow!

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow, fantastic.

APPRAISER: This particular model is designed to run eight days, strike the hour on the hour, and it has that visible escapement.

They sold a lot of them as a result of that.

It's probably in the $100 to $150 price range.

MAN: I mean, I even liked the fact that he painted over somebody else's name behind there.

I'm looking at it right now to see what the show was that he's painted over.

Yeah, it's hard to tell.

APPRAISER: This sculpture was done for the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915.

I would think this one probably is in the $800 to $1,200 range.

And it's worth a lot more than most of them.

It's a nice model.

WOMAN: I purchased it at a consignment shop in Bronxville, New York about nine, maybe ten years ago.

This one was $125.

APPRAISER: And what do you think it is?

I thought that it was an Indian saddle bag, a Native American saddle bag or something like that.

This is actually from Africa.

Is it really?

It's African and it's called jocolo.

This jocolo apron is from the Ndebele tribe in South Africa.

And it's actually worn by a married woman.

It's worn on special ceremonial occasions, and it indicates status.

I think this probably dates before 1950.

The later ones tend to have a much, much bigger color field.

The ones that are earlier have more white.

I have sold these in the $400 to $600 range, but I've seen them as high as $1,200.

Okay.

It's a cool piece, thanks for bringing it in.

Thank you.

I got this from my mother.

She bought it at an auction in Philadelphia when I was a teenager.

And it was in a corner of our dining room for years.

Okay.

My mom and dad had to move out of their house, and so at that time, I chose this as something that I'd like to have at my house.

You could have picked other things.

I could have picked other things, yes.

Divide it up, mm-hmm.

Why did you pick it?

I'm just fascinated with it, and I think I like the music, and it's just an interesting piece, I just really like it.

Well, you're right.

When this rolled up on a cart, I just stopped dead in my tracks.

I just love the proportion.

Just as a piece of furniture, it's a work of art.

Yeah.

From the George III period, it's a classic Georgian British inlay.

Okay.

Proportions, design, this beautiful crossbanding.

Look at the quality of that mahogany.

And then the gilding.

Satinwood, not maple like in America, satinwood was used, that yellow.

Satinwood, okay.

But what really gets interesting of course, as you know, is when you open it up, is the inside.

Right.

And we have here "Longman and Broderip, "barrel organs, manufactured and sold wholesale and retail, at Cheapside #13 Haymarket."

Well, this company made these barrel organs, which were some of the earliest mechanical musical instruments really in history.

Oh, really?

When you play this, you're hearing exactly what they heard in about 1783, which is when this was made.

1783, okay, all right.

So you know that Longman and Broderip worked on those streets right around 1783, so it's really early.

People would have been in awe of this.

This would have been very expensive.

Oh, really?

One of the most expensive things you could buy.

So would you mind playing it?

Sure.

I'm going to pull this up while you do that.

So what's great about this is we also have a storage area, and this holds another two barrels, which come out.

And in total, there must be... it looks like there's about 30 songs... 30 songs, yeah.

...on these three barrels.

Really amazing.

What this combines is very visionary technology and engineering, along with aesthetic beauty.

As you know well, these are just faux flutes.

Faux flutes.

Made to look like they're real flutes.

This is actually brass, by the way.

Oh, is it?

You can take off that later black paint, and this is mahogany.

So that was done much later.

We all talked here, because these are very rare.

Okay.

But one did come up at another auction house in London.

Okay, okay.

Not as sophisticated as this.

All right.

And we don't know if it was even running.

This works.

This piece would be $8,000 to $12,000 as an auction estimate.

Yeah, very nice.

I'd want it in my living room.

I'd love to live with this.

I could every morning look at that.

Well, it's fun to play it for the grandkids.

WOMAN: It came from my Grammy Mackis.

Her husband and my great-grandfather had a store here in Cleveland.

The would travel all over the world buying things.

This would up in an apartment on the floor at my Grammy Mackis's.

I always thought it was really beautiful.

One day she said, "Well, why don't you take it with you?"

APPRAISER: Most of these jars were made as water containers, as water jars.

It comes from New Mexico.

When everyone at the table saw it, they quickly thought it was Acoma Pueblo, but it's not.

Acoma jars are thinner and just slightly different.

And if you reach up here, you feel there's a thickness to the rim.

And the closest Pueblo to Acoma that makes jars with a similar design, with the flowers on it, would be Laguna.

So we all agreed that it comes from Laguna Pueblo.

I think it dates to somewhere between 1900 and 1920, probably.

It's hard to get much more specific than that.

The Spanish name for these jars is olla, O-L-L-A.

But anything this shape, whether it's a jar or a basket, usually ends up with the Spanish name olla.

All the Pueblo people-- Acoma, Zia, Zuni, Laguna-- they all made these olla-shaped jars.

So it's not an unusual shape, and it's not an unusual size.

You see them slightly bigger than this, but not a lot.

The white on it, there's two ways to do that.

One way they did it, they dipped them into a mineral solution to get the color on before they fired it.

And the other way was to wipe it on with a rag.

And this is what's called a rag wipe.

As you go around here, you can see what looks like rag marks where the white was wiped on with the rag.

And then it was overpainted with a design on top of it.

The black was done with a very, very fine brush, and the brush would have been made out of animal hair tied on a stick.

It could have been horse hair, it could have even been human hair.

These are handmade from locally dug clay.

They would dig the clay, take it back, process it by hand, mix it with water to the right consistency, and these were coiled.

And if you run your hand up the side, you can feel the ribs of the coil.

And that means they rolled out a long cylinder of clay, a tube, and started making a coil from the bottom out.

And as they made it, they would smooth it.

It has a bottom very much like an Acoma pot.

It's domed up, and you can see it's got this curve up in it, it's very sharp.

And that's what you'd expect to see on an Acoma pot.

But again, the thickness is very much more what you'd expect at Laguna.

It's a very beautiful pot, slightly irregular, which is what you'd expect out of a piece from that time period.

And it was made to use.

It wasn't just made to sell to tourists by the side of the road; it was something that would have been in the tradition of that Pueblo.

If you went into a shop where this would be for sale now, an art gallery, somewhere between $3,000 and $3,500.

Wow.

And I think I'm being fairly conservative.

MAN: I got this at an online auction about 15 years ago.

I was interested in Everett Shinn's work because that's my last name.

I noticed that he had some nice pieces and went to Chicago Institute of Art, so I started looking for something I could purchase, so I found this online.

The drawing itself is of Everett Shinn's studio, which he had in Washington Square.

And I think that he gave it as a gift to a guy named Edward Caswell, who was another illustrator in the early 1900s.

Everett Shinn, from my understanding, was a magazine illustrator before they would send photographers to cover stories, they would send an illustrator who would make a drawing, and that's what would be in the magazine, along with the story instead of a photograph.

APPRAISER: Well, that's true that his early career was in illustration.

And even as a young child, his great skill at draftsmanship was evident.

He studied in Philadelphia.

As a child he was described as being theatrical, he loved the circus, he loved acrobats.

And there are various accounts of whether he was born in 1873 or 1876.

It seemed that he used to lie about his age so that he would appear younger.

So maybe that's part of his theatricality.

A little vain.

Yes.

Did you know he had four wives and numerous mistresses?

He had a lot of... he was very successful, he had a lot of money, but he kind of ran through it all.

Yes.

And he did become involved with this group known as the Ashcan School, which tried to focus on urban subject matter, gritty topics.

And they also rejected the traditional academic forums of painting.

Shinn went off to Europe and was exposed to various artists in France and Great Britain, and was less interested in the gritty subject matter.

So some of the other members of the eight thought he was sort of an accidental member of this group.

Right.

Washington Square is in New York, downtown, and you have a very wonderful photographic document, which I'm going to show right here.

Since the work isn't dated, it's great to see that the date on this photograph is 1948, '49, which gives a sense of when the artist would have done this work.

As you can see here, there are not nearly so many works on the wall, but this particular picture is in the same position, as are some of these books in the bookcase.

When you look at Shinn's market, the kinds of things that do the best are circus subjects, vaudeville subjects.

And also works that are dated in the first two decades of the 20th century.

So this is a bit of an anomaly because it's not either of those subjects, and it's a much later date, but it still has a certain appeal.

How much did you pay for this?

About $900, that was about 15 years ago.

I think if this were offered today in a retail gallery, you might expect it to sell for something in the neighborhood of $18,000.

So I think you've got a wonderful item for a great price, and it's just a terrific document for us all to appreciate now, years later.

That's very good.

WOMAN: That's a good one.

(chuckles) As a dress without anything about Naomi Judd, it's worth about $40.

With her signature, I think we're going to bring it up to about $750.

Okay.

I love the unusual base on this.

It has a great mid-century flavor, which is particularly appealing to people these days.

WOMAN: I brought this glass dome, and it has an anchor in it.

It's from my nana and my grandpa, and then it was my mother's, and now it's mine.

I was told it was made of fish scales, but I don't know if that's right or not, so that's why I brought it.

Well, what you've brought us today I think is a truly amazing and very fun example of this Victorian trend of creating these elaborate curiosities.

You're correct, it is fish scale.

Is it?

Okay.

And some of them are so delicately carved, and you can see through them, but then they've carved these veins of leaves in them, it's so finely done.

It's just amazing workmanship.

They took a real anchor, and crushed fish scale, and applied it to it.

Because there's one place I can see through to the metal of the anchor.

Oh.

And that's why it's so heavy.

And it's in this great Victorian glass dust dome, and the pearls are synthetic.

At auction, I would expect this to have an estimate of around $1,500 to $2,000.

Wow.

And my advice to you would be to insure it for $3,000.

Okay.

Well, I've wondered for so long, so now I know for sure.

I purchased them at a garage sale about four years ago.

Right here in Cleveland?

Yes.

Mind telling me what you paid for them?

$100 for this one and $80 for this one because it was missing the lights and the bumper.

The only thing that I could find out about them is that they were made in Cleveland about 1927.

I don't know if they were made for resale or whatever, but that's about all I know about them.

You said they were made in 1927, and that's exactly...

It was a guess, yes.

That's what my research also showed.

One of the things I like about the Roadshow, and I've been on it for now 20 years is there's not a show that I don't attend, not a city I don't attend where I don't see a half a dozen things I've never seen.

And right here are two pressed steel toys I've never seen before.

I have no history except what we find out here that it is made in Cleveland, and called the Viking Construction Company truck.

This was made by the same maker, the exact same cab styles.

Every pressed steel company had a distinctive cab style.

We know it's Cleveland, we know it's pressed steel, I know a little bit of history of the pressed steel market.

The first ones were Buddy L, made in Illinois, and then there were ones made in Boston under the name of Keystone.

But this brand, Hoenes Engineering, I found two examples of this truck, the only two that I've ever heard of and ever saw.

Wow.

And the pressed steel market is not what it used to be.

It isn't what it was 15 years ago.

The other thing you have to keep in mind is condition.

So you're going to compare this condition to the other two examples that I know have sold.

I think at auction based on that analysis, this could easily bring $6,000 to $8,000.

Okay.

Now you said talking to the person who you got these from that they thought that this might have never been actually produced.

Yes.

That this was a prototype.

It's a unique piece.

Because it was never produced, it does make it a little less valuable than a production piece.

This is a body style we haven't seen.

Yeah.

And it is a trailer.

Which is better than a dump truck.

Yes.

But it's repainted.

But it's not missing the headlights.

Or the bumper.

It's not missing the bumper.

All these things factor in.

So I think, again, $6,000 to $8,000, so I think $12,000 to $16,000 for the pair.

I say you did pretty well.

Thank you.

MAN: I went to a rummage sale and there was a box of stuff.

I bought it for two dollars, and it's been in a closet in a briefcase for 15 years.

Tell us a little about what it is, what you know about it.

Well, Susan Carhart was a teacher during the Civil War to teach the black students after we took over the plantations.

They had set up schools and she was one of the teachers there.

She drew pictures of her pupils, and that's one of her attendance reports, and she wrote a couple things in there that's pretty important.

Her husband was a colonel I believe, and he was in Baton Rouge, and he sent for her because she was a teacher to come down there to teach at one of the schools down there.

Well, first of all, what was happening to some degree was the North had already come in, they had pretty well secured Baton Rouge by that point.

So they were trying to set up schools, do some education.

She went down, but it was still, although they had secured it, it was still a war zone.

And that's what this letter gets into.

And give a little bit of that background.

Well, somewhere in there she writes that they sit with their bayonets on, and the candles out, afraid the rebels are going to attack.

And in another little verse she has in there, that the rebels attacked the night before and robbed some of the Union soldiers.

These were young children, they had no opportunity for education whatsoever under the plantation slave system.

I mean they were slaves relatively recently.

And she actually makes a few comments about a few of the students.

She was saying that there's a handsome, pleasant little boy, aged about seven, intelligent, but not too forward.

And on others, she makes some comment, intelligent, but maybe not as good a student.

Some she said "very personable."

Whoever put this together called them "contraband scholars, 1864."

And the woman's name was Susan Tallman.

Carhart Tallman.

And she drew these pictures.

They're really unusual.

I've seen and heard of pictures that Union soldiers drew, adults, but I have gone around just this morning and talked to the people in folk art, the people in military, the other people in books.

And nobody has seen little sketches and drawings like this.

Also you have the attendance report.

Now, the attendance report itself was something that's fairly rare because they didn't do up many of these, it was in the South during the war, done by the Union.

But paper was very scarce.

Yeah.

So they would overwrite.

If the South ever got back in, they were afraid that there would be terrible retribution.

So these students huddled together in that schoolroom being afraid of them coming in was a tremendous thing.

It's a little bit difficult to appraise in the sense that we haven't seen things like this.

These are really rare.

But I would say on a retail basis, easily $10,000 to $15,000.

Wow, really.

(chuckles) And that, I feel, is a very conservative estimate.

Now there is one other thing that I want to mention.

At some point, someone laminated the front of this.

Yeah, I know.

That will take some repair, it should be done, but that's a minor cost compared to the value of the items, and that is something that you really should get a conservator to do.

Well, thank you, I'm amazed.

So how did you get this?

From my dad's estate.

This is a really sweet vase by the firm of Rookwood.

Have you heard of Rookwood?

No.

Rookwood was a big pottery in Cincinnati, and they started in 1880, and went on for a very long time, closing many times during the 20th century off and on.

Up until pretty much today.

And they went through many different lines and had first-rate decorators.

And among the very best was the one who did this.

His name was Arthur Conant.

And Arthur Conant joined Rookwood in I believe 1915, and he was there for about 25 years.

So I will show you the bottom here and the marks, which are the Rookwood Pottery mark up here.

Okay.

The XXI for 1921, the number below that, which is the number of that shape, and then the C in a box, for the artist, Arthur Conant.

So he really liked Japanese woodblock prints.

So you have this prunus tree, and you've got this lovely blue bird.

The waves are so wonderful.

The waves that are crashing, that is so sweet.

But what I find pretty interesting on this is there's a whole lot of that very stark background.

And it has a texture to it, right?

Right, when you put it under your light was the first time I really noticed that and fell in love with the vase again.

It's not flat, there's something happening here.

And so I was just showing that to my colleague at the Asian table there, and I was wondering why would they do a... because he was very good.

He was a painter, he was a sculptor, he knew what he was doing.

So this was done probably on purpose.

And what my friend said was this may very well be because he knew that doing woodblock prints you've got these variations of texture.

So that might be why it's there.

So you've got a really pretty porcelain vase.

At auction, I would put an estimate on this of $4,000 to $6,000.

Oh, my golly, we didn't believe that.

That is awesome, thank you.

Oh, my heavens.

(chuckles) I was the only one that wanted it.

I fell in love with the bird, I can't believe this.

Hey, guys.

Hi, guys.

This little guy, that's just a little fun thing.

Oh, that's fun, that is fun.

MAN: I got an old pair of handcuffs.

I don't know if they're really worth anything.

The key is like a screw mechanism.

APPRAISER: I would take that to arms and military.

APPRAISER: One in really excellent condition with all of the original paint brought $3,300.

Yours is probably going to be somewhere between $150 and $500 because of the partial repainting on it.

Okay.

WOMAN: I worked as a private duty nurse in Arizona.

The lady I was taking care of, she offered me this snuff bottle.

She said, "Take it with you, I can't take it with me," so as a thank you, she gave me the snuff bottle.

Chinese.

Late 19th century piece.

But this very meticulous work, the lacquer paintings here, and the shell inlays, it's actually done in Japan.

Oh.

So they imported the white jade material, base material, and they worked on it in Japan, and exported it out.

Because Japanese didn't collect this, Chinese wanted this.

In the auction, I think it will bring $3,000 to $5,000.

Oh wow, wow.

Yes, because the jade is very good quality.

I brought this flag from the Spanish American War that my grandfather gave me, but his father gave to him, so my great-grandfather.

Do you know anything about what he did during the war?

Not particularly.

I know that he was in the Navy, I believe.

It is from the Spanish American War, but actually this particular item predates our involvement in the Spanish American War, Somewhere in that 1895 to early 1898 era.

We very selfishly call it the Spanish American War.

In 1895 there was a rebellion that started amongst the Cubans against Spanish colonial rule.

Like our own rebellion here in the United States, you had people who were very passionately on the side of the insurrectos.

You had people who simply didn't care and wanted to be left alone.

And he had people who were loyal to the Spanish colonial government in Spain.

And the flag that you have here is actually from one of those organizations that remain loyal to the Spanish crown.

Okay.

The Cazadores, or "hunters," is Spanish light infantry.

And then the other clue that you have here is this is from Jesus del Monte, that was a suburb of Havana.

So you have to wonder what's the suburb of Havana have to do with a military battle flag?

That's where the volunteers who made up this organization were recruited from.

So these are native Cubans who are on the side of the Spanish colonials fighting against their own fellows, the insurrectos, or the mambises as they were called.

They joined the Cazadores, and this would have been their company battle flag.

Okay.

So this is for one company of infantry.

And if we were able to look on the opposite side of this, we would be able to tell which company that was.

It's nice that you have it framed, that also reduces the amount of information that we can see.

The hunting horn is the infantry symbol, and then we have the Spanish flags and the Spanish coat of arms.

This particular unit was not actively engaged in combat against the Americans.

So this isn't the type of thing that you can ascribe to a flag that was captured in battle.

More than likely, it's something that your relative acquired after the war was over during the American occupation of the country.

Okay.

The fact that it's a silk flag with hand embroidery makes it a little more rare than the cotton flags that you see of the period that every Spanish soldier carried called a knapsack flag.

These tend not to survive very well because of the nature of the material that they're made of.

It would have had bullion fringe around the edge, and that hurts it a little bit from a condition point of view, but it's still a very presentable, very beautiful relic of the Spanish American war.

In a retail setting, this flag in its current condition would sell for between $2,500 and $3,000.

Wow, that's good.

Good chunk of change.

So when you brought this painting in today, had you any idea who the artist was?

Not really.

At first I thought it said J.H.

User, and then I looked again and it was J. Hauser, but I knew nothing about who J. Hauser was.

May I ask how this came into your possession?

I inherited it from my in-laws.

My mother-in-law always had it hanging in her house.

Have you any idea where they might have got it?

No, I have no idea where they got it.

I know they do like to go to auctions sometimes, so maybe they got it there.

John Hauser, you're absolutely correct, is the artist.

Who was a Cincinnati artist in fact.

Oh!

His parents were German immigrants, and he actually went to Germany to study art in Munich, which was a city where many American artists went.

And he went with his fellow Cincinnati artist Joseph Henry Sharp, who had also become a very renowned Western artist.

But really the big year for Hauser was 1891, and that was the time of his first visit to Arizona and also to New Mexico.

Okay.

And that began his long love affair with all things of a Native American and Indian origin.

And he went on to become a well known painter of that culture.

In the early part of the 20th century, he was so obsessed or so consumed with it, he and his wife lived in a tent on the Sioux reservation.

Wow.

The Plain Ridge reservation.

They spent six months a year between 1901 to 1905.

And such was his devotion to the culture that they were rewarded by being made honorary members of the Lakota Sioux tribe.

Wow.

To the extent that they were even given Indian names.

And, in fact, his name was Straight White Shield.

Okay.

And his wife's name, rather intriguingly, was Bring Us Sweets.

(chuckles) So I'm assuming that she may have had a bit of a sweet tooth.

Yeah.

And Hauser was well known for doing many portraits of Native American Indian chiefs of various tribes, including Sitting Bull.

This painting of Joe Black Fox, who's a member of the Sioux tribe.

The headdress that he's wearing tells us that he was renowned for his warrior exploits.

The other thing that appeals to me very much about the painting is the color.

It's a very attractive painting.

And of course it's an oil painting on board, which is fairly typical for the artist.

It's a little hard to pin down the exact date of execution, but certainly I would imagine somewhere about 1900.

We would need to do a little more research into it.

His works in very much, you know, it's in good demand, as is a lot of Western art, and this is a nice subject for the various reasons that I've outlined.

And I think at auction I'd feel very comfortable with a $7,000 to $10,000 estimate on it.

Oh wow, wow.

That's nice to know, thank you.

WOMAN: This piece I just inherited from my mother-in-law, who passed away earlier this year at 99, and she inherited the piece from her aunt and uncle, Bertha and Fred Fisher, who you may know have Fisher Autobody, and that became part of GM.

Our guess is, but we don't know, is that it could have come from New York or Detroit, where they spent a lot of time.

But we do know that it's a very special piece, and I haven't only worn it except one time because it's a very fancy necklace.

Right, well it is a beautiful piece.

Thank you.

It's a very special necklace.

It's a pendant necklace, it is from the Edwardian period.

Okay.

Which came about around the early 1900s.

I would date this piece to 1910.

Okay.

And this period was known for elegance, very fashionable time for ladies, and this is the quintessential piece of jewelry from that period.

Right.

So it's made by Tiffany.

We saw that, yes.

Someone that everyone knows.

Right.

They started in the 1840s, and New York jewelry house, very, very fine firm.

They made such exquisite jewelry.

You have this beautiful delicate chain of collet set old European-cut diamonds.

And then with these pretty marquise-shaped links alternating.

So the chain itself you've got about seven karats of diamonds approximately.

Okay.

Then you taper down to this beautiful old emerald-cut stone.

Okay.

And it weighs approximately two-and-a-half karats.

This is a very, very clean stone and a very, very white stone.

Great.

So you have a very, very high color, high clarity stone.

And then you drop down to this beautiful pendant watch.

The filigree work, and the diamond setting is beautifully done.

Then you see this gorgeous engraving all along the border.

Right.

If you turn it over, you have a watch by Tiffany.

Which also can be detached.

Yes, I saw that.

And they can wear it as a pendant, or a pin, or something like that.

Do you have any idea of the value of this piece?

We have no idea, we've never had it appraised.

So the fact that we had just inherited it, this is hopefully will be a good surprise.

Okay, well I will tell you that you're seeing less and less of this material in the marketplace.

It's very sought after, and at auction, the estimate would be $40,000 to $60,000.

(chuckles) That's... unbelievable and a surprise.

So it's really, really a beautiful piece of jewelry.

I am so grateful.

Thank you for giving us this very valuable information.

For insurance purposes, I would estimate the value at approximately $120,000.

Wow.

That makes my heart skip a beat.

(chuckling): Oh, my gosh.

Thank you, unbelievable.

And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

I thought my book would be worth $2,000 or $3,000 if it had the dust cover, which it doesn't.

But it's about $250 without a dust cover, and that's fine because I got it out of the trash.

Yes!

We came out here today with by Babe Ruth locker token hoping to knock it out of the park.

But unfortunately, we struck out.

And this is Shirley.

We thought we'd bring her in today to the Antiques Roadshow so she could take us on vacation, but it looks like we're going to leave her home.

We're going to sell her is what we're going to do.

We're going to sell her, that's what we're going to do, yeah.

Brought some rock and roll autographs-- David Bowie, the Ramones.

It's the real deal.

I brought a sword, it's not real, it's not the real deal.

This is my mom's ice skating bear.

He was given a value of "weird."

Today I brought in this New Testament card set dated back to 1899.

And I have my old English tea set.

Which is worth a whopping...?

$15.

And the card set a whopping...?

$20.

But we had a great time, thanks Antiques Roadshow.

Tea, anyone?

We brought wonderful family treasures like this wonderful Rita Hayworth doll dressed as Carmen.

We had a great time, however... Grandma lied.

We learned that Grandma lied.

This is not a Winston bracelet, but I love it anyway.

BOTH: Thank you, Antiques Roadshow.

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

See you next time, on Antiques Roadshow.