Antiques Roadshow

CORAL PEA: "Antiques Roadshow" is getting things rolling at Filoli in Woodside, California.

WOMAN: I got it dumpster-diving.

(laughing): I mean, I hate to say it, but it's true.

D'oh!

This was the first moment we saw my dad.

I'm known as the Leaper or the Jumper.

PEA: Located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, an historic property, once the home of two prominent Californian families, is now a treasure to be explored and enjoyed by all.

William Bourn, whose wealth came from the Empire gold mine and investments in California utility companies, was the one who named the estate, combining the first letters of his personal motto, "Fight, love, live," to create "Filoli."

The house was finished in 1917, and 16 acres of incredible formal gardens were completed in 1929.

After the deaths of William and his wife, Agnes Bourn, the second and final residents of Filoli were the Roth family, who bought the estate in 1937.

Believing that Filoli was too beautiful to be private, Lurline Matson Roth donated the house and garden to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1975.

Today, "Roadshow" is taking over Filoli.

Check out what we found.

(people talking in background) WOMAN: I actually bought it at an auction, and with the tax and the fee for the auction house, it came to $75.

I did look on this database, and his name is Anton Endstorfer.

Quite a number of them have come up.

They bring about $500 at auction.

(groans): Oh!

Oh?

Is that bad?

Well... You paid $75!

That's true.

(laughs) And I love her, too-- she's beautiful.

I brought a original Apple I computer manual.

(chuckles): One day I was at work, and I worked at Apple, and the, uh, facilities crew was cleaning out some closets, and they had a great big old dumpster, so I got it dumpster-diving.

(laughing): That's what...

I mean, I hate to say it, but it's true.

D'oh!

That is awesome!

At least I rescued it, I mean... And that was in about 1987?

How long did you work at Apple?

33 years.

And it was like 33 years that went in the blink of an eye.

Every day was different.

You never knew who you were going to see.

It was just an incredibly fantastic, enlightening time.

There is no way to express how important the Apple I computer is.

The first big debut was in 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto.

Yep.

Yep, yep.

It carried a retail cost of $666.66, which, originally, you'd be, like, "Wow, 666."

Whoa!

"That might not..." (laugh) "That might not be the greatest number to market."

But the reason why is, uh, Steve Wozniak loved, like, the soothing feeling of hearing repeated numbers.

So they came up with $666.66, which is equivalent to a little bit over $3,000 in today's market, if you account for inflation.

Mm-hmm.

So this is a huge chunk of change back in the '70s.

Now get to the manual.

We have the original Apple logo on the front, with Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree.

And interesting fact: uh, this logo was designed by Apple's third co-founder, Ronald Wayne.

Shortly after founding the company with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, he ended up selling out of his shares for $800.

(laughing): Wow.

Now, why are we seeing this manual mocked up with markings on it?

So this manual was actually the marketing comp, and there were all kinds of marks on it, um... Of?

Like, white-out, because they were going to be changing, um, obviously, the Apple I operation manual tag to, like, the next-generation computer.

You can see Apple preparing to change their logo from that Sir Isaac Newton to, now, you have the Apple lo... You have the updated address, you have the updated year.

Yep, yep.

So you could tell they were mocking this up... Yep.

...to get ready for the Apple II in '77.

So, this is, like, my crazy mind of thinking about...

I mean, there's no way to guarantee it, but just imagine whose hands were making those changes to say, you know, "Oh, we gotta change this logo.

We gotta change this wording."

I mean, even when you go to the back of the book, it's so cool seeing the mark-up "Replace with new art."

Who wrote that on there?

Was it Steve Jobs?

Was it Woz?

I mean...

Yes.

But the other thing is the historical significance of, this is a mock-up copy.

So when it comes to putting a value on it, conservatively, at auction today, the pamphlet would be estimated $10,000 to $15,000.

That is more than surprising, and more than I ever would have thought, I mean, even if you told me ten bucks, it would've been okay.

(laughs) (laughing): I mean, seriously.

That is beyond my wildest expectation.

MAN: Came into our family about 70 years ago.

I was told by my father it came out of Albright's Hardware Store in Albany, New York.

Beautifully made.

Um, I think if it came to auction, you'd see an estimate in the $1,500 to $2,500 range.

Oh!

Yep.

Beats throwing it into the fireplace.

Absolutely.

I brought these, which I don't think are worth anything... (laughs) ...other than to me, and my mother brought those from Europe, probably in 1920.

Oh, how fun.

So they're old.

Yeah.

So this is a, um, a sketch out of, um, C.M.

Russell's sketchbook... Mm-hmm.

...from the 1920s.

It hung on the back of my father's bedroom door.

He had an aunt who in the early '20s went out to Wyoming, a single woman, and she traveled out there and met Russell, and he gave her this page from his sketchbook.

Oh.

And she brought it back to New York, where my father grew up... Uh-huh.

...and gave it to my father, who was probably a toddler at the time.

Yes.

And it was put on the back of his bedroom door, and stayed there until my grandparents died in the early '80s.

Oh, and that's how you got it?

That's how I got it, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Well, it's Charles Marion Russell, is the artist.

He's born in Missouri in 1864, and he died in Montana in 1926.

He's actually signed it "C.M.

Russell" down here.

And next to his signature is a little sketch of a skeleton head of a steer, and, uh, that was frequently the way he signed.

He was known as a painter and a sculptor of, uh, old Western scenes involving cowboys and Indigenous people.

And it's believed that he's done as many as 4,000 works of art total... Wow.

...in his complete, uh, tenure as an artist.

This particular work is a mixed media.

It's watercolor, color pencil, and ink.

I would date this piece probably circa 1915 or even 1920.

There's no real way of knowing exactly who this person is, but it wasn't really probably meant to be any person in particular.

It was just, ju, a generic figure... Mm-hmm.

...of a Native American.

The figuration of it is typical, the way he drew the Native American.

And you see that little drawing down there, as well... Yeah.

where they're, he's actually dancing and so forth... Yeah.

...with the, the feathers and all the rest.

Yeah.

But it's unusual in the sense you've got all this written part in here.

You said it came out of his sketchbook, so... Yeah.

He's basically lamenting the treatment of Native Americans and criticizing the government for a lack of respect... Yeah.

...for their culture and so forth.

Mm.

So I was just wondering if you would, uh, help us out by maybe just reading the second paragraph down there.

Sure.

"Uncle Sam lets him play injun once a year, "and he dances under the flag that made a farmer out of him.

"Once nature gave him everything he wanted.

"Now Uncle Sam's agent gives him bib overalls, "hooks his hands around plow handles, "and tells him, 'It's a good thing.

"Push it along.'

"Maybe it is, but they're having a hell of a time proving it."

So he uses the term "injun," which is, without a doubt, highly offensive.

But I think what he's doing is describing the attitude of the government... Mm.

...and his displeasure with their disrespect for their culture.

The piece is over 100 years old, for sure, and it shows it.

I would say that this piece is probably worth between $80,000 and $100,000 at auction.

Wow.

Mm.

(chuckling): I am truly surprised.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's incredible.

It's a very, very special... Wow.

Very special piece.

Awesome, thank you.

And, uh, we're really grateful for you bringing it, it in.

Yeah, thank you.

That's so exciting.

(both laugh) WOMAN: I was bequeathed it from my father.

My father, uh, bought this sometime in the, I think it was the early to mid-'70s.

I was, like, ten.

My dad bought this from Gustave Baumann's widow when she had come to Colorado State University.

She was selling some of his work to raise money, selling from the estate.

And this one always stopped him.

Yeah, yeah, not hard to see why.

(chuckles) No, it's...

These colors are beautiful.

It's... Yeah, it's just...

It says everything about the West, uh... Sure.

And so he bought it for, like, $125, along with another one, which was, like, aspens in the mountains, or spring in the aspens.

It's also-- he also gave that one to me, but this is my favorite.

Was that included in the $125?

Or this was $125.

No, they, they were each $125.

They were in my family home growing up.

Yeah, I mean, you spoke about how this...

It, it stopped him in his tracks, and this was his print.

Yeah.

It would me, too.

The colors on this are absolutely beautiful.

The artist is Gustave Baumann, you know that.

Yes.

He was actually born in Germany and came over to the States as a child with his family, and was living in the Midwest.

Uh-huh.

Midwest, okay.

He trained in Chicago and worked in Indiana, and it wasn't until about 1918 that he made his way down to New Mexico.

He was intending to go to Taos.

He got to Taos and he thought it was too busy.

(laughs): Okay.

So a friend persuaded him, a friend persuaded him... Mm-hmm.

...to move on to Santa Fe.

So he gets to Santa Fe and basically plants himself there, and works in Santa Fe for the next five-plus decades.

And his imagery have become synonymous with the Southwest.

He and the Southwest are so intertwined, and New Mexico, and this feel... Yeah.

...of, of the Southwest.

The feel of...

It's...

The light, he got the light just right.

The light through those colors is amazing.

I know.

And the appreciation for his work has just grown over the past couple of decades, and he is super-hot now.

Baumann made the original blocks for this color woodcut in 1926, which is just about eight years after he arrived in Santa Fe.

And this, you can see, of course, is titled "Rain in the Mountains."

This is from the fourth edition.

He printed four editions of this subject over a 30-year period, starting in 1926, and completing with this fourth and final edition in 1956.

The fourth edition is from an intended edition of 50.

That's why it's numbered 19 of 50.

And the "R-C" next to that numbering means the blocks were recut, reshaped by him... Oh.

...to produce this fourth edition.

Uh-huh.

This is the smallest edition, but there are all these intense colors.

Yeah.

And what's great about this, too, is the way that the rain is coming down.

Yeah.

In strips from... That, that's just such a great talent, to be able to pull that off by cutting a wood block.

And then he mixed all the colors himself, signed it in pencil, titled it, and then this is his hand in heart... Oh.

...ink stamp, which he used on, on his color woodcuts, just his sort of monogram symbol.

Uh-huh.

The appreciation for these... Uh-huh.

...like I said, the past couple of decades, has just increased exponentially.

(laughing): Okay, now I'm really nervous.

Would you have... Any guess as to what its value is?

Well... Like...

I, I, I guessed that, 'cause, um, I know he's popular, but I thought ten times what my dad bought.

You know, so, $1,250 or something, $2,000, something like that.

So you're in the thousands.

This is a great image.

Uh-huh.

It's, it's...

The more evocative you get with his imagery of the Southwest, the better.

It's also one of the larger color woodcuts.

Uh-huh.

So it's got everything going for it.

The colors are also perfect, like the day they were printed.

It's, that's tough to find.

I would put a replacement value or insurance value on this... Uh-huh.

...at $50,000.

(gasping): Oh, my God!

That is so much more than I thought.

I think it was.

Oh, that is so much more than I thought.

Yeah, it's, it's a phenomenal print.

Okay, I, um...

I, okay, I'm, I'm going to have to do something about that.

(chuckles) Yeah.

It's just a beautiful image.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much for bringing it in.

I, I, thank you for letting me know.

That's really amazing.

(laughing): Really, really amazing.

(chuckling): It's an amazing image.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

It's always been of value to me, and now I'm going to go to an insurance agent and make sure that I've got it covered.

Yeah.

This one, this one sums up Baumann so well.

Yeah.

(both laughing) I feel like I'm having trouble breathing a little bit.

Oh, my God, you're kidding.

(laughing): No.

I mean, really?

(both laughing) PEA: The 654 acres upon which Filoli sits is the traditional territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people.

Today, the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone has access to Filoli for work and ceremonial purposes.

I bought it at a flea market...

Okay.

...from a dealer who sells American Indian artifacts.

Okay.

And I bought it as a group, with American Indian.

And this came with the purchase.

I believe the lot was $1,200 to $1,500.

This is Asian.

It's Chinese.

Uh, what we have in the center is jade.

It's carved from jade.

Uh, and it's set in a silver, uh, bangle mount.

The silver bangle dates to the 20th or 21st century.

The jade panel dates to the Yuan period, which is 1271 to 1368.

Wow.

So, quite old.

What we have depicted here in the center with the jade is a goose in a lotus pond, and you can see the lotus flowers at the top here.

Right.

Generally, plaques of this type would have been sewn into a piece of fabric, and you would have worn them, uh, perhaps around your waist.

At auction, I would estimate something like this at $4,000 to $6,000.

Mm-hmm.

Good, I was... Yeah, I, I didn't know.

I was hoping between five and ten, you know?

The estimate that I gave you is for the plaque itself, not how it's been set in, in the bracelet.

Mm-hmm.

I've had it in my garage for probably 25, 30 years.

I bought it at a car swap meet.

Never seen anything like it before, and I didn't know that they made tractors back then.

I brought my grandfather's, uh, violin that he played, uh, in the 1920s.

So, I don't know much more about it other than, he was a big fan and it's well-played and well-loved.

I inherited these bowls from a very, very dear friend of mine.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, she was an artist and an art teacher.

Mm-hmm.

And she passed away about ten years ago.

They're beautiful.

I sit them in the nooks of my bookcases.

(laughs) Yeah.

They're beautiful for that, that's for sure.

And do you know who made them?

These bowls were made by a local artist named Bob Stocksdale.

And my understanding is he had a studio right here in the area, on Kings Mountain.

Mm-hmm.

So, um, uh, my friend who left them to me used to visit him and hang out with him.

Yeah.

And over the years purchased various bowls that he made.

They're beautiful.

I think that Bob Stocksdale is certainly one of the most well-known woodturners in America.

He, he was one of the first guys to start.

He, he took the whole art form to another, another level.

He really has made a big difference, and some of his turned bowls are amongst the best that anyone has ever done.

Wow.

When I saw you, uh, un, unveil them on my table, I thought, "Oh, my God, those are Bob Stocksdale, and they're so fantastic!"

(chuckles) You recognized them?

I did, I did.

Wow.

I've been a turned-wood fan for a long time.

Oh.

Bob Stocksdale w, was a really interesting man.

One: he was a conscientious objector during World War II, which was very unusual in America.

He spent time in various prison camps in America, and, and, uh, he ended up moving here, California... Mm-hmm.

...and, and began making bowls, uh, after the war, after the war was over.

Yeah.

And he did that, uh, for his whole career.

He made about 200 a year.

Uh, he dies in 2003, but, but that's a lot of bowls.

Made about 8,000 bowls.

Hm.

And he kind of pioneered the whole art form.

Mm.

And one of the things he's most well-known for is using really cool, exotic wood.

And, and if you look at the four that you have... Mm-hmm.

...they're all different, they're all interesting.

Yes.

And people would send him wood from around the world, and he would make them a bowl out of it.

That's funny.

Because he was a local artist, I assumed these, at least most of them, would be local wood.

These are woods that are beyond my...

Okay, so... ...common furniture knowledge...

Right.

...to be honest.

The ebony I recognize.

Right.

But the rest of them are, you know, not something that you see every day.

Okay.

These were produced in the '90s, which is sort of the middle of his career.

Mm-hmm.

Kind of tailing off a little bit, but was still, he was very active at this point.

People collect them.

Okay.

Collect turned wood.

Mm-hmm.

But, but it's not something that's really taken off yet, and it's still moving forward.

But one of the things I did see was, this one has been cracked.

(gasps): No!

And it has cracks in several different places, and that's going to really affect the value.

And I think his work is as good and as beautiful, and, and actually tells the tale of woodturning in America as well as anybody.

Hm.

I really love his stuff.

Do you have any idea what these pieces are worth?

I have no idea at all.

(laughs) Yeah-- do you have any idea?

You're going to make a guess?

Um... Maybe a couple of hundred dollars?

Uh, well, you're a little low.

You're a little low.

Oh.

They're worth more than that.

Their sizes are sort of middle.

Their, they, there are bigger ones, sometimes bring a little bit more money.

Hm, mm-hmm.

But I would say for these three, the three in good shape, we're looking at somewhere between $900 and $1,200 apiece at auction.

(gasps): What?

So, like, $2,700 to $3,600 for these three at auction.

Oh!

Hm.

(laughing): That's wonderful.

That's a lot more than I thought they would be worth.

Yeah, yeah, they're great, they're...

So I'll have to talk to my insurance agent now.

(laughing) Absolutely.

This one that's broken is probably worth a lot less.

Well, maybe $100 to $300, somewhere in that vicinity.

Yeah, well, thank you.

(laughing): I'm very pleased.

Yeah.

PEA: Architect Willis Polk was influenced by the Georgian style of English country estates, though the Manse incorporated decidedly un-Georgian features, like a Mediterranean-style tiled roof.

In 1958, the San Francisco Giants had a promotion with a local newspaper, and you would win an autographed baseball from the San Francisco Giants.

I never won.

Mm.

So I was real disappointed.

I was nine years old at the time.

So my great-aunt came up to me and said, "You know, I know you're really disappointed "that you didn't get the San Francisco Giants "autographed baseball, but I have one that you can have."

And so she gave me this one.

She and my great-uncle lived in Japan before World War II... Mm-hmm.

...and, uh, there was a all-star team from the States that went to Japan and played.

So, she somehow got the baseball autographed from the team and kept it, and then gave it to me in 1958.

Well, the great part about this ball isn't just the signatures that are on it, but really what it represents.

In 1934, the American League put together an all-star team they called the All Americans.

The National League wouldn't allow any players to participate in this barnstorming tour.

Oh.

Which is why there were no Giants players on it.

Uh-huh.

So, the American League took 14 players ultimately, and coaches and staff for that 18 games they played in Japan.

What was great is that the whole purpose of that trip was not only, uh, to promote foreign relations between the U.S. and Japan, but the players also looked at it as a nice tourism opportunity.

They go to Japan, they're greeted by a parade in Tokyo of half a million people.

Wow.

Japan was very enthusiastic about baseball.

In fact, Japan has history in baseball that goes back to the 1870s.

Hm.

There was five tours before this barnstorming tour, but at that time, they were against college and amateur teams.

This was the first time that the games were actually against what became Japan's professional baseball players.

We do have 19 signatures.

14 American League players went, and then some staff.

So we have Babe Ruth on the sweet spot, Lou Gehrig below.

One great story worth telling is, Babe Ruth-- and his wife and his daughter were there with him.

There was a knock at the hotel room in, in Tokyo, and they opened the door, and there was a gentleman in a kimono and had a baseball and asked him if he would sign it.

So Babe Ruth signed it willingly and gave it back.

The fellow reached into another pocket and pulled out another baseball, Babe Ruth signed it.

Babe Ruth said it was somewhere around a dozen balls or so before the pockets were, were all full with signed baseballs.

It's really an important baseball.

I know of maybe half a dozen of these.

I would put a value of this baseball at auction at $40,000... Oh, my God!

...to $60,000.

Holy smoke!

And you want to insure it for $75,000.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I can't believe that.

It's a fantastic piece of history.

Wow, thank you so much.

(sighs) Yeah, the chair was purchased by his great-grandparents at the Rudolph Valentino estate auction.

So, we are going to send you to the furniture table.

Okay.

And they will give you all the information that you could possibly want.

APPRAISER: Hi!

Come on over.

So what do you know about the chairs?

Most of the furniture in the Lair, which was Rudolph Valentino's estate, was of a similar type, very sort of ornate.

I just love the faces on the arms and the teeth like this.

Isn't it cool?

I mean, what a fabulous chair, and these beautiful birds.

What you have here is a Savonarola chair, and this is better than most.

So, if this were to come to auction, I would probably put an estimate of $500 to $1,000 on it.

But the, the value is in the Valentino story, I think.

Hm, hm.

Okay.

There's a colleague we have in our collectibles department by the name of Laura Woolley, who can talk about value... Sure.

...relative to, with Valentino.

MAN: So this chair was purchased at, uh, Rudolph Valentino's estate... 1926.

Yes, yes.

(others laugh) There were two of them originally.

We still have the two.

Um, this is one.

And, uh, so we wanted to bring it to you and see what you thought of it and what value it has.

Well, I think it's fabulous.

What, what did Andrew say?

He thought it was fabulous.

Um, he thought it was maybe $1,000 or so, um, but he said the value is in Rudolph Valentino.

Andrew is so smart.

(chuckles) Yeah.

It is.

So he said, "Go to Laura, because she knows."

It is, and I have that catalogue at home.

So... Yeah.

They, they even sold his greyhound dog in that auction catalogue.

(men exclaim and laugh) They sold off everything he owned.

Did they state in the catalogue if this is from Falcon Lair?

It is.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

There you go.

So, Falcon Lair is the, his famous home... Yeah.

...that sadly no longer exists.

Yep.

It was torn down.

And when you want a Valentino piece, you want a Valentino piece that looks like it came out of Valentino's house.

Yeah.

And this does.

(laughs) So this is really exciting.

And then you tell me you have two.

Yeah, there's two.

Ah.

Well, a number of pieces that have sold in that original auction catalogue have come back up.

Okay.

And they do quite well, 'cause he's one of the few silent characters that people still know.

Yeah.

His name i, will live forever.

Yep.

He died at such a young age, tragically.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and a chair like this, easily I can see $10,000 to $12,000 at auction.

Great.

Okay.

Per chair.

Per chair?

Yeah.

Okay, wow.

If you were going to insure it, I'd probably put at least $15,000 apiece on them.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

That's exciting.

Thank you, yeah.

So you've got $30,000 worth of chairs to sit in.

(all laughing) Yeah, yeah.

I actually inherited this from my grandmother... Mm-hmm.

...who died in s, 1961, and my mother told me that my grandfather had had this and another horse commissioned, because this was supposed to be his horse, whose name was Fargo.

When I received this... Mm.

(chuckling): ...I carved the name into this block.

The plinth here, the block that it's on, it's always been on there, as far as you know?

Since I've had it, yes.

And you incredibly professionally put the title plaque on the front there, "Fargo."

Thank you.

(chuckling): Of course, yes.

How old were you when you did that?

Eleven.

Eleven.

Yeah.

Very generous gift.

So, one of two.

But they weren't identical, were they?

They were close.

Okay.

But this one has a saddle.

Uh-huh.

The other one is bareback.

Uh-huh.

This has the chopped tail.

Okay.

The other had the regular, normal tail...

Okay.

...that a, that a horse would have.

The other statue was donated as a trophy.

Where do you think it's from?

Any ideas?

I thought England, only because my grandfather and my great-grandparents traveled extensively.

Right, well, it is English.

It's more likely, rather than this being a portrait sculpture of Fargo, it's more likely that... Yeah.

...he chose this while he was in London.

Yes.

And it was a good approximation, or it reminded him of Fargo.

I think it's more likely to be a reproduction of a sculpture by the English sculptor John Willis Good.

And he was a 19th-century animalier sculptor on a par with the great animaliers that were working in France at the time.

Sadly, not too much is known about his work, and the reason for that is, is that he did meet with an untimely death at the age of 34.

Sadly, from a gunshot wound to the head.

It was very common that horses by John Willis Good were reproduced in sterling silver, which this one is.

Thank you.

That's what I wanted to know, 'cause I...

It could have been plate.

It's expertly sculpted and very naturalistically cast.

If we turn it, you can really see some of the details, including the hair on the coat, the tail, the hooves.

And the marks are here on the inside of the rear leg.

It's hallmarked London.

The maker's J.H.

I've not fully identified the maker.

But the, but the date letter is, uh, an N, for 1928.

(gasps): Thank you.

That I'm certain of.

He's got all of his reins and he's in very good condition.

The detail is very good.

You've got all of the bridles.

And even the bridles carry hallmarks on them, as well.

So we know that these are sterling silver, too.

Oh, okay.

At auction, I would estimate this probably to sell for around $6,000 to $8,000.

Wow.

(chuckling): That's surprising, okay.

APPRAISER: Her face is very unusual.

It's well-sculpted, and the, the hair is amazing.

It's all, um, done with silk thread.

And she has a nice, early costume.

And I would ditch the beads.

I think these...

So take the beads off.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think they're plastic, and they're, they're later than the doll.

(laughs) PEA: It took a large and skilled staff to keep Filoli running while it was a residence.

Gardeners, cooks, maids, and chauffeurs worked 14-hour days with a single day off every two weeks during the Bourns' era at Filoli.

Well, uh, my mother was a closet collector, and, uh, in New York City, and she came home one day, and this was there.

And I asked, "What's the story on this?"

And she said, "Well, it's just a little something I got."

And that's what I know.

I mean, it just appeared in our apartment.

And do you know where she got it?

Yeah, she got it from, um, a dealer in New York.

Did you know the name of the dealer?

Carol Ferranti.

She got it in the '60s.

And knowing she got it from Carol, I'm sure it was quite a lot.

(chuckles) Couple of thousand dollars, maybe.

Oh, wow.

And she did actually say she paid that in the 1960s?

Uh... That seems like a lot?

It does, actually.

Yeah.

Carol Ferranti was a very well- known dealer in New York City, and she handled all kinds of lamps, including Tiffany, and also lamps that were made by this company.

Wow.

And did you ever look for signatures?

(chuckling): No, but I just saw that there is one.

Okay.

But you don't know what it, it stands for.

No, I don't, I don't.

Okay.

Well, it's very discreet, because on the underside of the lamp, there is this lovely little diamond-shaped signature with a P in the middle, which is the way the bases would be signed for the Pairpoint Company.

Uh-huh, oh.

And Pairpoint originally made a lot of silver-plated metalware.

And, uh, in 1894, they joined with Mount Washington Glassworks.

Uh-huh.

They were both based in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

But they didn't start making lamps that look like this until 1907, when they applied for the patent for the particular technique that was used to make this shade.

The shade is called a blown-out shade.

Mm-hmm.

And blown-out shades were blown glass, and then they were actually...

They, um, acid-treated the surface, and then after that, the interior was painted.

Today a lot of us refer to these as Pairpoint puffy lamps.

Oh.

I really like this.

This is, it's, this is very unusual.

Because what, what I've been accustomed to seeing, and also on "Roadshow," the only types of, uh, Pairpoint puffy lamps that we've seen have been florals.

Yeah.

And to have this unbelievable owl, who is perched on a branch ready to pounce on its prey... (chuckles) ...which is a little ominous, but beautifully rendered... Uh-huh.

...is a rare form.

Hm.

This came in two types.

That, this is, uh, the simpler base, and then there is, uh, a base that is comprised of an owl, sculptural owl form.

Oh.

Uh, but this is, this definitely came this way.

The, for the most part, the condition of this is really terrific.

Mm-hmm.

There is some sign of corrosion.

That's not unusual.

So, um, do you have any idea, um, of value on this?

No, not really.

Okay.

All right, so on this particular base... Mm-hmm.

...a good retail value would be $25,000 to $30,000.

Wow.

Now, if you had the owl base... Yeah.

...it would be more in the range of $60,000 to $70,000.

Wow.

That is propeller from a Pan American Airlines clipper ship.

Dated 1935.

It was given to my grandfather on the island of Guam when he retired from Pan Am just before World War II.

My clock is the one thing I remember about my grandmother, is her clock.

Because she passed away when I was really young.

I was four.

And I can remember visiting her in her home in Brooklyn, um, and sitting there being very bored but watching the clock, watching the little girl swing on the mantelpiece.

And I was fascinated by it.

I grew up with my uncle's art in our house.

I called him Uncle Deanie, because he was Roy Dean De Forest.

Uh-huh.

My earliest memories of him are sitting at the kitchen table doodling.

I would doodle something and he'd make something out of it.

And then he would doodle something and I'd make something out of it.

I wanted to grow up and be an artist just like him.

This collection was done in the late '50s.

It was between when he had gone to school for a B.A.

in art and he hadn't started for his master's yet.

Uh-huh.

And he was working at the iron foundry in Richmond.

My mother said...

He was kind of down and she said, "Well, you know, I'm going to write this children's book "about a tooth fairy and chlorophyll.

What do you think?"

And he got really excited and he made these drawings for her.

I found them when my mother moved in with me about ten years ago.

She was sick, and I found them in the bottom of a Chinese chest.

The story was kind of dark for the time, because this was, as you can see, this is chlor... That's Chlorophyll, and he ended up at, uh, some point going in the night and pulling teeth out of adults' mouths.

There... Well, that's scary.

(laughing) I know, right?

What's so amazing to me is, the vibrancy and the subject matter is something that he grew throughout his really wonderful, wonderful career.

Such great imagery, and this composition, with this, like, scary tooth being pulled out of this guy.

But look at the palette.

I mean, it's so vibrant.

He's an original in the best possible way.

And, happily, people have come to love his work.

And he's represented in some of the finest museums in the country.

He was a great teacher.

He was a sculptor, he was an artist.

And now we see that he's an illustrator.

Was he a fashion designer, too?

(chuckling): No, but I am wearing one of his shirts.

Very nice.

Yeah.

I always say, if I wear the shirt, he's got my back.

So have people seen these before?

Have they been published?

Have they been...?

No, they have not been published.

In fact, they've only been seen by a few members of the family.

(chuckling): This is kind of like a, a premiere art show.

They're gouache on paperboard.

I've spoken with some of my colleagues, and we think that because...

Sometimes early work doesn't look like anything that's coming next.

And this really is quite mature and, and shows what he was going to do, and what he would become famous for.

So we're thinking that an insurance value of maybe $40,000 for the collection of 13, uh, would be a good place to start.

Because they should be insured.

Yes.

I mean, he's a, he's a hero.

(chuckles) He's a, he's a California hero.

Yeah.

How did the story end?

What happened to Chlorophyll?

You know what?

I don't know.

(laughing) I don't...

I'm not even really sure that my mother ever actually finished it.

Today I brought the clothes that were worn by my father when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

He was shot down in North Vietnam in, October 27, 1967, captured.

And he was in a variety of different prisoner-of-war camps.

When he was released, he was at the, the infamous French prison Hoa L, also known as the Hanoi Hilton.

Mm-hmm.

And that he was, uh, repatriated March 14, 1973.

Did he have any other interesting, uh, people that he was with in prison?

(chuckling): Oh, absolutely.

He told me a st, a great story that the first time he ever laughed in jail was a joke that John McCain had tapped through the wall.

They were sharing a wall while they were both in solitary confinement while they were in, uh, Son Ty.

(chuckles): So John McCain tapped the joke to him?

Tapped the joke to him, yes.

Wow-- wow.

John McCain was shot down the day before my dad, and they were repatriated the same day in order of their shootdown.

Wow.

Wow-- well, he was a, uh, F-105 Thunderchief thud pilot, was what they were called.

Thud pilot, yes, yes.

Yeah, yeah, and we have some great things here.

We have his, uh, top and trousers, um, from jail, from the, from the prison camp.

Yes, from jail.

With his prisoner numbers on them.

Yes.

Um, we've got his bag, uh, with more material in there.

And the bag has the original Red Cross tag on it?

Yeah, this is the original Red Cross tag.

And this little tag right here was written by the North Vietnamese.

And they handed him the bag.

And we've got a pair of sandals that he wore in prison right here?

Yes, the Vietnamese said that those were made out of the tires of the airplane that he was shot down in.

Hm.

So it was mental cruelty right there, too.

Right.

That he had to walk in those shoes.

And what about the spoon?

The spoon, that was his spoon when he was, uh, for, for all his meals.

And in an act of defiance, he etched a thunderbolt in the bowl of the spoon.

I guess it was just his own little way to have some sort of control.

Right.

And then one of the most iconic things here, because I remember it as a kid.

Um, I remember this picture, is the one right here.

Tell us about that.

This picture is called "Burst of Joy."

It was taken at Travis Air Force Base on March 17, 1973.

Um, this was the first moment we saw my dad... ...when the aircraft landed.

We were in a car behind the aircraft on the tarmac, and then they said, "You can get out now."

So we just burst out of the car and started running to my dad.

And it was captured by Sal Veder, uh, an A.P.

photographer.

And he won the Pulitzer Prize in photography for this picture, "The Burst of Joy."

The photograph was given to me personally by Sal in 1990-- he signed it, "Lorrie, with best wishes, Sal Veder."

Wow.

And where are you?

(laughs) I'm known as the Leaper or the Jumper.

The Leaper?

(laughs) Well, I got to say, if it was my dad, I'd be leaping, too.

We were very excited.

Um, I'm sure.

And I remember this as a kid.

I remember seeing it on the news, and I also remember the video footage of him, uh, leaving North Vietnam, Vietnam with John McCain.

Yes.

Great stuff.

Um, and it's, in a way, this is kind of hard to appraise because of the...

Yes.

...that goes along with it.

Yes.

I'm having a hard time, too.

(chuckling): Yeah, it, it is.

Precious.

So, as a auction estimate, it would be in the $2,500 to $3,000 range... Mm-hmm.

...which doesn't seem like a whole lot.

However, um, the historical value on this is absolutely priceless.

Um, and what a moving story it is.

My dad is alive.

He is doing fabulous.

Uh, he's healthy, he's well, he's 89 years old.

Wow.

Well, please, uh, tell him when you get home thank you for his service.

Thank you, I will.

He'll be very pleased to hear that, thank you.

Well, I've had it ever since I was, uh, about knee-high.

Uh, just, uh, ones that my parents had gotten.

And then somebody told me it's a Steiff bear... (bear makes growling noise) ...and it makes a little growling noise.

And that's about all I know about it.

WOMAN: My grandfather actually won this vest in a poker game.

He was a colonel in the Air Force, and he was stationed in Gallup, New Mexico.

In 1944, not yet a colonel, he went off base to play a game of poker.

The gentleman lost to my grandfather and he didn't have enough money to cover the debt.

So he gave my grandfather this vest and told him that it was once worn by a child of Sitting Bull.

And this man was Native American himself, and that's all I know.

It's been passed down in our family ever since.

So you don't know what the debt was?

I don't know what the debt was.

That'd be interesting.

I don't think my grandfather was a huge gambler, so I don't think it was a huge debt.

But he was a young man, so it could have been different then.

He wanted to get off post.

(laughing): Right, probably.

Right.

This is a child's vest, a young boy's.

I think the name Sitting Bull was used because people are going to know Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Cochise, Natchez...

I mean, there's a group that were publicly known figures.

It's none of that.

Oh!

This vest was probably made a long time before he got it.

Oh.

I, I would say late 1800s, early 20th century.

No later than the first ten or 15 years of the 20th century.

Wow!

And, and no earlier than about 1895.

It's all thread-sewn.

Any earlier than that, it would have been sinew-sewn with, with dried animal sinews.

The reason we know it's not Lakota, which, Sitting Bull was Lakota, is, is this stitching style is something that you see more in the Northern Plains and the Northwestern Plains.

And we had a little discussion about it, and because of all the horses, we think it's probably Nez Perce.

Oh!

And they were in Western Montana, in Northern Idaho, that area.

Uh, and were one of the last major tribes who fought in the Indian Wars against the U.S. government and the cavalry.

The materials, it looks like it's all canvas, and it's been beaded on that canvas.

It's fairly stiff and it's lined with cloth.

The beads are glass beads, probably from Murano, Italy, or from Eastern Europe.

Oh, wow.

And this took a long time to make.

And the horses are the classic.

And a lot of people don't know that horses were an invasive species like cattle.

They were brought by the Spanish and they exploded in population.

And if you turn it around, there are more horses.

(chuckling): Yes, there are.

And they're beautiful.

And these have brands.

It would take a lot of research to find out what those brands are, and, and we might not ever.

The flags appear to be cavalry guidons that a flag carrier would have on a, on a staff.

Those triangle flags.

Right.

It all relates.

This child was probably the son of someone who had a lot of horses.

If this were for sale in a retail situation, say a gallery, it would be $3,000 to $5,000.

Oh, wow!

Uh, as is.

And I wouldn't bother to have it repaired.

There's a few areas of bead loss right here.

Right through here.

I wouldn't worry about it.

It's, it's just part of the history of the piece.

Right.

My dad, who ended up with it, um, and, and his sister, always said that they didn't really care what the value was.

They just wanted to return it to the appropriate Native American tribe, um... Well, there's a problem with that.

Oh.

With these people, especially, these items were individual property.

They were not tribally owned.

Oh.

So the tribe wouldn't take it back, generally.

Oh!

If they're building a museum, they might want it as an example of great art.

This is cultural wealth.

This is something else.

And it's not owned by the tribe at large.

It, it belonged to that little boy.

PEA: Lurline Matson Roth, the second owner of Filoli, inherited her fortune from a Pacific passenger and freight service empire created by her father, William Matson.

Her husband, William P. Roth, did not come from wealth, but in time became the president of Matson Navigation Company.

MAN: I was taking lessons when I was a student in high school.

My parents talked to my music teacher, who had been in Italy, and he mentioned a place in Bologna, possibly knew of Poggi, the manufacturer, the maker of it.

And fortunately, my grandfather was on a trip to Italy, and took a detour to Bologna to meet up with the, the maker.

What did he pay for it?

The number that comes to mind as a kid was $600.

Yeah.

This instrument then became my instrument all through high school and college.

And what do you know about the maker?

I mean, your grandfather went directly to the maker in Bologna.

Yeah.

This is almost unheard of.

Really, really-- I don't know.

I know he's prolific.

I know he has certain renown.

When I mention Poggi to other violinists, they smile.

(chuckles) That's about it.

Well, you know that the label says "Ansaldo Poggi in Bologna 1967."

Yes, yes.

And so that date jives with your grandfather's trip to, to Italy.

Right.

Exactly.

Ansaldo Poggi is one of the most important of the 20th-century Italian makers.

(laughs): Jeez.

He was a Stradivari enthusiast and he studied with a man, Giuseppe Fiorini, who bought all the tools and the remnants of the Stradivari workshop, and gave them to the city of Stradivari, which was Cremona, Italy.

Yeah, right.

And so he studied with this man, Fiorini, who was one of the great, great makers.

And you can see the influence of Stradivari through his entire career.

Now, Poggi is known to be a very, very precise maker.

He was a fanatic about the precision of his craftsmanship, and he was a fanatic about only choosing beautiful, beautiful wood.

But because there aren't many marks on his instruments, he's copied a lot.

Hm.

So my job is to make sure that the instrument is what it's supposed to be.

You can see that the spruce on the top of the viola is very straight, regular grain, right?

Sure.

The back is a beautiful, beautiful flamed maple, and the flames go all the way out to the edge.

Mm-hmm.

And it's a magnificent piece of wood.

Yes, it is.

And he used that same wood in the peg box and the scroll of the viola.

Yeah, interesting.

So it's, it's a handsome, very unified look.

The other thing that makes me more comfortable with your viola is, it's got real wear on it.

I can see that it's been played.

Yes, yeah.

It's an appropriate amount of wear.

Cool.

The other thing is that the label is absolutely correct for this period of time.

So he had a series of labels throughout his career.

Yeah.

Ansaldo Poggi was born in 1893, and he started studying with Fiorini in the 1920s.

Wow.

And he lived until 1984.

(chuckling): Oh, jeez.

And this is the level of perfectionist that he was.

So in the 1950s, he started getting really, really popular, and there was some demand for his work.

He started buying back his earlier works and then rebuilding them according to the acoustical principles that he had learned in the meantime.

Okay.

And he even destroyed some.

Jeez, that's unbelievable.

So we have a friend in Minneapolis, he was associate principal violist in the Minnesota Orchestra, and he, he was Italian, and he, he commissioned, uh, in the late '60s a viola from Ansaldo Poggi.

But he didn't like the way it sounded.

So he went back to Italy, and he showed it to Poggi, and he said, "Can't we do something?

I'm, I'm not happy with the way this sounds."

And Poggi said, "I don't like it, either."

And he threw it in the fire.

(both laughing) "I'll make you another," he said.

(both laughing) He was a hard-working maker.

This instrument shows that level of perfectionism.

On the inside, on this side of the viola is handwritten, "Ansaldo Poggi."

Yes.

"Fece in Bologna, anno 1967."

That's his handwriting.

Yeah.

There's no question about it.

Yes.

The other thing that I really love, in the 1920s, he started branding his violas, "A.

Poggi."

So I'm convinced that this, this is it.

And have you had it appraised?

No.

Do you have a sense of value?

As I say, I always carried it around as a kid.

I enjoyed playing it immensely.

It has a marvelous sound, but I never took it that seriously, I... You know, it was, it was my instrument and that was it.

His work has gained drastically in value because they sound-- they have a big sound, a clear sound, with lots of color.

Yeah.

And he only made 41 violas.

Oh, my God!

Right.

He's known to have made at least 388 instruments over a career of, of 60 years, but only 41 violas.

So this is a viola that's kind of come out into the light, which is extre, extremely exciting for me.

(chuckling): Really?

I talked to some of my colleagues about the marketplace.

Mm-hmm?

Yes?

And they said, "You know what?

In the United States, "it's a little uncertain as to what the marketplace would be, "but probably somewhere around $200,000 retail price."

(laughing) I was thinking, you know, several tens of thousands, maybe.

(stammering): $200,000, possibly?

Well, here's the good news.

That was the bad news.

Okay.

The good news is that in the Asian market and in the European market, the value for an Ansaldo Poggi viola in this kind of condition would be more like $300,000.

Okay.

(laughs) Okay.

Well, I don't intend to sell it, you know.

For insurance purposes, I would put this at $330,000.

(laughing): Okay.

PEA: And now it's time for the "Roadshow" Feedback Booth.

This is my favorite show.

I watch it all the time.

She does.

Um, I see my favorite people that appraises the, um, the items.

So I was excited about seeing them.

Yeah, she was fangirling in the line.

(all laughing) Yeah, the line was long, but it was worth it.

It was worth it to see, um, like, the smile on Mommy's face, it was worth it.

And today I brought in my Art Deco bronze statue.

I love her.

She's not worth a fortune, but she is the lady of the house.

I brought a set of silver and turquoise, um, bracelets my grandfather made.

So this one was my grandmother's, and this one was my mom's, and this one was mine.

And we brought my mom's, one of my mom's six chairs that she got in New York when I was a kid that she claims are old enough that George Washington could have sat in them.

And it turns out that they are not old enough that George Washington could have sat in them.

(chuckling) And they're worth about as much as you would pay for two of the chicken tort-- whatever those things are.

(laughing) The chicken rolls at the cafe.

I brought this ring that I found in my mom's special jewelry box.

And I, um, I wore it today.

I've never worn it before.

It just seemed so fancy and expensive.

Um, but it turns out that these are faux opals, or "faux-pals," and it's not even gold.

But I still really love this ring, and I will now wear it, uh, with less, less worry and stress.

PEA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."