Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: This is a poster from the 1968 Jazzfest in New Orleans.

I got it about ten years ago at an estate sale in Denver.

It was the estate of a jazz musician.

APPRAISER: Do you remember how much you paid for it?

GUEST: It was ten dollars.

APPRAISER: The first Jazzfest was held in 1970, but this one is from 1968.

So what's going on here?

GUEST: I think, I think it's real.

Is it?

I mean... APPRAISER: So, it is real.

For 1968 and 1969, there was a Jazzfest in the Municipal Auditorium with Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington.

It was an amazing small event that two years later morphed into the jazz festival that we all know.

When you look for this image online, it doesn't exist anywhere.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: And I looked up Werlein's, and Werlein's is a now-defunct music shop in New Orleans.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: So that's where tickets were for sale.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: So this really is a rare document of the earliest days of Jazzfest in New Orleans.

My guess as to a value of this, and I can only be conservative, uh, would be between $800 and $1,200.

GUEST: Wow!

APPRAISER: But it really wouldn't surprise me if a Jazzfest nut-- and I, I say that endearingly, because collectors are crazy people, and that's why I'm in business...

GUEST: (chuckles) APPRAISER: ...that if a real Jazzfest aficionado could pay several times that amount to acquire this at an auction.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness.

(breathlessly): Wow.

I was not expecting that.

Thank you so much.

That's just... (laughs) That's wonderful.