Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

About 25 years ago, my husband and I were asked to go to Colorado to clean out an aunt's home, who had come back here to the state to be with family because she was in her 90s. And we were asked just to bring personal items. So we packed up small things we thought she might have enjoyed through her life, and dresses and purses and that kind of stuff. When we got it back here, she said, "What am I going to do with all of this? I don't want it. You take it," and then we thought, well, what are we gonna do with all this stuff? So we took it back to our home, and one of the purses, it, just a old plastic purse, had a lot of what I hope was just costume jewelry, and we just kind of pitched that. And I hope I didn't throw out a big jewel. But in the bottom of that purse was this chain. And it's a watch fob, I believe, and I don't know anything more about it.

APPRAISER

Well, you're right about that. Now, this chain had to have a fabulous watch on it.

GUEST

Aw.

APPRAISER

You said you noticed a mark over here. Right inside of here, what did you see?

GUEST

"14 karat."

APPRAISER

Right-- it is, in fact, 14-karat yellow gold.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

A beautiful old watch fob chain, probably from the late 1800s. This is all handmade.

GUEST

Really?

APPRAISER

Yeah.

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

Now, you take metal, you draw it down and make it round. You take it, you roll it out, you make it flat for these sections. You cut it out, you pierce it, you knurl the edges-- even the piece here, the, for the bar that hangs down for the watch fob.

GUEST

Unbelievable.

APPRAISER

You said it-- fabulous.

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

The watch would hang off of this swivel.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

The swivel opens and closes. And then this piece is where you would have another fob hanging down. Sometimes a seal.

GUEST

Oh!

APPRAISER

Sometimes a, a pocket knife or something like that. It weighs 60 pennyweights. Now, that's a measurement we use to measure gold.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

There's 20 pennyweights in a Troy ounce. So here we have three Troy ounces. Now, if you went someplace at today's gold price and you were just going to scrap this out, you have $1,600 just of scrap gold.

GUEST

(chuckles) Wow!

APPRAISER

But this isn't the kind of thing you would sell like that. This piece today, at auction, I would say $4,000 to $6,000.

GUEST

No way.

APPRAISER

Yeah.

GUEST

Unbelievable. We could have thrown it right out with the purse, wow, wow.

GUEST AND APPRAISER

(chuckles)