Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

I skated with an ice show, and we played Nashville, Tennessee, right after Elvis came out of the service. And we invited him to the show. In return he invited us to his house for a party. So when he came to Las Vegas at the International Hotel, two of my girlfriends and I went to see his show. And we met one of his bodyguards, Sonny West. And he took us down to say hello to Elvis 'cause we had met him at the party. I came back about three nights later to see the show again and ran into Sonny. And he took me back down to the dressing room again. And I was kidding around with Elvis and asking him about his macram belt, if he made them himself. And, of course, he said no. He was teasing me. He said he had stayed up all night long making them. Well, when he went in to get dressed to go up to the stage, he came back out and he had the macram belt in his hand. And just kind of pitched it to me. And gave it to me, so I've had it ever since then. This was in... the '70s.

APPRAISER

Okay and the record album?

GUEST

And the record album he gave me about three nights later when I went down. He gave me a record album and signed it for me.

APPRAISER

Great story.

GUEST

Oh, thank you.

APPRAISER

It's pretty good to be able to meet a celebrity like that.

GUEST

He was wonderful. He was such a wonderful man to talk to. And very handsome, a very handsome man.

APPRAISER

Well, the record album's interesting because Elvis did sign quite a bit of things. I see very often scraps of paper, letters, not very often on record albums. Not unheard of and not super rare by any means, but it's really nice. And I'm going to give you estimates based on what I think they would sell for at auction. On the album, you can see it's actually inscribed to you. It's to Freddie and it's signed by Elvis Presley. And I think a fair auction estimate for that would be $1,200 to $1,800.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

That's for the record album.

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

Now, let's take a little step up a bit, and we'll talk about the belt. When you're talking about something that's personal memorabilia that was actually worn by a world-famous celebrity, a piece like this at auction, I'd put a fairly conservative estimate at $6,000 to $8,000.

GUEST

Oh, okay.

APPRAISER

So as a package, both pieces together-- again, fairly conservative auction estimate-- maybe $7,500 to $9,500 on the pair. It's just great stuff and if you're going to put an insurance value on it, you'd probably want to insure it for a little bit higher, maybe $10,000 for the two pieces.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

I'm glad you brought it down and you made Vegas what it's supposed to be, a place where Elvis is remembered.