Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: I purchased this at an estate auction a number of years ago.

APPRAISER: Right, okay, was it was it an auction (stammering) or a... where people auctioned publicly?

Or... Or more of a tag sale?

GUEST: More of a tag sale.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: Um, I was the first one there that day.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: And when I went in, I picked it up, and I, I loved it.

APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: I, I thought I had something that would be pretty valuable... APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: ...just because I had eight or ten dealers following me around, hoping I would put it down.

APPRAISER: You did end up buying it, um for a fairly good price.

Was it...?

GUEST: Um... I think I paid a little over $100 for it... APPRAISER: Okay.

All right.

GUEST: ...at the time I purchased it.

APPRAISER: Okay.

Well, I think it's a wonderful little chest of drawers, and it's actually a miniature pro-probably made for a child; a lucky little child.

And probably made in New England, north of Boston.

It's made of mahogany.

And the drawer pulls are actually brass.

And above the drawer, you see this little line of rosewood actually veneered onto the front of the mahogany.

And each drawer actually has this diamond pattern of satinwood with patterned stringing, this really fine stringing, which you can see right over here.

And I, I want to take this drawer out.

I love this, because the secondary woods are all white pine.

This is white pine, which is typical of New England, of a New England piece.

And this has these, these inscriptions of probably the early owners.

And this one says "S.L."

and then you can, you can't really read the name, but the other one here says "S.L.

Wright, 1836."

And then J... what "J.C.

Sweet, 1861."

Do you know my mother's maiden name is Sweet?

GUEST: Oh, makes it interesting.

APPRAISER: So I think it's appropriate that I should have this, don't you think?

No?

GUEST: (laughs) APPRAISER: I mean, uh, just keep it in the fa get it back in the family.

GUEST: Oh, I don't know!

I love this.

APPRAISER: Okay.. GUEST: Um APPRAISER: �I, I'll understand if you don't give it to me.

But... (chuckles) But and then finally you have this date of 1913.

And I, I think it's wonderful to see this kind of, uh, progression of ownership.

These children might have written their names or their parents might have written their names there.

Yeah.

GUEST: Now, would this been for a very wealthy child?

APPRAISER: I think it was very probably a wealthy child, because of the woods involved.

You have this mahogany and the satinwood.

The-the skirt is shaped in a typical federal way, the way that large chests were shaped.

An adult's chest would have looked just like this with a shaped skirt on the end.

You have the shaping.

You have a scalloped apron with what they would have called a bracket, a bracket foot.

In the back, if we turn it around the back, we see this nice oxidized piece of white pine, which is not faked.

It's all authentic.

It's absolutely right.

If I scratch it like this, you can see it makes a little white mark.

And that shows that it's real oxidation.

It hasn't been stained up or faked.

So it really has a lot going for it.

The fact that this is American makes it quite rare.

And the fact that it dates from about 1820 to 1830 makes it even rarer.

As an American piece, it's worth at the very minimum, about $2,000.

So I wonder if the guys that followed you around that day would, um, are watching this and saying, there's that lady GUEST: (laughs) APPRAISER: that got that chest away from us, that miniature chest, there she is, do you think they are?

They could be.

GUEST: They could be.

APPRAISER: Uh-oh, okay.

GUEST: It pays to be first in line.

APPRAISER: Absolutely.

GUEST: At-at estate sales.

APPRAISER: Congratulations for being first in line and getting a sleeper at a, at a tag sale.