Antiques Roadshow

HOST

Jay Leno's Newport mansion has all the creature comforts inside plus some interesting creatures outside.

APPRAISER

Jay we're in the garden and there's even antiques out here right right tell me tell me about the weather vane.

GUEST

Well I was hoping you could tell me something about the weather vane. I've been up on the roof but never examined

it specifically for this house or I don't know anything about it. APPRAISER

I don't believe that it's a 19th century weather vanes which is most of the ones that we see in America. The antique ones. I think this is a custom made piece from the probably 2000 to not very long ago. You can get these weather vanes done in the 15,000 range and then they start going up. This is a mermaid form right and she's got a shell that she's holding which is a rarer uh form for the 19th century. We see them much more in the 20th and 21st it just seems to be one of those symbols that people love. This one is particularly beautifully made if you look at the directionals. I mean that's always a nice sign for the quality of a weathervane but I would say probably in the 15,000

to 25 000 range to buy it new. If you had to to have it fabricated. GUEST

Did you notice the peacock

I saw that. GUEST

In 1947 the lady bought this house and redid it after being devastated in '38. And she had that in the garden basically right out here as a centerpiece then there was a huge hurricane, water came and swept it out to sea and that was the end of that. Then 10 years later she sold the house. Then 20 years later she comes to visit the new owners sometime in the 90s and she sees the peacock out on the lawn again and she says to them and it's hers. It's a bit battered and beat up and she says where'd that come from. They said oh we had a huge storm one day and the peacock just showed up on the lawn the next day so apparently got swept out to sea stayed out there

Oh my gosh. GUEST

At least it came back so that's

that's good so maybe it's maybe it's a homing uh peacock. APPRAISER

So the peacock is a symbol of many many things and one of the symbols is resurrection because they lose these tail feathers right and then they grow back again. So there's biblical references um to the peacock so that's kind of

cool. So this is sort of a resurrection this thing left and then it came back again. GUEST

Kind of like my

career I work for NBC so that their symbol is a peacock and so there you go. APPRAISER

Oh wow I mean it's a great complicated story so any idea of its value?

GUEST

I have no idea I have no idea of its value I mean I think the story makes it valuable so I think it's more in the provenance almost than in the actual

value of the statue. APPRAISER

I think it's a pretty cool thing yeah and I think there is a vibrant market in garden statuary right um maybe an auction estimate of ten to fifteen thousand dollars. You know um and I think it would do better than that yeah it's a it's a really pretty I love

the tail right drapes down. GUEST

You just don't know it's going to run off again. You know it's like a runaway bride it's one of those things that shows up and it disappears for decades and it comes back.