Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

Paid $35 for it. After I bought it at the auction the lady came up to me-- she was an elderly lady-- she came and said that a James Jenkins made this and he made it while he was in the penitentiary for stealing chickens during the depression and it's dated 1934. We call it our valentine because it has the heart and the lady's bust there. Generically, in the field of American folk art it is a piece of tramp art and it's one man's expression of his affection for his wife but the historical side of this is it tells us something about the desperateness of the times during the depression that a man would have been put in jail for having stolen... Chickens.

APPRAISER

... a chicken at that time. And of course, to look at it today it's incredibly cheerful and appealing and it's a great valentine and it's worth somewhere between $1,200 and $1,800 on the auction market today.

GUEST

Thank you very much.