Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

Mary Betty Binkley lived next to my family growing up, and she was the sister of the artist Ric Binkley. We took care of her as, as she continued to get old, and, and then, as she was moving into a nursing home, she said to my mom, "I'm not sure what to do with these. I guess you, you could just throw them away." My mom said, "There's not a chance we're going to do that. They're just way too beautiful." And so Mary Betty gave them to my mom to give to me.

APPRAISER

Well, in illustration art, there are so many different niches. There's pin-up art.

GUEST

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER

There's children's book illustration. But sci-fi is really a big area lately.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

And there's been a resurgence in the interest in this. You have some that already have the book covers on them, identifying the name of the book, who the author was. And then what I like about these is that they're all Avalon, which is the primary publishing house that he worked for. Because he died early, he's one of the lesser-known illustrators, but that doesn't make him any less wonderful in the work of art. Um, what, um, is so interesting in this particular market is that 50% of the value is the artist and 50% of the value is the author.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

So if these weren't sort of B paperbacks, um...

GUEST

Right.

APPRAISER

If it was Arthur Clarke or Isaac Asimov, that would add also to the value of the works.

GUEST

I see.

APPRAISER

So the ones that are easily identified to a particular paperback cover, those in his range would be between $2,000 and $3,000 at auction.

GUEST

Wow, wow.

APPRAISER

Now, these, if we can identify them to a certain book...

GUEST

Uh-huh, right.

APPRAISER

They'd be the same value.

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

If, of course, you can't, and they're just illustrations in the marketplace... Right....they're going to be about half the cost.

GUEST

I see, wow.

APPRAISER

These are extraordinarily collectible. Thank you so much for saving them.

GUEST

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.