Antiques Roadshow

CORAL PEA: We've got some brand-new follow-ups in store for you.

"Roadshow" stories that didn't stop even after we yelled "cut."

That took my breath away.

Our eyes both lit up and I went, "Oh, my-- this is a big deal."

PEA: It's "Antiques Roadshow: Extraordinary Finds 3."

How much did you say again?

APPRAISER: I said at $20,000 to $30,000.

PEA: At "Antiques Roadshow," we're always keeping an eye out for what's happened with some of our show's most extraordinary finds after our cameras left town.

I, I was flabbergasted.

My chin just hit the floor.

PEA: From dazzling diamonds... Tell us what it is.

Well, it's a red diamond.

(laughing): I'm like, "Yeah, right."

You just-- we don't see red diamonds.

PEA: To peculiar paintings...

I like the weird stuff, and this definitely qualified.

PEA: To some of the true legends of baseball.

APPRAISER: They're among the best examples of these signed baseballs ever found.

PEA: "Roadshow" reveals the surprising journeys of some very intriguing treasures.

(hammer banging) Sold.

PEA: In an all-new hour of extraordinary finds.

I felt like I was in convulsions (laughing): when you told me what the price was.

(chuckles) I was going... (laughs) PEA: At the Albuquerque "Roadshow" in 2014, Debra Force met a guest named Carol who brought in a mysterious painting called "The Answer" that posed some intriguing questions.

But what happened afterwards has left a smile on everyone's face.

In... golly, I guess it was 1963, I did my junior year in Madrid, Spain.

Mm-hmm.

And I lived right close to the Joaqun Sorolla Museum in Madrid.

Mm-hm.

I just fell in love with this.

Mm-hmm.

Because it reminded me of Joaqun Sorolla.

Oh, how wonderful.

You know, the-the light and the-- Spain, and, and... so I just fell in love with her.

And I've lived with her for, golly, almost 50 years.

Jane Peterson did not really paint figure works like this.

Some of her best known pieces were done on the piers in New England on Gloucester and areas like that, but she rarely focuses on just one sitter.

It was just overall an exciting work.

The label on the back tells us the title, and it's called "The Answer," and it's very mysterious.

I guess she's perhaps writing an answer to someone.

It almost looks like her beads have broken.

Yea-- they do, they do.

It looks like the chain is broken.

I was wondering if she was so pensive that maybe she was writing a Dear John letter or maybe she had received a Dear... what, whoever her name is.

Whatever.

(laughs) Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

The owner, Carol, was very excited about this painting, and she kept referring to the painting as Jane, meaning for Jane Peterson.

So it was, it was quite charming, and we, we hit it off, actually, quite well.

Carol is, is going to arrive shortly and I'm very excited to see her, to talk about this painting, which was so near and dear to her heart.

You said you purchased it unframed, did you not?

Yes.

As I recall, I paid $150 for it.

$150?

I think that a gallery in New York would be asking $300,000.

Where's a chair?

(both laugh) Now I need that chair.

CAROL (voiceover): Knowing the value, it was almost disturbing.

I finally talked to my children, and I said, "I've always loved this painting.

"I know you've lived with it all your life.

Do you want it?"

And they said, "Gee, Mom, no, I don't think so," given what, what the value was."

So I called Debra, right?

Yes.

I picked up the phone and went-- (pleading): "Debra!"

(both laugh) "Help!"

I was very excited to hear from her, because I loved this painting.

After I did the, the spot in Albuquerque, I had no idea that I would be called by Carol, to, uh, to talk about selling the painting.

We sold it close to our $300,000 mark.

I have colleagues who have sold some of the Gloucester pictures for this amount of money or more.

But this would be the most valuable Peterson that I have-- I've ever sold.

My son, who lives in Albuquerque, we were taking a walk, and we saw... these fields of the geese... Mm.

...and they were like open fields in the North Valley.

There was property for sale.

It was a total of three acres.

"Jane" actually helped me purchase land and build a house, where I'm living now.

That's wonderful.

I love the painting, but, ya know, you can't take it with ya.

May she live a very long time.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, I'm sure she will.

She will certainly outlast us.

(laughs) (laughing): Yeah.

That's true.

PEA: The next guest always thought her colorful family heirloom looked like pirates treasure.

But little did she know just how precious her jewel-encrusted cuff really was, until she met collectibles expert Laura Woolley in Middletown, Connecticut.

WOOLLEY (voiceover): I will never forget 2021, Wadsworth Mansion in Connecticut, 'cause I think this is my favorite piece that I've ever looked at on "Roadshow."

GUEST: Well, my mother gave it to me as a wedding present about 20 years ago.

It had been a gift to my mother from her great aunt Helen Hayes.

And there's this wonderful gift card, I guess, that she put with it.

Yes.

Why-why don't you read how she...

So my mother's name is Anni, and she says, "Darling Anni, your Uncle Charlie "picked this as a gift for me years ago.

"I want you to have it, "sort of as a gift of love from both of us.

Devotedly, Aunt Helen."

What do you know about it?

I know almost nothing about it.

I had a friend who sort of intimated that it was costume jewelry, and stones were glass.

And then I showed someone a photograph of it, and they said, "Well, you know, those stones, I think they're real, and I'll give you $1,000 for it."

And I said, "It's a family heirloom.

I don't think I'd sell it for $1,000."

So I'm not a gemologist, and I don't normally handle jewelry on the "Antiques Roadshow."

But it was sent over to me because the background of this piece was really interesting and had a Hollywood connection, which is normally the kind of stuff that I'd be doing.

The guest inherited it from her great aunt, Helen Hayes, who is the grande dame of the American stage and has had a long, storied career.

I think she did her first play in 1905, and she was working through the '80s on television.

So she just had one of the most historic careers in Hollywood.

Our guest actually was in touch with us and told us that she found a photograph of Helen Hayes wearing the cuff.

We already knew, based on the provenance and her story, that it was who she said it was.

But to find the photo is kind of the icing on the cake.

This is a design that was quite famous in the '30s, because-- this is a very long name-- Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura, was the designer who started working with Chanel... Mm-hmm.

...in 1927 as a textile designer.

And she liked his, his look and his, uh, designs, and Chanel put him to work to help her redesign her jewelry line.

And so he famously-- one of the first pieces he made for her was a pair of Maltese cross bracelets... Mm-hmm.

...that look just like this.

Kind of the birth of Chanel's jewelry really starts with Verdura.

She first tasked him with taking some jewels from other pieces of her jewelry to create something new, and this is how he repurposed.

He created the Maltese crosses.

While I understood the background and the history of this piece, I knew that we needed to pull in some friends.

And so we pulled in Kevin Zavian, who is a gemologist, and I will never forget.

He sat down, got his little kit out, and he had his loupe, and he was very quiet, and he was kind of writing tons of notes on a little pad.

All of a sudden, he stood up, and he looked at me, and he went, "It's all real!"

And our eyes both lit up, and I went, "Oh, my-- this-this is a big deal.

This is gonna be a big deal."

And he goes, "It's beautiful."

(laughs) To say that this is a rare piece is an understatement.

We think a very conservative auction estimate would be at least $100,000 to $150,000.

(clicks tongue) Goodness.

Oh, my word.

What a treasure, what a treasure.

And to think it's been to my third grade show-and-tell class.

(laughs) When I was a little girl, it was-- my mother would take it out, and it was as if I were handling something from a pirate's treasure chest, and... you brought that feeling back to me today.

WOOLLEY (voiceover): And the next thing I know, in 2023, someone told me that Bonhams in New York City had sold the, the bracelet on, uh,... their jewelry auction December 4.

Attributed to Chanel for Vedura, a gem set, an enamel Maltese cross cuff, circa 1930, in France.

And coming from the collection of such an iconic Hollywood name, Helen Hayes, I am going to open this up at... $100,000.

We never thought that this was worth $100,000 to $150,000 only.

That's the starting point.

And everyone can line up and start getting their paddles ready to compete for it.

The bid is with you at $340,000.

I'm selling, everyone, $340,000.

Say no more.

Last chance.

$340,000.

(hammer bangs) Sold.

WOOLLEY: I wasn't surprised at all.

It's the, the kind of piece that, um... will probably come up once in my lifetime.

PEA: And now, sports memorabilia expert Leila Dunbar pitches a story of two baseballs.

On the "Antiques Roadshow," we've been very lucky to get two fabulous signed baseballs by Hall of Fame greats.

What did these baseballs have in common, other than they had some Hall of famers on them?

Well, they're among the best examples of these signed baseballs ever found.

PEA: One Leila found in Filoli in 2022, after it had stayed tucked away in storage for over a decade.

DUNBAR: Walter Johnson was known as the Big Train, because he had this blazing fastball.

And in fact, when he debuted as a rookie, way back in the early 1900s, Ty Cobb said that his fastball hissed like danger.

Walter Johnson was probably the best pitcher of the 20th century.

He pitched for the Washington Senators for 21 seasons.

They only won one world championship in 1924, and he was largely responsible for it.

He is the Babe Ruth of pitching, and that's why a collector would want to have his signature on a baseball.

I've seen a number of Johnson-signed baseballs over the years, but they all tend to be a bit scuffed up.

Normally, a Johnson baseball would sell for between $5,000 and $15,000, but this one looked like it just came out of storage and been signed yesterday.

It was magnificent.

It was the best known example of its type.

I would put an auction estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.

Oh, my God.

(shocked chuckle) I cannot believe that.

That is crazy.

I believe this would sell for at least $100,000.

Oh, my gosh.

That is insane.

(soft chuckle) It's just insane.

Well, I'm thrilled, obviously.

(laughing): Just shaking.

That is crazy, thank you so much.

A year later, the segment ran on "Antiques Roadshow" in 2023.

And I got a call, and the owner asked if I could help her with selling the ball.

She chose an auction house, Lelands, to sell it through, and they put the auction estimate, as you can imagine, at $60,000 to $80,000.

On the last day of the sale, I remember looking at it, and it was-- I think, at that time, about $65,000.

And I thought, "Well, this is great.

"This is going to be in line with what I had appraised it for."

The next morning, I wake up, I look at the results, and I nearly fell over when I saw that it sold for $315,000.

So I knew the owner was very pleased, the auction house was very pleased, and I was very pleased as well.

2023, shortly after the sale of the Walter Johnson-signed baseball, I got a call from another guest, a gentleman named Craig, who had actually been to "Roadshow" in 2014, in West Virginia.

And he had brought in a baseball that had been signed by Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Al Simmons, and George Earnshaw.

CRAIG: I was out in the mid-'90s visiting my grandmother, introducing her to her latest grandson, and she asked me if I still played baseball, and I said I did.

She went into the back room, we heard some drawers opening and closing.

She came back, she tossed me the ball, and I looked at it, and I was-- I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I asked my mom, "Is this real?"

And she said, "I've never seen it before."

So, uh, my grandfather actually met these individuals uh, in the mid-'30s, and it's been sitting in a drawer ever since.

We believe that this ball was signed in 1933.

Okay.

By Babe Ruth.

Okay.

And also by Hall of Famer Honus Wagner and Al Simmons.

Honus Wagner, the great shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Right.

Al Simmons, great outfielder for the Athletics.

Like the Walter Johnson-signed baseball, it was spectacular.

The signatures were absolutely fantastic.

So much so that when the "Roadshow" reran the segment, I actually increased the value to $85,000.

When Craig called, he had seen both the revised segment and the Johnson auction.

And at that time, as you might imagine, he was interested in selling the Ruth, Wagner, Simmons, and Earnshaw-signed baseball.

I told him at the time that he should speak with Lelands, because they had done so well with the Walter Johnson-signed baseball, and the baseball ended up selling for just over $100,000.

People always ask me, "How do you get value in a signed baseball?

"Why are these baseballs "selling for much more money than, say, "a Mickey Mantle-signed baseball-- "also a great Hall of Famer of his era.

Or a Joe DiMaggio?"

Well, the answer is actually very simple.

It's a matter of eras.

In the 1970s, the baseball market grew dramatically because it was the era of the advent of signing shows and baseball card shows.

So this gave retired Hall of Famers like Mantle and DiMaggio and Mays and soon-to-be-retired Aaron and Ted Williams an opportunity to go to shows, sign their name, and make a lot of money, often in cash.

Your Hall of Famers who passed away well before the era of the signing shows, so their baseballs are in far fewer supply.

You can sum it up in one slightly crude phrase-- "deader is better" when it comes to value.

(chuckles) PEA: Appraiser Aaron Bastian had a truly surreal experience at the Sacramento Roadshow in 2019, proving that bigger is not always better in works of art, especially when it came to this peculiar pocket-sized painting.

About halfway through the day, a very small painting came to the table, and it initially came to a colleague of mine, Alan Fausel.

Alan knows that I like the weird stuff, and this definitely qualified.

GUEST: When I was a little kid, my parents got it at a yard sale in Chicago.

They saw this there for five dollars, and they just had to get it.

Do you know when your parents bought it?

Well, I was about one at the time, so I think, like '98, '99.

Well, the painting is by an artist named, uh, Gertrude Abercrombie.

It's signed and dated 1945.

She is known as a... a bit of a Bohemian artist, a Surrealist, and she worked in Chicago, so...

Okay.

Makes sense that you would find it there.

She's known for these Surrealist paintings.

She considered them somewhat of a self-portrait.

And we know that.

She said that, I'm not making it up.

(both chuckle) In this particular painting, we can see the owl, and we also have the cup on the table there, the proverbial witch's brew.

Mm-hmm.

She had trouble with alcohol as well, so I-I think we see aspects of her vision of herself as kind of a, a witch, a character outside of, uh, the normal.

That's really interesting.

This particular work is very unique to... her vision, that-that sort of surrealism.

It's very personal.

It reflects things that she thought about herself, things that were important to her, things that she thought symbolized her.

She felt like she looked like a witch.

She exaggerated that by dressing sometimes like a witch.

I mean, the whole nine yards.

I think at auction, even though it's only four by five inches, we would give it an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.

Wow, wow.

Th-that's a lot.

More than five.

(laughs) That's...

I would-- I would've guessed like maybe $35.

Yeah.

Wow.

Her work is quite rare, and it's also on a major upswing.

I don't surprise easily, but... (chuckling): I was pretty surprised.

So, we taped the show in 2019, and in 2020, Benjamin reached back out to me.

He decided that he wanted to sell it.

He had some concerns about the work, uh, possibly being destroyed in a wildfire.

He asked me if I could help find it a home in an auction setting, and I said, absolutely.

The auction ended up taking place online in November of 2020.

We all kind of, like, gathered in the living room of my parents' house, kind of all gathered around the TV.

We connected a computer to it, and then watched it through there.

There was a lot of interest in the work.

A number of bidders took part in the process, and, uh, ultimately, at the end of the day, it made $22,000.

I can't tell you who bought the one in Bonhams in New York.

They're almost always sold anonymously and they're bought anonymously.

Subsequent to the sale of the work, there was a show at the, uh, Carnegie in 2021, of-- of just Gertrude Abercrombie's work, a solo show, which was a big deal, and that's just increased her fame.

She was in a system where women were not going to get the same chance to have shows in galleries and museums.

And so, it took a while for everybody to maybe come around to the quality of the work, and we're seeing the results at auction go up and up and up and up.

PEA: We know that after a visit to "Roadshow," most guests simply take their treasures home and put them away.

Not so in the story of a small, rusty metal sign from a significant 1949 concert and its connection to folk legend and civil rights activist Pete Seeger.

GUEST (voiceover): It was 2014, and I came to Charleston, West Virginia, and brought along with me my, uh, my sign.

I went to an antique store in Rosendale, New York, Mm-hmm.

Not far from Peekskill, on the other side of the river, and I, uh, happened to see it in there and didn't think much of it when I first saw it.

Mm-hmm.

It wasn't until... Mm.

a couple months later, after reading Pete's book... Mm-hmm.

And realizing that the Peekskill riots had happened, and I said, "Why does that ring a bell?"

(chuckles) Peekskill Drive-In.

I was friends with Pete most of my adult life.

He recently passed.

I was at his bedside when he passed... Uh-huh.

And, uh, spent many fun times with him, sailing, singing.

Mm-hmm.

I probably got this signed in... 2008?

Mm-hmm.

Something like that.

The Hollowbrook Drive-In incident with Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson is kind of an infamous segment in American history.

Both he and Pete Seeger were politically interested, and they were for the rights of, of the unions, rights of freedom in America.

The concert was originally scheduled a few days earlier, and protest rallies caused it to be shut down, but they weren't gonna be moved, so they reorganized it for September 4, 1949.

And that was held in a drive-in theater.

this drive-in theater here.

An organizer put together this show with the legendary performer Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger and others.

While the literal event was held for the support of the unions, it really was in support of, what would be called leftist at that time, ideas, and-and goals for justice, for all people.

And Peekskill at the time was a pretty conservative town.

It was... basically putting on this event in the lion's den, and those people who were not in favor of that were not having this.

Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson and others were basically attacked by an angry mob.

It got physical.

At the end of the show, the motorcades started to leave, and I believe that Paul had gone ahead of Pete, that his car had.

They were each in separate cars.

What the people who were against it did is they basically channeled everyone to leave down this gauntlet.

And there were literally... Piles of rocks the size of grapefruits, on both sides of the road, and people just stoned every car that went outta there.

I do know what happened to Pete's car-- Every window in his car was busted out by rocks.

One of the rocks came through the window and missed his son's head by inches.

One of the men in the motorcade lost his eye.

It was really a violent time.

To look at this sign-- there's condition issues, but it's an icon from American history.

The value on it at auction is $2,000 to $3,000.

Holy cannoli.

(laughing): Really?

Good-good find, good signature.

GUEST: Shortly after the show aired, I was contacted by a woman named Deana McCloud, who I knew sort of in the world of folk music.

When I was the founding executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, I was preparing to curate an exhibit about Pete Seeger.

And she called me, and said, "Hey, Tom, I saw you on TV."

I was watching it, and saw this "holy cannoli" guy, and thought, "that is a perfect addition to this exhibit."

Fast forward to this new iteration of curating exhibits for the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame.

And of course, we wanted to include things from the founders of this music.

So, I contacted my friend Tom again.

He has loaned this to us on a long-term basis so that it can be a permanent exhibit here at the Hall of Fame in Boston.

It may be just a tin sign, but it's not just a tin sign, right?

That's true.

Uh, it represents something so much deeper, and we have to share the history of where we come from to the new generation.

Otherwise, how will they ever know the importance of this, "just a sign"?

To think that the sign is here with other important artifacts.

I get a smile on my face knowing that, 'cause what good is it hanging in my, my office?

PEA: At the Nashville "Roadshow" in 2022, decorative arts expert Jason Preston was dazzled by the design of an Art Deco tea and coffee service the guest had bought from his neighbor decades ago.

What happened next took everyone to new heights.

PRESTON: I recall that day very vividly.

We'd seen a lot of stuff at the decorative arts and silver table, but I hadn't seen anything truly special yet.

Sometimes you can kind of see something approaching in the line, but I didn't see this till it was just set in front of me.

GUEST: This is a silver plate set that I purchased in San Francisco.

A elderly neighbor of ours decided to move into a retirement home, so she called my husband and I and said she was selling her wares.

My husband went, he asked her how much she wanted, and she said $25.

In what year?

1985, '86.

This is an Art Deco tea and coffee service.

We have a coffee pot, teapot, covered, double-handled sugar bowl, and a cream pitcher on a matching tray.

This is an iconic example of Jazz Age design, influenced by the architecture, music, and culture of the time.

This is called the Skyscraper... Mm-hmm.

...tea and coffee service.

It's by a company called Bernard Rice's Sons, and it was designed specifically by Louis Rice.

The term "skyscraper" comes from the architectural shape of the objects.

Louis Rice designed this, and it debuted in 1928.

That's why this object is so important in the canon of 20th century design, because it almost presaged the most famous Art Deco skyscrapers that we think of-- the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building.

If this were to go to auction, I believe they would put a conservative auction estimate of $15,000 to $25,000 on it.

Wow.

(chuckles) Wow.

Uh...

It's amazing, thank you.

(soft chuckle) Wow, I can't wait to tell everybody, so... (chuckles) (voice breaking): I mean, I-- Makes me a bit... Any... anyway.

Choked up.

(soft chuckle) GUEST (voiceover): After it aired, the comments were "You look like you're about to cry."

And I said, "I was about to cry."

(laughs) Since we filmed the appraisal segment, Dan and his husband made the decision to part with the tea set.

It was a big emotional decision, because we loved the set.

It was a gift to me, but... in reality, it was time to part with it.

They contacted me, and I had a good idea of a good place for them to go with this: a specialist in 20th century design that I had worked with at another auction house.

I referred Dan to my colleague, and it went into a specialty auction of 20th century design in March of 2023.

We could not go, but we did watch it online.

This is an incredibly rare piece.

It has, almost never comes up with so many pieces intact, and the condition is absolutely marvelous.

We will start here at... $10,000 for this one.

At $10,000 for the set.

I have $25,000.

$28,000.

In a new spot at $28,000-- $30,000.

When it surpassed what Jason told us, uh, I was sitting, Tom was standing next to me, and I looked at him and said, "You better sit down."

(chuckles) $54,000 going twice... And selling for $54,000.

(hammer bangs) We went, "Holy crap."

(laughs) "What-what just happened here?"

It hammered around $54,000.

So with the auction house's buyer's premium, that makes the total price paid by the buyer $68,415.

The seller gets the hammer price less the seller's commission; that's retained by the auction house.

So Dan and Tom would have received less than the hammer price, but not a great deal less.

When we sent it to auction, we were hoping... that a museum or some sort of art institute would-would purchase it.

It turned out to be the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

For it to be there, to me, is very special, because we lived there for many years, and a very, very close emotional attachment to San Francisco.

PRESTON: It's so special to know that it's put on public display for everyone who comes to the museum to see it and learn about this really iconic piece of 20th century design.

PEA: A visit to the 2018 Tulsa Roadshow had Jim, our colorful guest, seeing red in a good way, after showing his very unusual diamond to jewelry expert Kevin Zavian, Jim had made a big bet on this little stone.

It is a roll of the dice.

I know it.

And you look like a gambler.

I am.

(laughs) PEA: And Kevin sent him home with some high stakes homework to do.

First, tell us what it is.

Well, it's a red diamond.

Right, which is the rarest of all the colors.

Yup.

The blues, the greens, the yellows-- red's the rarest.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

ZAVIAN (voiceover): This big dude walks in, cowboy hat.

He just had a presence.

You have something to show me?

"Yeah, I got a red diamond."

(chuckling): I'm like, yeah, right.

You just-- we don't see red diamonds.

You paid how much for it?

$35,000.

Yeah, I-I don't think it's crazy; it is a roll of the dice.

I know it.

You look like a gambler.

I am.

(laughs) This is the kind of thing that can easily, if it's right... Yeah.

...cause it's-it's one of those things, you throw it up and see what sticks.

But it could easily double, or triple what you paid for it.

Holy crap.

It's not that big.

It's only half a carat.

The thing with these is today they gotta have certificates.

I realize that.

I just don't have time to get one yet.

You-you gotta get one.

(voiceover): And the certificate has to come from this lab, they're in New York and California, called the G.I.A.

; Gemological Institute of America.

A stone could be yellow, but it could be vivid yellow, intense yellow.

It could be light yellow, it could be fancy yellow.

There's so many variables.

The best result would be from the lab; vivid red.

Wow.

I mean, crazy numbers.

So rare.

Really, you almost have to go to a museum to see some of the finest examples.

Well, son of a gun.

The guy with the big hat went and got a certificate.

I really didn't know I was gonna see you again.

When they-- when they called me up and they said, "Jim's coming in.

"He took your advice.

You told him to go get a cert, and he did."

I love the fact that you made a-a ring out of it that you're gonna wear.

JIM: Try and decide what I was gonna do, 'cause you have to take it out of the ring to send it off.

And my one sister-in-law, my daughters, and they said, "Dad, make a ring.

Mom would be proud."

We had 46 good years.

I lost her about ten years ago.

Aw.

So you went and got a certificate on the diamond.

27 years of doing this show, (laughing): you're the first person that went and got the certificate that I know about.

It weighs 0.37 carats.

So a little bigger than a third of a carat, right?

It says "fancy deep orangy pink."

I guess technically it's not a red diamond.

It's not.

It sure looks red, but they're like the Bible when it comes to this.

Yeah.

And it's fancy deep orangy pink.

Pink, okay.

As rare as reds are, pinks are kind of rare, too.

Yeah.

You paid a lot of money and I asked you if you were a gambler and you said yes.

Well, I got news for you.

I don't think you paid too much.

Good.

You bought it retail.

Mm-hm.

And I'm gonna give this a-a retail price, if you had to go buy it again today.

Okay.

I would say to go out and buy this stone, even with the orangey pink, it's not red.

But I would say you probably have to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 to $70,000 to replace this today.

Okay.

You still have a rare stone.

I'm proud of it.

You know, when you get to 81 years old, certain things stick with you.

And I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be around, but this is gonna be one of my high points.

PEA: And now, from a ring to a king.

When rare books expert Devon Eastland discovered a tattered old copy of Shakespeare's "King Lear" in Vermont in 2022, she could hardly believe her eyes.

And thankfully, what happened after the show was no tragedy.

EASTLAND: It was later in the afternoon.

A box of books shows up and, and the guest started taking the books out.

The first one was not very interesting.

And then he had a very, uh, worn, skinny, small, unimportant looking book that was also browned with a bad title page.

But it was a Shakespeare.

GUEST: I brought a book that was part of a collection that my grandfather amassed, and it's just been coming down through the family.

A very eclectic collection.

But this is one that I thought was-was more interesting; it's a-- an edition of William Shakespeare's "King Lear."

I first remember the-the books in my grandfather's house.

In his den, he had a shelf about two feet long of old books.

EASTLAND: What you brought is the third quarto edition of "King Lear" by William Shakespeare, uh, printed by Jane Bell in 1655.

When I was looking it up, I found that the last copy of the 1655 Jane Bell quarto, "King Lear," that sold at auction sold in 1946.

Really?

And nothing since.

Wow.

Nothing since, and before that, there was a dealer's catalog, maybe from the '20s, nothing else.

So then I looked it up in a bibliography to see how many copies there are in libraries.

And there are only ten copies in the U.S. Really?

And seven in England, which is also really rare.

Wow.

There are definitely plays that there are 50 copies from the same period, you know, or 30 copies.

And when you look in the auction record, you'll see them, even if it's every ten years or so, one or two come up.

At auction, I would conservatively say $10,000 to $15,000.

Really?

Yes.

Wow.

For this dirty little book.

Well, I knew it was unusual, but I had no idea.

GUEST (voiceover): That was certainly more than we had ever expected.

My wife and I went home and we talked about this.

And it was our conclusion that that was such a rare book, that it shouldn't be sitting on our dining room shelf, that it should be part of a collection or part of a library or part of a museum or something like that.

I contacted Devon and told her what we wanted to do and she said that the best way to do that would be to put it up for auction in an auction that specialized in ancient books.

And she was having one coming up.

So we consigned the book to... to, uh, Swann Galleries and we watched the auction.

AUCTIONEER: I can open the bidding on this one at... ...$10,000, $11,000, $12,000.

$12,000 is bid.

$12,000 with order bidders-- $13,000.

It was $10,000 to 15,000, we were off and running.

It wasn't very exciting at the beginning.

We moved up into like, you know, $20,000.

We're doing $2,000 increments, so it's $20,000, $22,000.

At that point I started rooting for it.

$24,000, $26,000.

Come on, you can make $20,000!

You can make $25,000.

I mean, at the end, it was just these two phones and it went for $46,000.

And then the way auctions work, because we are middle people, we charge the buyer 25% premium on top.

So the person who bought it ended up paying $57,500.

I was just absolutely flabbergasted, just blown away.

Nev-never could have anticipated that at all.

And, uh, just didn't know what to say.

(stammering) And-and still don't.

I would have been thrilled just to have had that first experience in Vermont.

But it makes it really special to have been able to contribute something to the book and to its journey along the way.

So it's definitely my favorite appraisal and my favorite object that I've, that I've had a chance to, uh, to film on "Roadshow," for sure.

I know everyone's been asking me, and at the table, all I wanted to say was, "What's in the box?"

PEA: In 2017, a guest headed to "Roadshow" in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with surely one of the most bizarre items collectibles expert James Supp has ever unboxed.

SUPP (voiceover): I tend to specialize in the odd, strange and obscure things.

And it takes a certain kind of insanity, frankly, to talk about weird props or weird cultural pop icons from obscure things.

I don't know if anyone has heard of Willie Sutton.

He was a famous bank robber, well-known bank robber.

He was also well-known for breaking out of prisons.

This was his that he used in an attempted breakout.

He had made this himself in prison.

It is such a TV show and movie trope of prisoners, uh, making these fake dummy heads and dummy bodies to aid in their escape.

So they'll put together a bunch of pillows and put 'em in their bed while they try to escape.

Well, these are actually based on real facts, which is crazy to me.

And this particular escape head, uh, belonged to Willie Sutton, who was kind of a gentleman thief.

He had reportedly robbed over 100 banks.

He had escaped successfully from prison three times.

And this is a dummy head and dummy hand that he used in an unsuccessful escape from prison.

Yes.

And the prison was run by your grandfather?

Yes.

After he was released, uh, from the Eastern Penitentiary, they sent it up to the Camp Hill prison where my grandfather was located, and then he simply kept it upon his retirement.

Now, reportedly, what Sutton had done was over the course of several months, possibly even years, he made this false head using hair from the barbershop.

And this is actually real human hair.

Same with the eyelashes.

As far as the plaster, I heard he went to the dentist a lot.

(laughs) SUPP (voiceover): This prison escape head was a masterwork.

If you look at pictures of Willie Sutton, this head really looks like him.

He fashioned this wonderful head.

And left it in his bed, left in the hand, clutching a corner of the bed sheet.

You know what happened that night when he tried to escape?

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, two other inmates in another area of the prison also attempted to escape at that point, at about the same time.

And that set off all the bells and whistles and alarms.

He ran back to his cell.

This escape attempt was in August of 1941.

Yes.

And it was just a few years later when he-- that-- managed to finally escape for several years.

And in 1950, he was actually the 11th person to be added to the FBI's Most Wanted list.

There's not a lot of these things that were used by prisoners to help them escape come up for auction.

Without the box and the provenance of the label on the box, it's just a creepy, plaster head.

We were able to give it a very conservative auction estimate of $2,500 to $3,500.

Wow, that's nice.

That's very nice.

That's surprising.

One of the cool things about it is we were able to find photographs of the escape head, the hand, being held by the superintendent of the prison.

We saw it photographed in place in Willie Sutton's cell.

You cannot get better documentation than that, and that is the kind of documentation we live for.

As an appraiser, we can't always be right.

We can give an opinion of value.

And with the Willie Sutton head, I will wholeheartedly admit I was wrong in the value.

That was way low; and over the last few years, I've often wondered whatever happened to the head.

And recently the owner sent us a couple of photos, and it looks like he's still having fun with it.

But I know that if it came up on the market today, it'd be worth far more than the $2,500 or $3,500 that I originally appraised it for.

It would be more in the $20,000, $25,000 range.

PEA: At a 2021 "Roadshow" in Connecticut, sports aficionado Simeon Lipman found a hundred-year-old calendar that had somehow survived well into extra innings, and wound up providing one lucky collector with quite a windfall.

Wow...

It's a 1917 baseball calendar.

I-I found it online.

It was found on a back of a door in a barn.

And if you know anything about the Red Sox, they won in 1915 and 1916, as indicated on the calendar.

So what we have here is a promotional calendar for Bunker Hill Breweries... Mm-hmm.

...for P.B., Purest and Best, ale.

SUPP (voiceover): That beer company actually went defunct not long after that calendar was produced.

So it's not like there was a long tradition of these calendars out there.

That's why it was so rare.

That's why I'd never seen one before.

It features the Boston Red Sox team.

What makes this calendar very special is, as you said, it's kind of commemorating the 1915-1916 championships.

We have, uh, several great players of the era.

SUPP (voiceover): I remember Tris Speaker being on there and Harry Hooper.

I knew if it was from 1917, Babe Ruth was on there somewhere, and he certainly was.

What did you pay for this calendar?

It was a little more than I wanted to spend at the time.

I-I remember it around $200, $250, and then it cost me close to that to frame it.

GUEST (voiceover): My mother was just off camera, and she thinks I'm crazy for collecting a lot of things.

And, you know, "Why did you buy that?

Why do you want that?"

And I was like, it's just a cool old piece.

And I figured it's probably worth $500.

That's what I was told.

At auction, we'd estimate this at $20,000 to $30,000.

Really?

Yeah.

(exhales) $20,000?

Yeah, $20,000 to $30,000.

To $30,000?

Auction estimate.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a spectacular early Babe Ruth piece.

That's what makes it so special.

Yes.

(laughing): How much did you say again?

(chuckling): I said it; $20,000 to $30,000.

Yeah.

(exhales) (chortles) (chuckles) Did you hear that?

$20,000 to $30,000.

(person speaking indistinctly) (laughs) GUEST (voiceover): I-I was flabbergasted.

My chin just hit the floor.

It was just like I finally hit a home run myself.

I brought it home, hung it back on the wall, and enjoyed it for a few more years.

And then it decided, I'm gonna start downsizing.

So I, uh, reached out to an auction house.

The final auction price was $28,000.

I was quite happy.

I hope the people that bought it are enjoying it.

Wasn't enough to buy a sailboat, but I took the proceeds from the auction and the calendar and I bought myself a new truck, which I desperately needed.

So that worked out well.

All these other things I had bought and-and made money on or sold or enjoyed for years, this one was out of the ballpark.

Hello, hello!

PEA: It's not every day that a visit to "Roadshow" turns out to be truly extraordinary.

But this is the poignant story of how a rustic stoneware jug Allan Katz found 20 years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, wound up changing a family's life for good.

To share the whole touching story, "Antiques Roadshow" recently arranged a reunion with this impressive piece of folk art, which, all involved, still consider a much loved old friend.

KATZ: It's an amazing story.

And it's very bitter, and very sweet.

This was my first season, it was June of 2004.

GUEST: This piece belonged to my grandmother.

As I grew up, this was a part of all the parties and Christmases there.

And when she sold her house, the grandkids and the kids could choose different things.

And this is the piece that I always wanted.

So my name was on this one for a long time, so that was-- And when did you actually get it?

About five years ago.

KATZ (voiceover): I do remember Tom, our guest, approaching the folk art table, and he was pulling a metal red wagon with this jug inside of it-- except... the decoration, this whole decoration part was face down.

So from afar, my brain immediately digested this as just a large piece of utilitarian stoneware that maybe has a value of $350, $400.

And that's when Tom turned it and rotated it.

And, obviously, that took my breath away.

The writing and the decoration takes up the full palette, and that's what we in American folk art look for in a great piece of stoneware.

This is all slip cup decorated, very, very thick and drizzled on.

And it-it really is a tour de force piece, to have this complex of a decoration, a master, master decorator had to decorate this pot.

If I had this at a show, I would have this priced at somewhere between $65,000 and $85,000.

(laughing): Are you kidding me?

No, I'm not.

(laughing): Oh, my God!

I think it's an absolutely monumental piece of American stoneware.

(laughing): Earlier when I lifted it up here, you said you almost had a heart attack when you saw me grab it by the handles and set it up.

I did!

You were lifting it by the handles, which is just an absolute no-no for a small piece.

I've moved that-- So never do that again.

I've moved it a couple times like that, but I won't move it that way anymore.

KATZ (voiceover): That was a Saturday, and Monday morning the phone rang.

And it was Tom.

He said, "Were you serious about the price?"

He said, "'Cause we could really use some money."

Well, I was able to arrange to have it picked up two days later.

And I brought the piece to the Philadelphia antique show in April of 2005.

First person in the door was a client of mine, and he purchased it immediately.

We sold the piece for $110,000.

I remember calling Tom that night and he was just blown away.

They then told me that for the first time in their lives, they had enough in their bank account to now apply to adopt a child, a baby boy from Guatemala.

The bittersweet part of the story is that sadly, four years later, uh, Tom, our guest, passed away at the age of 46.

Carol, his wife, had written me and told me about it, thanking me for the moments and the good times that, uh, Tom had on "Antiques Roadshow" and that their wonderful, adorable Henry was now in-in their lives.

Henry is now grown up.

And we have invited Carol and Henry here today as guests of "Antiques Roadshow" to have this reunion.

My client, who I sold it to in 2005, has graciously allowed me to bring it here today and to have Henry see this piece that set in motion his adoption, his reason that he has joined this family.

(chuckles) Whoa!

That's the, that's the jug?

The jug's here!

(chuckling): Hello, old friend.

Wow.

(voice breaking): It's just as pretty as I remember.

CAROL: After the appraisal, we were so shocked at the value, and we were afraid to have the piece in our home, because it is more fragile than it appears.

And, um, right away, we made arrangements to work with Mr. Katz to find a buyer.

And in the meantime, we were pursuing this dream of growing our family through adoption.

And the sale of the jug made that possible, because international adoption is a great way to add to our family, but it is an expensive way.

And there's a lot of travel expenses, and a home study can be an expensive proposition.

And we could involve our younger daughter, Rachel-- she could travel with us to Guatemala.

And even my parents were able to travel with us.

And it was just such a miracle that the sale of this beautiful piece could grow our family.

Not only were we able to expand our family, but we did make another purchase and bought a second car.

We were able to buy a Volkswagen Beetle used, of course, it was a sensible purchase.

And that was called the Jug Bug.

HENRY: I've always known about the jug.

It contributes to the person of who I am today.

Just all of it sort of roots back to this, um, to this jug.

Now you just, you just graduated high school.

HENRY: I did just graduate high school, yes.

I'm going to college in Chicago for studio and audio engineering.

And I know that not only my father, but, um, uh, my rest of the family would be incredibly proud.

This experience, "Antiques Roadshow," was one of the proudest moments of Tom's life.

He would be so happy for Henry to be here with the jug, able to actually see it and touch it.

KATZ: It's hard to comprehend what this money meant to them; it's a story of what "Roadshow" can do to change someone's life.

Some posters combine great visual, graphic boldness with exceptional history.

And the piece I think that resonates the most for me is a poster that we saw in Hartford, Connecticut in 2008.

GUEST: I found this, and I had never seen a women's suffrage poster before, so I was very interested.

I bought it, and then I tried to research it, and I haven't been able to find any posters on women's suffrage.

LOWRY: How much did you pay for it?

I think it was either $50 or $75.

LOWRY (voiceover): The early women's suffrage movement in America in the years leading up to the First World War, was such an important period in this country's history.

And this poster just bespeaks volumes of information about that time.

The poster is not in great condition.

There's a lot of little areas where water has gotten in and it's begun to become eroded.

And it's begun, basically, to-to freckle or to become foxed.

There are some repaired tears also.

I'm not gonna be too critical about the condition.

The theory is when you find the holy grail, and there's a chip in it, you've got to take it for what it is.

You don't see too many suffragette posters because the movement didn't have that many posters.

Right.

It's a poster that is so rare that when I saw it in Hartford, I had only ever seen it before in books.

Because of the rarity of this poster, I would estimate it at auction at $10,000 to $15,000.

Wow.

And really think that's just the beginning.

I don't know where it could finally end up.

Well, that's fabulous.

Since it came up on the show in 2008, I have only seen it in person one other time.

When we had it at auction in 2009, in substantially worse condition, it sold for just under $6,000, which is the only time it has ever come up for sale.

I have no idea what's happened to that poster since Hartford, but I will tell you, if you have an original version of this poster, keep it, because the price is going up and going up and going up.

I don't see the high end for this.

$12,000 to $18,000, as an auctioneer, I would say would be a-a good conservative starting point, but I-I don't know where it would end now.

PEA: Thanks for watching this special episode of "Antiques Roadshow: Extraordinary Finds."

Follow @roadshowpbs and watch us anytime at PBS.org/antiques or on the PBS app.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."