Antiques Roadshow

This week, Antiques Roadshow visits Kansas City, Missouri.

MAN

My mother decided it would look a lot better if she spray-painted it with gold spray paint. (laughs) Seriously? Seriously. Oh, my gosh. Don't put it in the water anymore! I promise I won't. Do you hear a noise? It's my mother turning over in her grave. There's more to come from Kansas City. Stay tuned. Welcome to Antiques Roadshow. Hi, I'm Mark Walberg in Kansas City, Missouri. So what do Walt Disney, Harry Truman, Satchel Paige, Count Basie and Charlie Parker all have in common? Well, they all once called Kansas City home. Will any antique treasures with celebrity provenance turn up at Roadshow today? Find out right now. This belonged to my dad. Back in the 1970s, he used to do a lot of collecting Elvis merchandise, and where he got it, I have no idea. Where did his love for Elvis come from? Oh, it started with me. In 1964, I started collecting Elvis records, and then in the late '60s, I went into the service. And when I was in the service, he started collecting Elvis merchandise and it became a real hobby of his. He loved doing it. This one piece that we have in front of us is pretty great, and I think there's a number of things to talk about and why it's great,

and the first one is the date

February 6, 1955. It's an early poster, and one of the reasons we can tell that it's early is because if we check out the poster, who got top billing? Faron Young. And Elvis is all the way down here at the bottom, which is kind of hard for us to imagine now all these years later. These are not necessarily household names, the other artists on the bill, but obviously Elvis is the one that's endured.

This is his third single he'd just released on Sun Records

"Heartbreaker," and we've got the "Milk Cow Boogie." It's so early, he's still with Sun. He hadn't signed with Colonel Parker and RCA Records yet. At this time, he was really doing a lot of the Louisiana hayride-type regional concerts. Condition is obviously an issue here. We have some paper loss in the corners, a little tear here, a little discoloration, which you would expect on a poster of this age. It doesn't really matter that much because this is so rare. At auction, I would expect this poster to bring between $10,000 and $12,000. Really? Even in this condition. I never knew that, never. It's not an exceptionally graphic poster, but it is of that early kind of boxing style that a lot of people love from this era. Is that right? I would never guess that much, never. I've never seen one in person before. Is that right?

WOMAN

It was my great-grandfather's, who lived in Virginia, and he was in the Civil War. And after the war, he was married, had six children. The next person in the family to own it was his daughter Laura, which is my great-aunt. And there came a time in her life when she needed money just for food and for rent, and my sister loved that music box-- this was the '30s-- she bought it from her and made weekly payments until it was paid for. And then I inherited it from my sister in 1993. It's a Regina music box. Regina was the premier maker of American music boxes. The Regina music box company was the most successful music box maker in the country, and they produced over 100,000 music boxes between roughly 1892 to 1920. This particular cabinet they advertised as a Rookwood-style cabinet. Now, what is Rookwood? Well, they say it's to mimic the Rookwood pottery. I don't see a lot of similarities to it, but that was the promotion that they used. I see, yeah. And this is sort of at the tail end of the company, so this becomes popular around 1904 to 1906. And we can see this Rookwood style with this floral decorated top, these hand-painted vignettes, floral, and then I love this vertical courting scene, and then of course we have landscape panels on the side. I think it's a beautiful box. Mahogany is your primary wood. Okay, I didn't know that. And then when we open it up, we can see that it's got this wonderful pullout shelf to house all of your discs. It plays a 15 1/2 inch disc. And that is where they made a lot of their money too, by selling the discs afterwards. And we take it off, we can look at the mechanism here and you can see that it contains the name plate that's always issued by Regina, which contains a serial number. They still have records so you can determine when it was made and where it was shipped in most cases. The first two digits give us the model number, so this is a model number 67. Then of course it gives us the patent dates, and in this case we've got a double comb player. And then it has a harp attachment also. Got a lot of bells and whistles. It's a complicated movement, it's an elaborate case, but what makes it extra special is its pristine condition. It is, isn't that amazing? It's been moved I don't know how many times and it still looks great. So while there's a lot of music boxes, knowing that they made 100,000 of them, there's very few of this style. Do you have any idea of its value? I would say not more than $10,000. Pretty close. If I were to estimate it, I'd estimate it at $10,000 to $15,000 for auction. Uh-huh. And I think it might do a little bit more than that. Yeah, I thought $10,000 to $12,000 is kind of what I thought. Shall we hear it? Yes, I'd love to. (music playing) I got it from my grandmother, and she got it from a moving and storage company in St. Louis. 1939 is when she got it, and she paid $25. That was money she'd saved up. That was the Depression, so she didn't have much money. But she makes hats, and even in the Depression, everybody has to have a hat. That's a lot of money back then. It was! It's in remarkably good condition. How did it stay so clean all these years? Well, I guess everybody just walked around it. But in my house, I have a fish line that I tied it to the wall. When we got ready to come out here, my son was going to load it up and he couldn't pick it up and he was pulling on it and pulling on it and I said, "You gotta cut that fish line loose!" (laughs) This is in great condition, not just because there aren't chips and cracks and other damages, but it's so clean, it's so bright. What happens, especially with an umbrella stand, if you drop an umbrella in with a metal tip to the umbrella, you put a hairline in the bottom of it. You have a vacuum cleaner whack into the base and it takes a chip out of it. So much goes wrong. Dirt accumulates, and grease and nicotine over the years and dulls the colors. This thing is perfect. This is a Roseville umbrella stand, and I think you said earlier you thought it might be. It isn't marked at all. I have a lot of bowls and they're marked. Well, the earlier Roseville is often not marked. This period, this middle '10s period, you very often see pieces that are unmarked. 1910s? I think 1916, 1918, thereabouts. This is an example of Roseville's Persian line, which started sometime before 1916. And I don't know why they call it Persian-- maybe because they think Persian material is so brightly colored. It's also called a creamware line, creamware because of this whitish background. You don't really see it this perfect and you don't see it this colorful. It's a really well-designed and handsome piece. This was the transition between when Roseville was doing hand-decorated work and doing straight production work, which was commercial. This is in between the two. There is hand painting inside of a template where an outline is applied to the surface of it. So it's certainly not a straight hand-decorated, one-of-a-kind piece, but it's not a mass-produced production piece with decals either. Usually, you see one of these, and I have seen this form with this idea before and there's some damage, and they bring $400, $500, $600. This is the cleanest example-- there can't be a cleaner one out there. This is as good as it gets, and I think at auction, I'd estimate it for somewhere between $1,700 and $2,300. Oh, my goodness! (chuckling) I just can't imagine that. You hear a noise? It's my mother turning over in her grave. (laughs) It belonged to my father. I don't know if he brought it back in the Second World War or the Korean War, because he was in both. It stayed in the linen closet for 45 years until my father sold the house, and then I acquired it. This is an incense burner. It's of Shou Lao, the god of longevity. It's Chinese, 17th century, late Ming dynasty. Really? Shou Lao is sitting on a deer, and he's surrounded by peaches of longevity.

The deer itself is a very special deer

it's a spotted deer, which is particularly auspicious. These were used on a scholar's desk as a form of contemplation. These are really popular now on the current auction market. Really? And at auction today, it would have a presale estimate of $4,000 to $6,000. Really? You've had a little treasure sitting in your closet. Yes! (laughing) I can't believe that!

MAN

These were letters that my father received. He was the general chairman of the Truman Library auction that was held in the early '50s, and the correspondence that my father received from Truman. A picture of my mother and father, Harry Truman and Bess. With a shovel? A shovel, when he was presented with a gold-plated shovel for the ground-breaking ceremony. And this is a picture of the dignitaries at the ground-breaking ceremony. It was taken at the Slover Park shelter house, which is on the grounds of the Truman Library. That looks like a family snapshot. That doesn't look like something that would be recorded really anywhere else. I doubt it. The Truman Library opened after the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 was passed. How did your father get involved with that? Well, they had a civic project. 16 different organizations went together, and my father was a general chairman of the auction event. And the letters are very heartfelt and appreciative of all his work and services because to build this library, they got donations from, I think, 17,000 different private individuals and groups and institutions that donated to put together a presidential library. And the reason for the library is to keep his papers for research and scholarship down the road. Independence is where he's known to be from, Truman. How far away is Independence? It's about ten miles to the east of Kansas City. Did you grow up in Independence? I grew up in the Truman neighborhood. As a young child, I saw Truman with the Secret Service. One thing here which was very amusing, these are wonderful letters and we know that they're to your dad, they're personal, which is great. This one is very touching, though. This one is from you, right? I was going to the National Boy Scout Jamboree, and we were told to bring things to trade. In my childhood innocence, I thought a Truman autograph would be the best thing around. And I had some other postcards signed, I took them to the Jamboree, and none of the Boy Scouts were interested in Truman's autograph, so I ended up bringing them home. So that's why you have it-- you couldn't swap it. And it's funny because you were asking him to buy... you were offering to buy his signature, and he writes back, "Here is your autograph. Make a good trade." And you didn't make a good trade. I sure didn't. I'm glad you didn't because now it's here as part of this archive. It's a great record, you've got the great letters, and then this is his memoirs inscribed to your father, which is very nice as well. So altogether, I would say insurance value, you'd be looking at about $8,000. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, about $8,000. The letters, because of their connection, it was a thank you for something to do with his life and the posterity of his presidency, so that's critical. It's amazing. This is my third or fourth great-grandfather, William Perry, who sailed as surgeon's mate with Captain Cook in the Endeavour on his first voyage around the world from 1768 to 1771. Right. Their mission was to sail to Tahiti and to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun. Then they were to sail on and verify the existence of the Australian continent. So you can see here that the En deavour is in the background. But there's more to this story about Perry, correct? He was the surgeon's mate, but what happened? Well, the surgeon, Mr. Monkhouse, died, and William became the surgeon. So he took over towards the end of the voyage. 1770, I think, Monkhouse died, correct? That's correct. So what I find remarkable about this is that your great-great- great-grandfather was part of one of the first long-distance voyages where scurvy was not a problem. Scurvy was a terrible vitamin deficiency that afflicted sailors at sea. Cook apparently was a big believer in feeding people fresh food, and he was involved with this, keeping the crew healthy. So that's a remarkable story. The painting itself I think is also interesting because it bears many semblances to the work of an early Chinese artist. Now, we don't know much about this particular artist-- his name was Spoilum-- but he was known as the first Chinese artist in Canton to paint European subjects on canvas. This particular painting is on wood, but this is very much in the style of Spoilum's paintings. Of course, he wasn't in China on the Endeavour expedition, but he sailed on four or five other ships, and I would bet that he was in Canton at some point on one of those voyages. You assume that to be the Endeavour because he sailed on the Endeavour, but it could be one of his other four or five ships that he was on. True. The other thing that we have here are these great pistols by William Bond, and you can see here "Bond" with his London address is stamped on the tops of the barrels of these pistols. Bond is about as good as you can get for a British pistol maker. Very desirable. We assume that these were the pistols he carried with him. You also brought this little powder flask that contains shot and wadding and that sort of thing, so it's a nice package. Let's start with the painting. In that present condition, it's probably an $8,000 to $10,000 painting. The frame has been repainted. That's hurt it. My mother decided it would look a lot better if she spray-painted it with gold spray paint. The pistols themselves are worth about $2,500 to $3,500, but since they're associated with this individual, we can, I think, bump the estimate up a little bit to maybe $5,000. So we're looking at a value of somewhere between $13,000 and $15,000 for an auction estimate for the package here. It's a great story. Thank you, I'm very glad to know that. I worked for the Kansas City A's with Charlie Finley back '64, '65, and he brought the Beatles in for this concert. I decided I wanted to get their autograph. Went up to my car and got a baseball, brought it back, and had the Beatles sign it. They were in a little trailer in center field. Ringo was standing in the doorway of the little trailer, and I kind of signaled doing that, and he opened the door, and I handed the ball to him. And about five minutes later he opened the door back up and gave it to me. Have you ever tried to sell it, you ever get any interest in it? About five years ago I took it to a place and it was a company that travels around the country out of New York. And he said he thought it was worth about $8,500. You have the ticket, you have the original box for the baseball, and you have the ball itself. There's a lot of really cool stuff going on here. It's a great baseball with all the signatures. You have John Lennon, we have Ringo Starr here on this side. You have a really nice Paul McCartney signature. And then George Harrison is actually signed right down on that side. So you have all for Beatles' signatures there, which are really strong. The first thing that we notice if you look at the baseball is that you shellacked it. Right. We have to take into account when you try to value something like this condition. The other thing we want to always take into account is the provenance, and we can track it from a brand new ball in the original box that you had there, to you handing it to one of the Beatles, to them signing it. And to back up the whole provenance of where it came from and where you got it, you have the original ticket stub from the concert itself. And that has some considerable value. That ticket stub is probably somewhere around $1,000 to $2,000 by itself. The baseball, it's a little tricky to evaluate. An unshellacked Beatles ball with those strong, strong signatures at auction would probably be worth in excess of $30,000. However, shellacked, we have to reduce that. And you know, moral here is you don't want to shellac the baseballs. As is shellacked, I would say it's probably $15,000, $20,000 for an estimate. If you were insuring the package, that's the ball and the ticket, you'd want to put a $25,000 insurance value on both. The fact that you were offered $8,500 for it is a really good lesson because you always want to get other opinions. Too many people are too fast to sell something for the first offer, and that first offer is generally not your best. Yeah, that's why I held onto it for a little while longer. You did the right thing.

WOMAN

It was given as a gift to my father's brother for his ninth birthday in 1914. There was quite a difference in age, ten years between my father and his brother. My dad was the baby. And the two of them had great memories of playing with this boat as they grew up in the Chicago area. Now, you used it actually in the water? I have great memories of this floating in my swimming pool in the backyard when I was growing up. I love toys that come in with stories from the original owners. It really adds to the luster of the item. Did you figure out who made this? I know there's a mark on the rudder, but my magnifying glass at home was not strong enough to read it. And I know it was a gift from a great-uncle, and I thought he lived in Europe at the time. If you look real carefully-- and I can recognize this without a magnifying glass because I've seen it a few times-- it actually says "G.M.", which means Gebruder Mrklin. Okay. So Mrklin is the manufacturer of this boat, which is a German company. They first went into business in 1859. Originally, they just made dollhouses and dollhouse furniture and things like that, but they really came into their own right after 1900. Around 1904, they started making trains and boats. That was when they became the gold standard of toys of their day. They were very expensive in their day, and they're relatively expensive today. This is a tin boat. It has a clockwork motor, which operates this propeller. And it's beautifully outfitted with a chain. It had lifeboats, which you say you lost, but they can be made. And you see it's named the Puritan. The Puritan was a very famous boat. The Puritan was on the Fall River line, which went from Boston to New York City from around 1889 to around 1908. It was such a famous boat, it was used in a lot of toys. There are cast-iron American Puritan boats, there are McLoughlin lithograph puzzle boats, there are several other using that name. They made a few changes. The original boat had a side wheel. This is probably made 1908, 1910, somewhere in there. The last one of these I know at auction had an auction estimate of $12,000. Wow. Which is quite a sum. Amazing. But it sold for $20,000. All right. (laughing) And there's no reason this one couldn't do the same. My goodness. So don't put it in the water anymore. I promise I won't, and it hasn't been in the water for over 50 years. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has a spectacular collection of photographs that spans the life of the medium from 1839 to the present. Roadshow was eager to highlight a notable image from this extensive collection, but how to choose from over 10,000 works? With the help of appraiser Daile Kaplan, we focused on a notable 20th-century photographer whose work is now considered fine art. Daile, this is such an amazing collection, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about the photographer whose work we're looking at today.

DAILE KAPLAN

Dorothea Lange was one of the great photographers of the 20th century who's associated with a genre known as documentary photography. She started out as a portrait photographer. In the 1930s, she was one of several photographers invited to be part of the Farm Security Administration. This is an agency that sends photographers into the field to document the Dust Bowl, the effects of the Great Depression, and to bring a human face to a political issue that had polarized the country. And this photograph that we're looking at today becomes the iconic image of the Great Depression.

KAPLAN

It certainly does. This photograph was shot in 1936 in Nipomo, California. It's a gelatin silver print. It's known as "Migrant Mother," sometimes also known as "Pea Pickers." The cold has frozen the crop, and the migrant workers are starving. We see a woman surrounded by her children, her infant in her lap. We recognize that something dire, something serious is happening to this family. It's a human story, and Lange, with her background as a portrait photographer, very successfully conveys a symbol that unifies the country. Dorothea Lange captures a number of images, takes these photographs to a local newspaper when she arrives home, and tells the story of what's happening in this camp, and immediately, relief is brought to these people. This woman was Florence Owens Thompson. In the 1970s, she was rediscovered and interestingly enough, she disputed a number of the facts that became part of the legend and story associated with this picture. But the important thing is she survived, and the grit and determination that she conveys in this picture was authentic.

WALBERG

This is so important as a documentary photograph, but how does it transcend and become considered fine art? With someone like Lange, there was always an aspiration to make art. She studied with Clarence White, who was a fine art photographer in New York, she was a recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, and she was among the community of photographers associated with Ansel Adams. A vintage print of "Migrant Mother" brought almost $250,000 more than ten years ago, so today we would expect that number to at least double. In the 1950s, 1960s, Lange revisits some of her older negatives. This negative had actually been damaged, and so there was a new negative from which she made prints of "Migrant Mother," and those photographs, which are called modern prints, can sell for anywhere from $40,000 to $200,000 at public auction. I see. Thank you for all the information and history. Thank you, Mark.

WOMAN

This came from Elfindale. It's a mansion in Springfield. The people who built it, John and Alice O'Day, apparently he kind of ran around on her, so when they got a divorce, she got the house and the grounds and I think she went maybe a little bit on a spending spree. So she got a furniture set with a table and a buffet piece and china and everything and all the chairs, and the copper chandeliers. When she runs out of money, she decides to sell this to the Sisters of the Visitation. The Sisters open their home for a school, and her furniture was left in the school. We actually saw it as kids. My mother went to school there, I went there for first grade. After my first grade year, they announced that they're going to have to close it, so my mother, who had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had been trying to keep the school open, decided she's going to go in and buy things to remind her of her childhood. So she comes home with this furniture set, and dad asked her how much she paid, and it was $150, and he got very upset. There were five kids, and in 1964 that was a lot of money. He wasn't very happy with her. But she pulls out the chandeliers and she goes, "Well, I only paid $1.50 for these." This Arts and Crafts chandelier was probably put into the house really just around the turn of the century. It is copper. It is beautifully made. I can imagine with "eat, drink and be merry," that's not going to work for the nuns, right? We don't think so. And you have more than one of these. Yeah, I have two. This is not American. It's actually English. These cutout panels that you see in the front are done in a more English style. The way that these rivets are done on the corners here, that's more English. The thickness of the copper is also more English. It's a little thinner. They have a little more finesse as far as being able to manufacture things with copper. Americans used more copper because they had more copper, and oftentimes you had more repouss decoration here. So all of these things are pointing us to a company maybe in England, say a Liberty and Company, which all of these guys were stealing ideas from each other anyway, so the fact that it's English as opposed to American really doesn't diminish from the fact that it's a really beautiful chandelier. The cutout work, which would have been less American, they would have done more stamping at this time period. And these elongated pieces here are actually called lappets, and these are reminiscent of trailing vines or leaves that you would find in the whole thought of nature that was so prevalent during the Arts and Crafts period. Beautiful decoration. We think it's pretty cool. We also think it's doubly cool that you have two. I would say at auction in today's market, you're looking at a value of about $5,000 apiece. Oh, wow. Yeah. Dad was a stockbroker, but I think she did a better investment. Thanks, Mom! Yeah, thanks, Mom. Oh, thank you, Stuart, that is wonderful. You're welcome. Thanks for coming down and making us all a little happy today. Thank you. I have a collection of Mickey Mantle memorabilia. He grew up in a small town in Commerce, Oklahoma, which is about ten miles from my hometown of Baxter Springs, Kansas. And he actually played Whiz Kid Little League ball in Baxter Spring. Baxter likes to claim him as much as Commerce, Oklahoma, does. And after he became a Yankee, he also was the vice president for Southwest Chat Company in Baxter Springs, which was owned by Mr. Harold Youngman. Mr. Youngman was kind of his advisor/mentor in a way, and my father-in-law worked for Mr. Youngman as well and was an officer of the company. So Mickey was very generous to always share souvenirs, memorabilia. He would take balls to training camp and have the team sign them and bring them back, and so he was very generous with Mr. Youngman and my father-in-law as well. Tell me about the lighter we have here. This was a Zippo lighter that Mr. Youngman gave out to customers as well as other business associates. Used as a promotional piece, and what's nice about this is it has the Mickey Mantle facsimile signature right across the front, and then it's also mint in the original box. This was a giveaway item that was never used. This is a 1963 Yankees team signed ball, and we have a Mickey Mantle signature here on the sweet spot. And what can you tell me about the photograph? My husband just knows that there were about ten copies of this card that were all hand-signed by Mickey, and we just decided to frame one of them to put up on the wall, but we have some other copies as well. This is a very early image of Mantle, and it is signed, "Best Wishes, Mickey Mantle." Quite different than how his signature was 30 or 40 years later. And that one is in excellent condition, nice, strong signature. And then tell me about the hat. I just know that he supposedly wore it during his time with the New York Yankees. How many games, I have no idea. Any idea of the year, approximately? No, I have no idea. I do know that the late 1950s and early '60s was when he had the most relationship with Mr. Youngman. Mickey was known to get a lot of use out of his hats, so when we do see his hats, they tend to show quite a bit of use. Personal items do command a premium, often. We'll start with the Zippo lighter here. It's a great promotional piece with Mickey Mantle associated with the company. It is mint in the box, as we said. And this one we would expect to sell for, at auction, between $100 and $200. The baseball with Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra on the sweet spot has some signatures that are slightly faded, but not bad. That one at auction, I would expect it to sell for between $300 and $500. Okay. The photo, I would expect that to sell at auction for between $500 and $1,000. Now lastly, the hat. Very hard to find Mickey Mantle game-used hats. At auction, we would expect it to sell for between $8,000 and $10,000. Oh, my gosh. I'm shocked. Truly shocked. That's amazing. I brought a glass that is labeled "Lalique," and it has the four frogs on it. It belonged to my aunt, and upon her death, I received it. And do you think it is Lalique? I'm hoping. Well, what you have is an early and rare R. Lalique glass. Fantastic. And it was made around 1911 to 1912 at Lalique's first glass factory. The first factory was located outside of Paris, and it was opened in 1909. He had really made his reputation as a jeweler, and he was still a jeweler at this time. And the objects that he made at this factory were really small, delicate perfume bottles, glasses such as these, and he was really catering towards the jewelry clientele. Now, the glass that we know he's a little more famous for is the glass that was made in his new factory that opened in 1921. It was there that we see the bigger pieces, and that's really when he was becoming more of a glass maker. At this time, he was really in transition. This is called Four Frogs. You see the four little frogs that are in high relief and have a sepia patina. It was model 3751. It is very unusual. It doesn't really matter that it's only a single glass, but they probably did start out as a set. It was at this time that Lalique would sign the outside of pieces, so a lot of the perfume bottles are signed this way, as were these glasses. Oh, great. These come up very infrequently. Retail value of this piece would be between $2,000 and $3,000. Fantastic! Which is in my opinion a lot of money for a glass. A glass. Because it's not something that was meant to sit on a shelf; it was actually meant to be used. That's fantastic. I'm very pleased. Thank you. It hung in my maternal grandmother's house in Lake Forest, Illinois, for many years, and she died in 1958 and my mother's sister took it and it lived in New York for many years, and then at some point when I was visiting my aunt, I said, "If you ever move or decide that this painting isn't going to live with you anymore, I would like it." So it's three generations it's been in the family. Yes, yes. Is it hanging in a place now where you enjoy it every day? Oh yes, my husband watches the sun come up on it every morning. He says the light on it is so beautiful. We both enjoy it. I can see why. I believe your painting is dateable to about 1920. The painting is by an artist who sells at auction and who's known. The artist is from Philadelphia. But it's an artist about whom not a great deal is known and an artist who has fewer than 20 auction records as of 2013. I looked at the back of the painting on the wood stretcher, and there's a tiny fragment of an unidentified label from New York. Part of the artist's name is on there. Oh, really? And that is something that directly corroborates with the signature at the lower right. Nobody can read it. Nobody can read it. The painter is an artist called Frank H. Desch-- D-E-S-C-H. Okay. And you can kind of make out the "Frank" and the "H" and a "D." Frank H. Desch was born in 1873, died in 1934, and his style is very much rooted in the impressionists. It's very much, although he trained under Hawthorne and Chase, two real luminaries of American 19th century painting, his style fits in very well with other artists of the period. It reminds me very much of an artist called Charles Courtney Curran, who did beautiful women like this, children on a hillside. And this is unusual within the oeuvre of the artist. The painting is an oil on canvas. The frame, while there's some very minor losses, is, in my opinion, the original frame. Any idea today what the painting is worth? Not a clue. Well, the painting today, if offered at auction, would probably bring between $25,000 to $40,000. Wow. This jewelry belonged to my mother-in-law. She acquired it back in the early 1940a. She worked for a company in Milwaukee. One day, a gentleman came into the business and he sort of propositioned her. He wanted to give her a mink coat, and she demurred and said no, she was allergic to mink. And a few days later, she received this jewelry. This man came from Chicago, and all the men were kind of fearful, and years later, she was reading a book about the American mob and discovered that this man that had left her this jewelry was with the mob. That's quite a story! In the 1940s, we saw a lot of usage of pink gold and yellow gold, and that is clearly displayed in these pieces. We found a maker's mark on them. There was a firm based in Newark, New Jersey, named Wordley, Allsopp and Bliss, and what they've done in this particular suite is use moonstones combined with rubies and set in 14-karat pink and yellow gold. You've got a brooch, a bracelet and a wonderful pair of earrings to match so it creates a very lovely suite of jewelry that's fresh, it's youthful, and it's just so in keeping with the times, it's really a treat to see. Would you have any idea of the value on something like this? I really don't. I'm interested to know if it compares to the cost of a mink coat. (laughs) Well, if you were today to go to auction with a suite such as this, you would be looking at an auction value of $3,000 to $4,000. Oh, my goodness. It's very impressive. Oh, that's wonderful.

MAN

My great-great-grandfather was friends with a guy named Nicholson, who was a steamboat captain. I think he ran a line of steamboats that traveled from the Great Lakes all the way down to New Orleans. And they were friends because we did business with his son-in-law's correctional institute up outside of Detroit, where they made furniture in this shop, and we bought their furniture from that shop and brought it to St. Louis through his steamboats and sold them. Nicholson had his son-in-law have the prisoners make this chair for my great-great-grandfather, and that's what happened. Whose name was... Lammert, Martin Lammert. It was part of the memorabilia as the history of the company evolved. We kept things that were important, and this chair was always important because it sat out in front like a sign. So it was pulled out because I look at the size of it, of course, and this says, "Notice me." Obviously, it was shouting out. And I noticed also these huge casters on the feet, these double casters, which were meant to pull it out of a building, right? Right. And you've actually got here, you've brought in... This is a lithograph stone of one of our downtown buildings. As we grew, the buildings got bigger and bigger, and the flag on the building there says "Lammert." So it's in reverse because this was meant to print. What an amazing document. I mean, it's just unbelievable advertising in the late 19th century, which stylistically, this dates to the late Victorian period. Looking at the design, starting at the base, these faceted legs, turnings here, this skirt with the gilt decoration, all of this is late Victorian right up to the spindles and then the shell motif. Okay. All of that looks about 1885 or 1890. The condition is pretty amazing. There's been some repainting up here on the top. In terms of value, I would say because of the wow factor, which is that folk art appeal-- the craftsmanship and the decoration make such a statement-- with this stone, I think the two together, I would put an auction estimate range of $10,000 to $20,000. Okay. But I really think that if you got two bidders who really wanted this... Fighting back and forth....it could just fly over that. Great. And I want to thank you for bringing it in. Thanks a lot! They've been in our family only since 1972, when my mother got them at an estate sale in Westchester County, New York. Aside from that, I really don't know much about them. She bought them intending to make lamps out of them, which I think might have been a shame. Absolutely, good choice not to make that. These were so intriguing when you first brought them in that they actually created a little bit of mystery, and part of the mystery was the ceramic itself. The ceramic here is a very buff colored ceramic, which spoke to me of it possibly being Japanese. And certainly what comes to mind would be Satsuma. Satsuma is a Japanese porcelain that made these wonderfully decorative objects using a lot of gilding, a lot of enamel colors, but with a buff ground porcelain. Some of the decorations that we have here are very japonesque in style. And certainly you have all this different influence. You actually have the influence of cloisonn as well. The quality of the piece as we go around is just wonderful, with all these little vignettes in the aesthetic style as well as on the top, we have this wonderful foo dog or foo lion. So everything here is pointing to them to be Japanese. Included in that, which mystified me even more, I'm going to take this one down so that we can look at the underside. And it's very hard to find, but on the bottom of them, right here, there is a very faint underglaze mark using chop marks. So the Japanese lettering's here. So right away, we have all the decorations for them to be Japanese, we have a ceramic that resembles Satsuma, everything we want about it is Satsuma. Except the character marks, they're gibberish. They don't mean anything. The combination of all of the enamels and the combination of the decoration, the ceramic, the modeling that we have on the covers and all don't speak of being Satsuma. It has the whole package. So where's the mystery? The mystery is that they're French. Huh! How do you determine French? The particular period of time that these would have been produced would have been in the 1870s or 1880s, and at that time, in 1878, we had the French Exposition, which was the French World's Fair. Lots of companies were making very special things for that exhibition, and I think these were made for that exhibition. They're just too high-ended, too wonderful not to be part of that. Impossible to know specifically who manufactured them, but just really, really wonderful examples for what they are. And absolutely perfect condition. At auction today, I would suspect, as nice as these are and as eye-catching as these are, for them to realize in the range of $5,000 to $7,000. Apiece? As a pair. As a pair. Very nice. My mom is on this float. It's Cooladay or Coladay, I'm not sure how you pronounce it. It's the royal party. She grew up in Wakpala, South Dakota, and was raised on the reservation and attended St. Elizabeth's Mission School. And she was born in what year? 1921. So Wakpala, South Dakota, is located within the boundaries of the Standing Rock Reservation. Right. Which is a large reservation area. And the groups that you find are the Lakota and the Dakota. Yeah. So she was up there as a missionary? He mother taught at the Mission, and her father ran the general store. The Standing Rock Reservation was established in the late 1800s. What I love about what you brought in here is it represents a sort of transition from the traditional way of life to an adaptation into the 20th century, how they carried their craft forward and how to sustain themselves financially, I imagine. Also just to adapt to the fact that they were involved in the St. Elizabeth Missionary School. So your mother collected these pieces? My theory is that possibly, Indians bartered some of their goods for things at the store. Very possible, very common behavior. These two large bags, this matched pair, are called "possible" bags. It's actually a translation from the Sioux of "anything possible can fit in them." While they were being migratory, they were used as saddle bags. When they were stationary, they were used to store materials within the teepee. They're wonderful examples of traditional tribal use. On today's market at auction, they would probably achieve $4,000 for the pair. Wow. And what I also loved about this is how they carry their traditional beadwork into material that could adapt to their environment. So we're in a Missionary School, the women who did the beading created this Bible cover, and it's really quite charming. It was probably done at a later date, where the bags are from the turn of the century. The book is probably about from 1920, judging from the beads, and it contains a bilingual Bible and hymnal that was probably used at St. Mary's. It would be collected by both collectors of Native American art and folk art people because it's just charming, and its value would probably be between $400 and $600. Oh, that's really nice.

WOMAN

It came from my husband's family. They went to New Mexico in the 1920s. I do believe that's when they bought it, in Tahoe in New Mexico, either directly from the artist or from his gallery. The artist is a well-known Taos school artist. His name is Leon Gaspard. He was born in Russia in 1882. His father was a retired military officer who took up the fur trade, so he would often take his son with him on trips to Asia to trade for furs. Leon started to study art in Russia with Marc Chagall and later in 1901, he went to Paris to study with Adolphe Bouguereau, and there he met a young American ballet student who was to become his wife, and they went on quite an exotic honeymoon for two years in the Siberian wilderness on horseback, and he made a lot of drawings there that he used as a basis for future paintings. In 1914, he enlisted in the World War I effort on the behalf of France, but he was injured quite badly in a flying mission and then decided to go back to New York to recuperate. He was advised by his doctors to go to a warmer climate, which is how he ended up in Taos, New Mexico. Yeah. So here we see this lovely little girl. It's signed and dated 1919. And it's a Native American subject which is absolutely wonderful, has a lot of charm. It is an oil painting. I'm not positive of what the support is. You can clearly see the brushstrokes, and it really gives it a whole new, very contemporary look for that time. Have you ever had it appraised before? It was around, I believe, $10,000 for the painting in the early '60s. In the early '60s. And then someone had it appraised again in the '70s and it went up to maybe $15,000 to $20,000. I think if it were to be offered now in a retail gallery, the asking price might be as much as $75,000. What? Yes. (laughs) Seriously? Seriously. Oh, my gosh. Now, that is a surprise. Good! A wonderful surprise. Wow! I like... that's excellent. Seriously? Yes. (sighs) She will be more special now than she was before. Lovely.

WALBERG

And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth. If I would have looked into my crystal ball before I came, I would have known to leave it at home. I brought this cane. I thought it was a pirate, but it's pointed out to me that it's really a Confederate soldier. It's worth about $75, probably World War II era. But anyway, instead of "Argh," he's "Y'all." This right here is a Pucci designer jacket made by Pucci himself, out of Chicago. It was a custom-made piece that we found at auction for the people it was made for, after they had, sadly, passed away. We got it for $5 apiece. We found out now that the value of both jackets, individually, $600 apiece. Awesome. So we're pretty darn excited. I brought this clock that is missing a ballerina, and it's only worth $100 as parts. She gave me $25 when I was the brokest I've ever been in my life to get these prints. Turns out they're real, and they're worth from $1,000 to $1,200 for the pair. So thanks, Mom. Half that money's yours. I know, it was a win! So I'm part-owner of this now. This is my grandmother's hand-painted Prohibition tray from about 1930. I liked it as a boy, and... So I brought it to see what it was worth. About $150, the guy said, but in true Prohibition fashion, I'm going to go celebrate and have a beer with it. I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching. See you next time on Antiques Roadshow. Hi, there! Oh, can I look? Yes! What you got? Where did you get this? This is a print from...