Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This is a celestial globe that my parents got from an estate sale in Washington, DC, in about 1952. And after my father passed away, I inherited it.

APPRAISER

Okay, now, where is the other globe that goes with this?

GUEST

Well, this was the only one.

APPRAISER

Okay.

GUEST

That they had at the house at the time. And I understand they generally come in twos.

APPRAISER

The terrestrial's what we're looking for, which is the world globe.

GUEST

Right.

APPRAISER

And do you know who the maker is on this?

GUEST

I believe it's Blunt Company.

APPRAISER

Yes, it's sold by E. and G.W. Blunt in New York.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

And we see this right up in front here. Blunt was a very important territorial mapmaker and globe maker of America in the 19th century. It's very interesting. It says, "Corrections made to 1864." But if we go further around the month charter ring, which is the signs of the Zodiac, we'll see that this was entered in the act of Congress in 1852 by Charles Copley. These globes usually have lots of damage to them. They've been scraped, they've been peeled, they've been dropped over the years. They have a lot of repair. They've been inpainted. And as you can see, we have just a little bit of skinning on this piece. But my favorite part of this here is, we have this wonderful casting on here, which follows up from the charter ring and goes down. We don't see many nice globes here in America. First of all, we were not a wealthy nation that the English were. And so, this came from a very wealthy home at one time. And do you have any idea of its value?

GUEST

I have no idea at all. I believe my father paid $50 for it.

APPRAISER

Oh, wonderful.

GUEST

At the time. He was an astronomer and a physicist, and actually, this was a working globe for him.

APPRAISER

Well, we believe that this could be, fair-market auction value, between $6,000 to $8,000. If you had the world map...

GUEST

(chuckles) The other globe.

APPRAISER

The other globe...

GUEST

Right.

APPRAISER

I think we could go somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000, especially if it was in this condition here.

GUEST

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER

We enjoyed you bringing this in today.

GUEST

Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate getting that information about it.