GUEST
My friend works for a staging company, and they needed to get the house cleared before they could stage it, and everything was gonna go to the dump. So I hurried over and loaded up my car, and I wasn't sure what anything was. There was a lot of photographs, books, ledgers, and these really struck me, so I'm just curious what they're all about.
APPRAISER
How long have you had them?
GUEST
About a year or so.
APPRAISER
They've endured for quite a long time, maybe from the 1870s, 1880s.
GUEST
Wow.
APPRAISER
So that's about 140, 150 years. So they are sturdy. They're also dirty.
Yes. (laughing)
Yeah, you smell it.
APPRAISER
That's a problem, in a certain sense, but it can be remedied. There are three textiles here. They represent three weaving traditions of the Southwest. So this is a Navajo woman's wearing blanket. It's called a chief blanket style.
GUEST
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER
A prestige blanket, with the reason why we're referring to it as a woman's blanket is because the brown and white stripes are very narrow. Men had big, broad bands or stripes of white and brown. This is a child's blanket, much smaller. It has just a traditional pattern of stripes, which is a designs pattern that was incorporated by the Navajo from the Pueblo people. And here we have a Pueblo woman's manta from the pueblo of Hopi in Arizona.
GUEST
Okay.
APPRAISER
The materials are critical here. This is all-natural wool raised by the Navajo. The red in this is an aniline red. It's something that was provided by the traders to the Navajo.
GUEST
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER
It's after vegetal and natural dyes were no longer being utilized, so that helps date this.
GUEST
Okay.
APPRAISER
Right around the 1870s.
GUEST
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER
This is a really, really innovative textile. Here you have four pointed crosses.
GUEST
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER
This is typically representative of the four Sacred Directions. But here, you have an amazing complex zigzag design. This design is of indigo, and that's a very, very desirable pigment. You have indigo here. You have indigo also, a different shade, in the child's blanket. This whole panel here is also indigo. Each of these textiles are in rather rough condition. But these are indigenous wearing garments...
GUEST
Right.
APPRAISER
Of the Old West. On the woman's second-phase transitional wearing blanket, I would put a retail value of between $4,500 and $5,500.
GUEST
Wow.
APPRAISER
On the child's blanket, I would value this in the $3,500 to $4,500 range.
GUEST
Nice.
APPRAISER
And on the woman's Hopi manta, I would value this in the range of $3,500 to $4,500.
GUEST
(laughing): I'm glad I saved it from the trash.
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