Antiques Roadshow

CORAL PEA: Excitement is growing as "Roadshow" visits Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa.

GUEST: I owned this since it came out in 1977.

No way!

Yes.

Really?

Well, okay.

(chuckles) PEA: Iowa is an agricultural powerhouse, with nearly 30 million acres of farmland recorded in 2022.

Living History Farms is an outdoor museum that tells the history of agriculture in the state.

It's composed of three working farms and the fantasy town of Walnut Hill, set in the year 1876.

Living History Farms is the perfect Hawkeye State backdrop for "Roadshow" today.

(indistinct chatter) It was my great-great-great-aunt's doll.

(chuckles) GUEST: She's a beaut.

Made out of oilcloth.

Yep.

Now she can live in your nightmares, too.

Yay... (laughs) GUEST: Well, we brought in a World War II war bond poster.

About five years ago, I bought it at an auction in, uh, Nebraska, and we paid $400.

There was more, uh, military posters, but this one just... it pops.

It, it, it says, you know... (chuckles) we need to protect the future, more than anything.

So, yeah, it's a World War II bond poster.

And the majority of all the bond posters that were created, were created by the U.S. government at the printing office in Washington, D.C. And in order to make propaganda effective, like, if they want to raise money to fight the war if they want to increase enlistment, they have to print tens of thousands of these and distribute them from coast to coast.

Because if you just print one "Buy War Bonds" poster and, and you put it up in Washington, 100 people will see it.

It's not, it's not going to be effective.

But this poster wasn't printed by the U.S. government.

Uh, this poster is one of the few privately printed posters during the Second World War.

And it was actually printed by Kroger Groceries.

And in 1942...

Okay.

...which is when this poster is from, Kroger actually designed five different posters to put up in their stores.

And this is important because, if the U.S. government was printing tens of thousands, Kroger didn't have as nearly as big a reach as the government, so they didn't print nearly as many.

Yeah.

So compared to a regular war bond poster, which is almost literally a dime a dozen, this one is substantially rarer.

And not only is it rare, it's... an exceptional image.

It borders on American Surrealism.

And I defy anybody to look at this and not be like, "Oh, my God, don't-don't let this happen."

Yeah.

And-and even the sentiment, "Dear God, keep them safe."

It's schoolchildren, right?

The fourth grade reader... Mm-hmm.

...and the little girl is carrying an apple for the teacher.

These kids are going to school.

Yeah.

Like, this is an everyday thing.

Now, keep in mind, in the Second World War in England, there was a constant fear of gas attack from the Germans.

And children would walk to school with gas masks in their pocket.

They'd have gas masks in their desks.

There were gas masks for infants.

In America, it never quite came to that, because we were never invaded or bombed by Germany.

But this poster plays to that fear, this sort of primal parental fear that something bad could happen.

And it just... it's incredible.

It's a photograph that has been... brightly colored.

And... the look, the look of the little girl's eyes.

Ev-every little detail about it is... is amazing.

Which brings us to a question.

What is this thing worth?

I have no clue.

Hopefully more than $400.

I, I feel your hope.

(laughs) I do.

I feel your hope.

And, uh, I don't, I don't think you have to worry.

Okay.

This poster is not in great condition.

No.

No.

At some point, somebody Scotch Taped it to the walls.

Uh, and Scotch Tape is really acidic and it's begun to leave a mark.

You can see how the tape is browning and there'll be browning underneath, but that can be restored.

Okay.

The thing from a condition point of view, that, that really catches my eye, the colors are borderline perfect.

Like, it's as bright as the day it was printed.

The apple is shiny red.

Yes.

And generally speaking, in posters, the first color that fades is the reds.

And the reds are bright.

The colors are bright.

It has come up for auction...

Okay.

...several times, so I, I can give you a price based on its record at auction.

And currently, the auction value for something like this is $15,000 to $20,000.

Oh.

(chuckles) Really?

(chuckles) That's great.

That's, that's unbelievable.

Wow.

It is the most expensive World War II poster on the market.

It's a 1957 Telecaster.

It was my father-in-law's and he played it probably in the '70s and '80s in Washington, Iowa in the bars and... had a little band, little weekend get-togethers.

GUEST 1: We got an old William Tell mechanical coin bank.

The crossbow gets... (clicks) cocked back.

You set a little penny right there.

And it's got, uh, an apple on the kid's head over here.

(clicks) Put his foot and it knocks the apple off... ...and goes into the bank.

GUEST 2: And the money stays.

GUEST 1: And the money stays.

It's a little coin bank.

(chuckles) GUEST: My mom and dad bought these in either the late '60s or early '70s.

And she told me they paid about $700 back then, that she thought was expensive.

APPRAISER: That was a lot of money back then.

It was a lot of money.

And I asked her, what exactly are they used for?

And like most in her generation said, "Oh, they just to look pretty.

No, you don't want to put anything on them."

So they sat and looked pretty dusty rather than pretty.

Right.

Right.

These were made by Meissen Porcelain Factory in Germany, which is near Dresden.

And Meissen's been in business since the early 18th century.

But here we have a crossed swords mark.

Mm-hmm.

And we can tell by the little dots at the end of the mark that these were made after about 1850...

Okay.

...but before 1924.

Okay.

They were actually designed for little desserts at the center of a table.

And you're right, maybe no one hardly ever used them very much.

So, what are they worth?

Well, actually, there's a lot of this out there, but I, I would say a retail price on these... ...these days would probably be around uh, $1,000 to $2,000 for the pair.

Mm.

Okay, great.

So, they're fine.

Well, I know what to use them for.

Right.

PEA: An invitation to a very special guest led to the construction of this church in 1984.

SEDREL: October 1979, Pope John Paul II visited Iowa as a result of a letter that had been written to him by an Iowa farmer.

He said Mass here on the grounds of Living History Farms.

And we constructed our Church of the Land to commemorate that event.

350,000 people attended that Mass.

To this day, that remains the largest single day gathering of people in Iowa's history.

They actually shut down the interstate so that people could park there and walk to the grounds.

GUEST: So I brought this quilt top that I bought back in the early 2000s from an auction in Albia, Iowa.

I bought it from the... nun's home that was part of the Catholic Church there.

And I know I paid... probably less than $20 for it.

Wow...

I... am a quilter myself.

Okay.

And... part of it was just making sure that I saved it.

So I would date it, approximately 1860s.

And I'm able to determine that because of the dyes that were used in the fabrics.

So you have, um, this, this overdyed green.

We didn't have a single process green until a little bit later in the 19th century.

So it was dyed yellow and then blue, or then blue, and then yellow.

So we're seeing some of the yellow come out in the front.

A little piece in the back where they-- the blue is actually poking out in the stem.

You wouldn't make blue stems.

It was green.

So that's your double process.

You're also using Turkey red, and then this beautiful, beautiful chromium yellow.

The pattern is unique.

I think it's an original design.

It's like nothing I've ever seen before.

We see a lot of coxcomb designs.

We see a lot of these wheel designs with the flowers.

We see a lot of grape leaves and grapes, but we never see them all put together.

It is all hand done.

It's hand appliqud, and it's hand pieced.

It is just a quilt top.

It isn't finished yet.

I want to open it up.

So this is a four block design.

Not that everything that was four block came out of Pennsylvania, but they typically were from Pennsylvania.

Okay.

Because it's so graphic, and because it's an original design, I think even as a quilt top, this piece would sell at auction between $400 and $600.

Okay.

What do you think you're going to do with it?

I will keep it.

I agree, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try to finish it.

I know you're a quilter... No.

...I know as a quilter, too, your hands get itchy for that needle.

I would leave it just as it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a red vase, uh, that I purchased, uh, at a thrift shop for $50.

And, is that recently?

Uh, it was about three years ago.

Okay.

And, uh, what drew you to this vase?

Uh, it's the... the patterns, uh, the shape, the colors.

Uh, it's in the, uh, china cabinet that's lit from the top, so it, when the light shines through, it's like a red glow.

Oh, that's great.

Well, as you can see, I like these colors too... Mm-hmm.

...by what I'm wearing.

(both chuckle) Uh, so, this piece was actually made by a Romanian glass artist, whose name is Ioan Nemtoi.

Okay.

I meant no disrespect if I've mispronounced it, but I don't speak Romanian.

Right.

(chuckles) (chuckling): So...

He has an interesting story, because, uh, he grew up in northeast Romania, and when he was in the fifth grade, he showed an aptitude for art.

So he got channeled into more art classes... Mm-hmm.

...and ended up studying, uh, going to college in Bucharest, and he got a degree there in ceramics and art... Mm-hmm.

...and glass.

Okay.

And went on to start opening his own studio back in his hometown, 'cause he liked the sand there.

Okay.

And sand is what you use when you make glass.

Okay.

That's what glass is made of...

Right.

...that's one of the many things.

He went back there in 1995... Mm-hmm.

...and then he started making these great pieces, and a couple pieces were donated to the Vatican and to the UNICEF headquarters.

Okay... (chuckles) And, um... he's represented in museums, and he's had shows.

Okay.

And this particular piece, uh, which is a, a large piece for him.

Um, sometimes his glass had-- w-would be cased, and it would be shine-- the surface would be more of a shiny surface.

Mm-hmm.

This one is a matte finish.

Uh, but this, in a, in a retail venue, could sell for between $1,500 and $2,500.

Wow.

Okay.

(laughs) It's nice.

(laughs) Good shopping.

Yeah.

I got it at Goodwill for six dollars.

Um, and looked it up online and found similar versions, not exactly this one.

Um... and they were worth like a couple hundred bucks.

So I thought it was a good Goodwill find.

(indistinct chatter) The chair, it come out of the-- uh, was, Teddy Roosevelt's-- came out of his hunting lodge in North Dakota.

And when, uh, he became president, his wife wouldn't let him take it to the White House.

So, he gave it to one of his Rough Riding buddies in Southeast Iowa.

Later on, I acquired it, many years later, of course, GUEST: We got this piece of jewelry that, uh, my dad had, and he inherited from his sister.

She got this from a man in Colorado.

She had a, uh... a peach orchard, I believe it was, and this gentleman bought it and he paid her cash for some of it and then, gave her this pendant for the other part.

How big was the peach orchard?

See, I don't know, I really don't know... (laughs) ...how big it was back... And this happened, probably, late '30s.

One story I heard that this gentleman might have made it.

I don't know.

What we have here is an Art Deco platinum sapphire and diamond pendant from about 1920.

You can still see some Edwardian elements with the frilly laciness of the piece.

But you start getting into the Art Deco elements.

You see when you get down toward the base, it becomes a little bit more geometric... Mm-hmm.

So we're right on the cusp of the end of the Edwardian period to the beginning of the Art Deco period.

We have platinum, sapphire, and diamond.

You suspected that the gentleman that gave it to her may have made it?

That was one story I heard.

Now you know, whether it's true, you know, who knows?

Not knowing anything about the man who bought the peach orchard, I'm going to suspect that he did not make this himself.

I didn't...

I, I, I...

...I wouldn't think so.

Yeah.

I think, I think the workmanship on that beautiful pierce work, those milgrain accents, I, I don't think anyone but a very high-quality jeweler... Mm-hmm.

...a very experienced jeweler would have made this.

Unfortunately, it's not signed, so we don't know who made this.

Mm-hmm.

But I would imagine it's probably from New York.

I think the high-quality jewelers that worked in New York in this period... Mm-hmm.

...would have produced something like this.

In a retail store, you would probably expect to pay between $15,000 and $20,000 for it.

Really?

Yeah.

Holy smokes.

My wife will go crazy and now she'll never wear it.

(laughs) Well, don't do that.

(both laugh) She should enjoy it, but... Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's beautifully made.

It's a really nice thing.

Yeah.

I brought a toy that actually belonged to my father.

He was born in 1927.

And so it was a toy that he had in his childhood.

We didn't know he had these toys until after he passed away.

Okay.

And then my mother distributed the, the four toys.

This happened to be the one that I was able to get.

So...

I got to choose first, before my two sister siblings.

But I am the oldest daughter, so it's okay.

Okay.

(chuckles) So, on the gas tank here, we have what is a "T-C-O," and that stands for Tipp & Company.

Tipp & Co. or just Tippco.

And they were a German tin toy maker.

This toy would have been made in the mid-'30s.

And Germany-- we went to war shortly thereafter.

So this toy in particular would not have had a very long production run.

Okay.

That most likely is contributing to how rare this toy is.

Sure.

Um, in addition... Hmm.

...a lot of the Tippco motorcycles are... much smaller.

Um, this is about 12 inches or so.

The more common size we see for a large Tippco motorcycle is about nine inches.

And then they make an even smaller one at seven inches.

Right.

The large size of it really makes this a show... a show stopper.

This is a nice motorcycle.

It has a wind-up motor on the side here, which would propel it.

So winding this would drive the rear wheel.

You could set your front wheel to go in a circle or a straight motion.

And it was just a s... a little wind-up floor toy that could kind of scoot along.

Do you have any idea of what a toy like this could be worth today?

No, other than my neighbor, who was a toy collector, looked at it and I don't, I don't remember how much he...

It seemed like a lot of money that he thought it was worth at that moment.

Okay.

(chuckles) Um, how much did he think it was worth at that time?

I want to say, like, $1,000, maybe.

Okay.

You know, maybe a little more.

Well, I'm happy to report that, uh, this toy is worth much more than that.

So, it's good that you kept it.

Good.

It is all original.

All the tinplate is correct.

All of the lithography is correct.

I've actually only ever seen one other example of this toy.

Mm.

The estimate I would conservatively place on this piece would be $15,000 to $25,000.

Oh, my goodness.

Make me cry.

(laughs) Oh, my goodness.

My dad would flip over, wouldn't he?

(laughs) That's wonderful.

Thank you.

A couple years ago, one had gone to auction.

Uh, it had an estimate of $15,000 to $25,000, and it finished at just over $40,000.

Oh, my goodness.

I think of my sweet dad, what he would think.

This toy, he... you know, held back for so many years.

So... Sure.

Thank you.

And now, looking back, it was good that you didn't get to play with it With your brothers and sisters because...

Yes, yes.

We'd have wrecked it.

(laughs) Here it is, preserved.

We've got a, a surgical kit from my great-great-grandpa.

He, he was the first surgeon in Marine, Illinois, back... Well, I have a book in there that says 1936 on it, I think, I brought with me.

Uh-huh.

But, yeah, it's got the saw in here and... Everybody wants to see a big old saw.

(laughs) Ew!

Uh, this is a six-gallon churn.

It's a Western churn, uh, from Plant Seven.

Plant Seven was, uh, bought out by Western Stoneware in 1906.

Eight months after they bought it out, it burnt.

So Plant Seven is a pretty uncommon churn to find.

PRODUCER: Do you, uh, do you churn butter at home?

GUEST: I do not.

(all laugh) My grandma and grandpa brought this, so I carried it for them.

(metal squeaking) We have, uh, several items from my great-great-uncle, Eugene Woodruff.

He was an 1866 graduate of West Point.

And, uh, we have his class ring, uh, his, uh, kepi and, uh, gauntlets.

And this is a photograph from his, uh, annual yearbook.

Are there any markings on the ring?

Uh, yes.

It's a, a wax sealing ring.

That explains why the 66 is backwards.

Is backwards, yes.

Right.

And what about the, the flag here?

The flag is a presentation piece that was given to, uh, Eugene Woodruff on the 4th of July in 1873, uh, by the people of Shreveport in appreciation for his work in removing the Great Raft of the Red River, which is a 40-mile log jam that the government had been fighting with for, uh, 40 years.

He was the engineer in charge of the project and he was finally able to successfully remove it.

He used, uh, the latest technology in doing it.

He, uh... uh, he used new steam equipment that hadn't been available before, and, uh, nitroglycerin, which revolutionized the, uh, job of removing, uh, obstructions in rivers.

(chuckling): I'm sure it did.

Yeah.

So... Well, he graduated from West Point in 1866 at the end of the American Civil War.

Um, he did not see combat.

But what a lot of people don't think about is the fact that, after the war, there were things like the log jam.

There were things that needed to be reconstructed.

And he graduated as an engineer.

And you have his kepi, um, the eagle or the wreath on the front.

Um, the... it's missing the "U.S." Uh, it's got great Engineer Corps buttons on, on each side.

Uh, great cap.

The flag has 37 stars, uh, which fits in with the time frame that's written on the flag.

And one of the things that caught my eye first was this great pair of gauntlets.

They're entirely hand sewn.

You can see all the tiny little stitching, uh, from the glover that made them.

But on the inside, they're also named to him where he, he had them stamped with his name and "U.S.A." A wonderful pair of gloves.

And so, uh, where did you get the image?

The, uh, class photo we actually got online.

Uh, it came from the yearbook that was published that year and it was floating around.

I just happened to catch it.

Wow.

And I paid $30 for it.

Wow.

He signed it and, uh, put his address, "Independence, Iowa," on the, uh, on the picture there.

Right.

Have you ever had any of these items appraised before?

No.

So, for the items that we have here, we would put an insurance value of, uh, $15,000 on it.

Really?

Yeah, it's... Well, okay.

(chuckles) Well, there, there's some really rare and interesting things.

You know, the ring, obviously, um, but the other items are fantastic also.

PEA: The story of an Irish immigrant in Iowa is told here at the Flynn Mansion.

After success in the railroad construction business, Martin Flynn bought a farm and raised ten children with his wife, Ellen.

The 14-room house was completed in 1871.

An early adopter of new technology, Martin outfitted the home with gas lighting, central heat, and a plumbing system that provided both cold and hot running water; quite modern features for the time.

GUEST: Well, it's a bottle that my great-great-stepgrandfather received.

It's been a treasure throughout the family.

When I was a little girl, I used to ask my mom to bring it off the shelf so I could sit and just watch it and look at it and just kind of, you know, pay attention to, to the details and say, "I wonder what they're doing."

My mom passed away, um, almost six years ago.

This was the only thing that I wanted from her.

It warms my heart.

My mom's the best, so...

This was made by an itinerant artist called Carl Worner.

Okay.

If you want to talk about American folk art, to me, Carl Worner is the classic example of an itinerant artist who made things, really neat things, because he could, but also because that's how he subsisted.

I'm sure that your relative probably fed him, gave him some meat or something in exchange for this.

We don't have any records of...

Right.

If he was paid for any of this.

If you put a map of the United States up and you put a dot in every place that his stuff has been found and where it was made, it would go all over the Midwest and it would go all over New England.

Oh, okay.

I didn't know that.

And as far as we know, there's over a hundred of 'em in existence.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

It's more interesting than the vast majority of them.

For one thing, it's bigger, and it shows a meat market.

It belonged to Seaver Erickson Smeby, who is my great-great- stepgrandfather, um, who came from, uh, Norway and started the butcher shop.

The most common ones are bars.

Okay.

'Cause if you think about it, if he did one in a bar, he could, he could eat and drink.

(laughing): Yeah.

One of the things I always check when I look at one of these is to look under the bottom to make sure he didn't cut the bottom out to do it.

Oh!

And he, and he didn't.

And if you look at the width of every piece of wood in here, it had to go down through the neck of the bottle.

And how he ever assembled all that in there, your...

I can't even imagine.

Your guess is as good as mine.

But that's part of the fascination of the story.

He probably made this from wood scraps... ...and packing crates and whatever was available.

I was talking to one of the other guys at the folk art table who's really in tune with the current market, and he said that this, that Worner's work is starting to see an uptick in interest.

Oh, no kidding.

Because it's just such a slice of American history, a retail price on this would be in the $4,500 range.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

(sniffles) Wow.

That's incredible.

My mom would be happy.

That's incredible.

Wow.

Wow.

This is the third one of these... No kidding.

No kidding.

...that we've appraised on "Antiques Roadshow."

Well, back in the '60s, the Baltimore Orioles had ball girls-- you know, the first base and third base line.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

And I was... young, okay, and I thought, "Well, why can't the Tigers?"

I'm a...

I'm from Detroit, big Tiger fan, big sports fan or whatever, so I wrote the Tigers in '73 and asked, you know, "Why can't you have ball girls?"

Well, they wrote back and said, "Sorry, we don't have the room or the facilities for it."

Well, but-- Well, I wrote back again...

But...?

And they came back and said, "Well, basically, we're, we can't do it, and here's two tickets and..." So... (laughs) ...letter.

Yes.

Yes.

And it says, "I'm sorry you do not agree with our policy about ball girls and bat girls."

Yes.

"However, I see no chance for a change at this time.

Thank you for your interest."

Yes.

You know, that's the year right after Title IX went into effect, too, in 1972.

Yes, yes.

And I was ahead of my time.

Just, like, I wanted to play Little League, and they wouldn't let me play Little League.

You know, I was just...

So how'd you feel about this?

Well, I'm... all these years later, I'm still not happy.

(laughs) So, look, because of the history of this and what it shows for the eye of the time, I would put an auction estimate of $100 to $150 on it.

Really?

Yes.

Wow!

It's a protest!

That's right.

And thank you for being a tiger about this.

Thank you.

(chuckles) In 1973, I was an unconventional college student living out in rural Iowa.

And, uh, my college lit teacher gave me a essay, uh, entitled "Spring."

And I was so moved by it that I sat down and wrote E.B.

White a letter.

And I sent it to him in care of his publisher, and he wrote back.

He did write in one of his letters to me that he didn't usually correspond with fans.

Yeah.

But there was something about my letters to him that made him write back.

You have got 14 typed letters signed, and you can see some of them here, this being the earliest one.

Mm-hmm.

This one's interesting because here he's talking about farm animals...

Yes.

...which, of course, many people know him for "Charlotte's Web..." Right.

...which was published in '52.

Right.

So he's talking about his love of animals and the animals he had on his farm.

And then he even recommends to you down here... (laughs) I know!

...he says to you, which is funny, He goes, "You might enjoy 'Charlotte's Web' if you haven't encountered it."

Y-yes.

I mean, I just love that.

I know.

He had that simple style I know.

But he-- very, uh, unassuming.

Mm-hmm.

Did you ever get to meet him before he passed?

Well, I wanted to.

Mm-hmm.

I asked him if I could, and he answered in one of his letters that it's better that we not meet.

Wow.

Wow.

But after he died, um, His secretary sent me a letter and I was able to meet her.

She took me to his farm.

Whoa...

Uh, I also got a tour of the farm.

Wow, so you got to the farm.

Um, yes, I did.

Wow.

So you wrote this letter?

Yes.

And then it was published in your paper here or...?

Well, through the years, I always received letters and Christmas cards from him.

Uh, I always used to send him a note for his birthday.

And when he died, I really felt compelled to put my thoughts and feelings on paper.

And I sent it to "The Des Moines Register" and they published it.

They published this.

That's fantastic.

And, uh, got picked up by A.P., and um, was published in newspapers all over the United States.

Wow.

So we have, uh, 14 letters and about five cards.

And you also had a, um, a book inscribed to one of his later books.

Mm-hm.

Many of them are signed Andy, which a lot of people don't know.

E.B.

is Elwyn Brooks White.

Right.

But to people that he was associated with, the-- he was known as Andy; he picked that up in, uh, Cornell, where he went to Cornell, but it was reserved for his closest friends.

Mm-hm.

Well, I want to talk to you about the value.

Like I said, they don't come up much, um, when you look in the records, uh, and they're usually short.

Uh, so they can be in the $500, $700 range per letter.

These are much lengthier and you have 14 of them.

And I'm kind of conservatively thinking as an estimate, as an archive, you'd be in the $6,000 to $10,000 range at auction.

That would be an estimate.

If you were going to insure them, I would think you're probably looking at somewhere around $12,000 to, uh, $15,000 insurance.

That could end up being conservative, because this many do not come up.

And so it's a very special archive.

Well, it's good to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, and I'm getting at the age where I need to decide what to do with them.

This is very special.

Great writer.

Yes, indeed.

Some writer.

(chuckles) Yeah.

This is a picture framer's miter box from 1914.

That cuts miters for like corners on a picture frame.

I found it at a thrift show.

I think I paid about $80 for it.

Well, this is a helmet from the Chicago Fire of the World Football league, which existed 1974 to '75.

It was an attempt to challenge the NFL.

And I bought this helmet at the team's going out of business sale, basically, for $25.

The guy that wore this had about the same size head as me, but his cheeks were way wider.

GUEST: This is a painting that belonged to my in-laws, and it hung in their living room for a long time, and we inherited it from them when they passed.

APPRAISER: How long ago did they acquire it?

Uh, they bought it in the, I believe, '40s or '50s.

And I-I love the image.

The-the composition is beautiful.

I agree with you 100%.

It's a beautiful composition.

It's a beautiful image, it's so nicely painted.

Uh, do we know when they acquired it?

How much they may have paid for it?

I think in the '40s or '50s, and I have a receipt, that says $150.

Um, and they paid it off, um, little by little.

(chuckles) Oh, in installments.

Installments, yes, yes.

Okay, well, that wasn't uncommon then.

Right.

I think that's before they had their five children, so they may have had a little extra money.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, as you point out, it's-it's a beautiful painting.

It's by George Gardner Symons.

It's an original oil on canvas.

I would say it's probably circa 1920.

And he's an artist thought of as both a sort of impressionist as well as a realist.

There's a whole school of American artists working in the first quarter of the 20th century who did this sort of thing, working out of doors through all sorts of weather.

And it's lovely.

I mean, we see the sun coming through, really looks like dusk.

Mm-hm.

How far away is the location from where we now stand?

Not far, uh, it's in the Des Moines area.

It's an image of Fourmile Creek, which is just east of here.

Yeah.

Have you been there today?

Does it look like this?

I have not.

Um, I think I'll have to drive by there today on our way home.

(chuckles) Interestingly, I found where one other painting of Fourmile Creek, larger in size and scale, Oh... Oh... was done by Gardner Symons that's been on the market.

Interesting.

So it's a great painting.

I love the use of the-the snow.

You-you just can feel the cold.

The viewer is sort of invited to get in, bottom right.

And we see a sort of vanishing point to the left there.

What can I tell you about the painting as far as value?

(stammering): What do you think it's worth?

I, gosh, I don't know.

My family, um, my husband's siblings seem to think it's worth an-an awful lot.

(chuckles) But I-I mean, maybe $3,000, $4,000?

I... Is the painting currently insured?

It is not, and we'd like to insure it.

Um, I think we need to insure it, yeah.

Well, I think based on the-the quality, an original oil painting by George Gardner Symons, "Winter Glow," old frame, probably a period frame.

As long as you've known it, the painting's been housed in this frame?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

I think today, 2024, insurance value probably set at $12,000.

Oh, wonderful, all right, very good.

Excellent, thank you.

GUEST: I brought my vintage Kenner "Star Wars" Darth Vader action figure.

I owned this since it came out in 1977.

No way!

Yes.

So you actually remember getting this off the store shelf?

Bought it new, played with it, kept it all this time; coming out of the movie, Vader was certainly the character to get.

And being one of the earliest ones, it has the double-telescoping lightsaber.

Correct, bingo, and that's why we're talking about this bad boy right here.

So you did say '77?

Actually, the Kenner "Star Wars" toys did not hit store shelves until 1978.

When "Star Wars" came out in May of 1977, the movie was such a hit, it was an instant sensation.

So Christmas of '77, Kenner comes out with this thing called the Early Bird kit.

Are you familiar with the Early Bird?

I had the Early Bird as well.

No!

You received an Early Bird kit?

Yes.

So you bought the mailer, you sent it, you did the whole process?

Yes, still have it.

You had four figures.

You've got Luke, Leia, R2D2 and Chewbacca.

Darth Vader wasn't introduced until the figures came out in what we call 12 backs.

12 back just simply refers to the fact that when we look at the packaging that this Vader would have been on, it showed 12 figures on the back of the card that you could have bought.

Now, the double-telescoping element.

There are three characters that could have had a double-telescopic saber: Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Vader.

Out of the three, Luke Skywalker is the most common.

Now, we're just going to show what does that mean.

Well, you move the arm here...

Typical "Star Wars" figures, you just get that single extension, but you pull out this little bad boy.

Whoo hoo!

Look at that.

The reason why the double-telescopic saber is so rare, because when it came to Kenner and quality control, they realized, A, this was a hazard if it falls out, because it can be removed out of the, the shaft.

But the other thing is, it broke all the time.

So that's why they redesigned the lightsabers to just have that solid tip.

Just like comics and trading cards and everything else today, they do professionally-grade toys.

We look at him, his cape is super clean, no scuffs, it's not sticky, there's no plastic breakdown.

We look at the paint applications on his chest.

I mean, it's beautiful.

I think it would very easily hit a 80, maybe an 80-plus.

Conservatively, at auction, in its current shape, ungraded, it would easily be a $6,000 to $9,000 action figure.

Pretty good.

Is it pretty good?

Or it's pretty great, I think!

It's pretty... it's great.

Hey, especially when your mom paid $1.98 in 1978.

That's right.

Hypothetically speaking, on the ultimate high end, when this figure is graded 90, it has sold for as high as $30,000 out of the package.

If you would have left him in the card back, you would have had a $60,000 to $90,000 action figure.

But you were a kid, what are you supposed to do?

I got a lot of play value out of it.

PEA: A heavyweight in the history of 19th century farming equipment is this Pennsylvania threshing machine from around 1887.

Powered by a steam engine, the thresher was used to separate the grain from the chaff of various crops, like corn, wheat, oats and more.

This one was made by farmer David S. Heebner, who took out a loan against his own farm in 1840 to produce agricultural equipment.

By 1882, Heebner & Sons sold 50% more machinery than all of their local competitors combined.

GUEST: I brought in a watch.

It's, uh, made by the Patek Philippe Company.

And I inherited this watch from my dad.

And his whole life, he loved clocks, and timepieces and watches.

And he had many wonderful watches, but this was his pride and joy.

Wonderful.

Y-you're right, it's Patek Philippe, which is probably the finest company in the world.

They're one of the older watch companies from the 1800s.

They still manufacture today.

In these days, in the 1930s and '40s, they did very small production of watches.

Okay.

And when I opened it up and looked at the movement, I can date the watch probably from the late 1930s.

Okay.

Late 1930s manufactured.

With a nice original, uh, dial, kind of a pink color undertone with the original Patek Philippe box.

And also an unusual Patek Philippe buckle.

Most of the time, these don't come with the watch; somehow they get misplaced.

And it is marked PPC, Patek Philippe Company.

All these things add value and quality to this.

Your, your dad did a great job of keeping this watch and keeping it all original.

What, what would you say about the band?

You think it's original?

You think it's replaced?

It's probably been replaced, I would guess.

Okay.

It really is a l-- it should be a little narrower for the buckle and stuff.

It really doesn't fit the buckle super great.

Okay.

That's probably why they get replaced, because you can't find the leather straps to fit the buckles, so they've changed the buckles.

This one actually kept the original buckle, which is wonderful.

Good.

Yes.

It adds a lot of value-- collectors love things, little increments like that are fabulous.

No idea what he paid for it originally?

The number that seems that I remember that he would, he would mention from maybe from time to time, and again, this is probably early '40s when he got it, I want to say $400.

Your father probably was young.

He had to have been in what, his 20s or 30s when he did this?

Mid-20s, right.

Right.

Yeah.

Which was a lot of money for someone in those days.

Yes.

Probably on a retail level, in a really nice, fine store, probably around $6,500.

$6,000 to $7,000, somewhere in that price point.

Wow.

Yep, yeah.

Very collectible, rare watch.

Thank-thank you, wow.

Yep.

I was thinking maybe $3,000, $4,000.

I do wear the watch occasionally.

I will pick a, a special event.

So it doesn't just sit in the box all the time.

That's good.

It is an heirloom, and it will be going to my son someday.

My mom collected Oriental stuff in the '80s, and found this at an auction house in Nairobi, which is where they were living.

And I don't know how much she paid for it.

She called this a double gourd vase, she was quite sure was Chinese-- that's all I know.

Well, I think your mom did a great job.

When you first look at it, one of the things that strikes you, aside from the shape, is that it's mounted with these gilded bronze mounts, a group of entwined snakes, and then you have groups of reeds that are bound together on foliate feet.

And the top looks like the capital of a column.

Mm-hmm.

And all of that is decidedly of classical origin, from the west, not China.

Mm-hmm.

And I would venture to say that, in fact, it's probably French.

And the surface is particularly interesting, this fabulous kind of brilliant color blue with this magenta little circles.

It's almost like oil spots... Yeah.

...on the surface.

That gives it this almost textural feel, but there's no texture to it.

Right.

It's all beneath this smooth glaze.

So there was this fascination in China with replicating natural forms, the appearance of natural forms and surfaces in objects made of porcelain.

And that was particularly, I would say, it reached an apogee during the reign of the Emperor Qianlong.

1736 to 1795.

Oh.

So what we have here is the vase, that was created as a work of art.

Mm-hmm.

Merged with French gilt bronze mounts.

Now, when did that happen?

Well, I think that the vase, of course, would have been in the possession of someone who is a wealthy Chinese collector.

Mm-hmm.

And then, at some point, that left their possession probably sometime in the 1860 to 1880 period.

Okay.

Ordinarily, we can turn it over and take a look at the underside.

I know.

But what do we see underneath?

Repair.

It's not a repair.

Oh!

This was an application meant to cover up the base.

They put in a material that is simulating lacquer.

So we're having to guess what's underneath.

So in my guessing, I am going to be thinking of this from the position of maybe there's not a mark.

Yeah.

I think, and my colleagues agree, that if this came up for auction, we believe it would likely sell in the range of $8,000 to $12,000.

Fantastic.

I thought it was worth something, but I thought it was maybe $1,000.

(both laugh) So that fills in the blanks.

A friend picked this up for me at an auction, uh, numerous years ago, uh, being a longtime fan.

And, uh, so it's just part of my collection.

Um, I purchased this maybe three or four years ago in Des Moines; um, I don't know anything about it.

I just thought it was really neat.

And so I've been using it for a trash can in my office and then realized, probably, I shouldn't do that.

(chuckles) GUEST: I brought in a coin silver ladle, punch ladle.

It was sort of an accidental find at a thrift store.

And I did research the maker's mark on the back a little bit... Mm-hmm.

...and it is, uh, Kentucky coin silver.

And the maker was deceased in 1823, so it obviously has to be that old or older, yes.

Great.

And how much did you pay for it?

It was $1.50.

It is a coin silver ladle, and the maker is Samuel Ayres.

Samuel Ayres was born in 1767 and died in 1824.

He immigrated to Kentucky in 1784.

And then by 1790, he, he was listed as a jeweler and a silversmith.

Okay.

The monogram is in period script, and it appears to read "APF," which is most likely the owner's monogram.

The mark on the back reads, "S. Ayres, Lex K." in a banner, and that's his later mark when he was working in Danville.

Okay.

So it's Southern coin silver, uh, Kentucky specifically.

There are... people collect that specifically.

Southern silver is pretty rare in the market.

Mm-hmm.

These don't come up that often.

Correct.

For an auction estimate, I would probably put $1,500 to $2,500 on it, conservatively.

Oh.

(chuckling): Which is a thousand times what he paid for it, um...

Yes, yes, good purchase.

Yes, and then in a strange coincidence, his son was also a silversmith... Yeah.

...and he ended up in Iowa, which is where we are now.

Oh, yeah.

GUEST: This is a Civil War draft wheel.

And this was in a museum in Marengo, Illinois, that was run by a local undertaker from, like, the early 1900s into the 1940s.

And it got passed along by the family, and they were finally moving out of the area, and I purchased it from them.

How long ago did you acquire it?

Uh, in 2017.

Got it.

And what it was used for was, um, in 1863, the U.S. Congress passed the Enrollment Act.

And as a result of that, every congressional district in the United States had a provost marshal's office.

And this drum was used to draft people into the Union Army.

And you also have some cards here that were part of the drum, right?

Yes.

The provost marshal went around and he would register all the people that are eligible to go into the army.

And that's what those cards are.

It has their name and then the sub-district within that congressional district.

So the number here represents the sub-district?

Yes, sir.

I think it's interesting about these cards is that a couple of them have actually the age of the potential draftee on them.

This gentleman was 30 years old.

This person here was 23 at the time.

Yes.

The Civil War was really the first U.S. attempt at initiating a formal draft.

Some folks during the Civil War when the draft came up, often referred to it as, a rich man's war, poor man's fight.

Because if you had some money and you were drafted, you could pay a fee and get out of it.

I think at the time it was, like, $300.

So there was some issue with the draft, and there were riots in New York.

Lincoln had to pull troops from the Gettysburg battle in order to quell these riots.

But what's interesting about what you brought today, is that it shows us how they were trying to be as egalitarian as possible.

First of all, it's a 12-sided box that rotates and it's mostly glass, except for the panel where you open it up.

And I think that was an attempt to say, "Hey, we're trying to make this so that you can see that it's a fair situation."

That said, once your name was pulled, if you had the money, you could also get out of it.

So it was a complicated time.

We look at the box, what's unique about it is that it was most certainly handmade, uh, for the, the provost's office there.

Almost like a, like a bingo setup.

This was a situation where you weren't lucky to get pulled.

Exactly.

It's not a game you want to win.

And we flash forward to the Vietnam War and now we're televising it.

So it's really a moment in time in America where we see, uh, you know, the... this initiation of the draft.

That said, it's an unusual thing.

I mean, have you ever seen others?

I've seen several in museums.

And the others you've seen, how similar are they?

Uh, they're quite different.

Right, exactly.

Yes.

Leading to believe that the concept was initiated by someone.

And then they basically let them build it however they felt was the best way forward.

What did you pay for it back in the day?

About $500.

And it came with all the cards?

Yes.

It can be tricky to value a thing like this.

And part of it will be based on the connection to Illinois.

Were there a specific regiment that served very conspicuously, that came out of that area and that could tie this box to them?

But as is, after a bit of, uh, back and forth and some research, I, I would say, conservatively, for insurance purposes, I would say you're in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.

Oh, excellent.

It's one thing to say the draft.

It's one thing to have a poster, it's another thing to see the names in a barrel, right?

Yeah.

That's, that really brings it home.

GUEST: So this is our Louisville Slugger Ty Cobb bat.

Um, we think, from 1920s, 1930s era.

My dad is an avid baseball, uh, collector, and so a gentleman, I believe he was in his 80s at the time, um, brought this bat to my dad and said, "I would like you to have this bat.

I see you have a true passion for it."

Mm-hmm.

And so my dad took it, um, and he put it in the corner, uh, forgot about it for 20 years... Mm-hmm.

Uh, until he sold his shop about five years ago.

And then we actually saw you appraise a Ty Cobb bat on "Antiques Roadshow" a couple years ago... Mm-hmm.

...and that's what got our, uh, interest piqued in the bat.

And so here we are today.

Yeah, well, it's not very often that we find these in the wild.

I believe that appraisal was probably a decade ago, actually.

Okay.

It's been a long time since I've seen one like this.

And we'll get to the bat in a second, but we had a big change in baseball history last week.

Ty Cobb, for years and years and years, has had the highest batting average in the history of baseball.

Until last week, when Major League Baseball integrated the Negro League statistics.

And now Ty Cobb is number two in all-time career batting average at .366, to Hall of Famer Josh Gibson, a Negro Leaguer who had a career average of .372.

Okay.

So that's a little bit of Ty Cobb history that just came down, I believe, in the last week or two.

With that being said, let's talk about your bat.

First of all, there's two types of bats.

There's the bats that were manufactured by Louisville Slugger to specific weights, measurements, so forth, manufactured for the players.

And then there was the store model bats.

The store model bats were manufactured in all different sizes and shipped to sporting goods stores, to schools, to hardware stores, those types of things.

Value is a huge difference.

So first of all, the bat measures 36 inches.

The bat weighs 38 ounces.

So right there, that tells us that, wait a second, this is not your store model bat.

This would have been a bat that would have been made specifically for Ty Cobb.

That fits right into his range of the bats that he would have ordered.

The label dates it at 1916 to 1933.

However, Cobb retired in 1928.

So for us, that places this bat to have been manufactured between 1916 and 1928.

And also, Ty Cobb was known to tape his bats with about 11 inches of tape in a spiral fashion.

(chuckling): No way.

If you measure all the way to the tape residue, we have about 11 inches of tape.

We have some spike marks, and then we have the stains, which are widely considered to be tobacco stains.

So we have everything we want to see today in a bat that's a professional model bat, that has a really high likelihood it could have been used by Ty Cobb in a game.

So, all that being said, any idea what, what, you know, the bat's worth?

I don't, I mean, you, you see online what, what some have sold for, of course, you, you don't, you don't think it's worth anywhere near that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but I-I have no, no clue.

I-I wouldn't expect much coming into today.

Yeah.

At auction, you're looking at $75,000 to $100,000.

That's unbelievable, unbelievable.

I'd have never guessed.

You're going to want to insure this bat for $125,000.

Unbelievable, thank you.

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

I brought the kidney bowl.

And...

I brought a, uh, German tea set from the 18th century.

We learned a lot from "Antique Roadshow."

You guy are great!

(laughs) Great.

And I brought Little Stevie with me today.

My mom and I bought her in 1982.

She is the precursor to the Cabbage Patch Kids.

And, well, I'm not going to show you, but she's signed on her butt by Xavier Roberts.

She's not worth that much, but I have a lifetime of memories that mom and I can still share.

We have an early '60s liquor decanter and a carnival glass vase.

And we drove all the way from Cedar Rapids to get rich.

But we didn't get rich, but we had a heck of a lot of fun, so.

(chuckles) And I brought my leather ox footstool to the "Antiques Roadshow."

(chuckles) Um, I picked him up at an estate sale about a year-and-a-half ago, uh, for a little over $200.

And he was appraised between $800 and $1,200 today, which was very exciting.

I brought my great-grandfather's accordion today.

Was hoping to hit a high note.

Turns out, it's only worth about $40, but I still had a blast at "Antiques Roadshow."

I have a French, um, sterling silver brooch which, uh, Kevin Zavian, he said he'd never seen anything like it before, so.

(giggles) That was a good thing, so.

Yes.

Had a great day today.

We're happy, and... Yeah.

Very happy today.

Experience of a lifetime.

(laughs) Yes.

PEA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."