Antiques Roadshow

MARK WALBERG

Antiques Roadshow has landed in Central Florida, where the sky's the limit for great treasures. I always liked it because it's sort of lopsided, and it really looks very cool. All right, I'm not going to get in the middle of that one. I know better than that.

(chuckling)

WALBERG

Antiques Roadshow touched down at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to take in some incredible treasures of American space exploration. Check out these space suits, and marvel at the early evolution of advancements in the comfort and functionality of these crucial pieces of astronaut equipment. Back in Orlando, a NASA story that's out of this world will be probed later on in the show. But first, a piece of trash from World War I turns out to be a 21st century treasure.

Take a look.

WOMAN

I brought a label from a peach can that has a letter on the back from World War I. My aunt passed away three years ago at the age of 95. But before she passed away, my uncle had died and this had belonged to him. And it was all folded up, and I looked at it and I said, "My gosh, it's got a letter on the back." And she said, yeah, that my uncle Bob had had it for years and years, and that his father had probably given it to him.

Because I don't recognize the person's name on the back of the can, but they were both from Brooklyn. And the letter was sent to a man who worked for this company here, Jurgen's, who were, I guess, a distributor. And the letter is all about enjoying this can of peaches in the trenches in World War I. The front is beautiful just as a piece of graphic art from the turn of the century.

And we see here that we have the individual who sent it, the date, and then the censored mark, in this case this is a lieutenant in the 4th Infantry. Right. His job was to look at that and to make absolutely certain that there wasn't any information in the document that was inappropriate to go back to the folks at home. The back is really what gets us interested in this piece.

And we've got a letter from a fella here who is writing from Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry Regiment, which was one of the more actively engaged American divisions in World War I. And apparently, this fellow was quite taken by the peaches. He's writing, he says, "Dear sir, here I am on the firing line "at the bottom of a trench having just finished "my day's rations of corned willy and hardtack, "and having finished it all off by eating this can of peaches from your firm." So clearly, it meant a lot to him, enough to save the label and send it back. There's something else in here.

"They tasted so good, I feel it my duty "to congratulate you and your firm for putting such goods within our reach." But he signs it interestingly here. He says, "Believe me, they are worth fighting for. Your friend, Eddie." Clearly, this meant an awful lot to him in the circumstances that they were in. Yeah.

Rations in World War I were not exactly high level cuisine. They were more... they were... they were concerned about two things.

They were concerned about getting the food to the front and having it be nutritious and provide the guys enough calories to keep going. But more importantly, they also wanted it to make it from point A to point B without getting you sick, turning it into a botulism grenade. And to be sealed up to where it would be resistant to the chemicals that were in the air over there, the gas that would settle. So canned goods were particularly well suited to that because they're all wrapped up.

In the realm of value, these labels from fruit cans and crates and that sort of thing are collected because they're decorative and they're attractive as just a nice period lithograph. But on its own, this would be about a ten dollar item. It doesn't have a whole lot of value on its own legs. Right, right.

But as something that was so significant to this individual that he wrote that congratulatory letter and sent it back home, this is something that frankly shouldn't exist. He even talks in there about the trenches are littered with the wrappers from your peaches. As a document of front line life from an American soldier in World War I, I would expect to see a retail value today for this in the neighborhood of $550 to $600. Wow.

Not bad for a can of peaches. Well, in the 1970s I visited a flea market in Orlando. Noticed it, and I decided to buy it.

APPRAISER

And how much did you spring for it? It couldn't have been more than five dollars, I'm sure of that. I was attracted to the artwork around it, but I loved the coloring. And did you know what it was?

An inkwell. (chuckling) Well, it is an inkwell, actually. It's a very, very rare inkwell. If we look on the bottom, we see that it's not signed, but it has a number.

And usually when things have a number, there's a maker's mark on it, but this doesn't have a maker's mark. It's a very interesting work by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. We know it as Tiffany Studios. But it didn't become Tiffany Studios until around 1900.

It is in the Art Nouveau style with this wonderful interlacing design, and you have this mosaic here that has some iridescence on it. Now, the mosaic ones are very, very rare, and this was very early on in Tiffany's production. And while the standard desk set pieces have pattern names, this doesn't have a pattern name. Oh.

We've seen these before, and they usually show up without their lid. And we always thought that they were a pen wipe. Further research we found out that it was an inkwell with a little top to it. A tiny, tiny little top to it.

Oh... And it is possible if you located the original top, that you could have a reproduction cast in bronze. I think it would be nice to give it an idea of what it actually is supposed to look like. But it really wouldn't affect the value.

Another one of these came up with that same number on it, that's the model number. The last one at auction brought about $6,000. Oh, my gosh. I'm shocked.

It is lovely, but... $6,000? But, what do you think it's worth if it had the original tiny little cover on it? I don't know.

$15,000 to $20,000. Oh, my gosh. (chuckling) I'm shocked. (chuckling) Lovely, thank you.

Not bad for five bucks, huh? Certainly. They're a premium from a cigar company depicting really foreign costumes more than just regular clothing that they'd be wearing. It's the Duke Cigar Company Costumes of All Nations.

But originally these were staffs of authority, and prior to that, they would actually whack people with them. Right. I think reasonably would be $200 to $300. It's a lot of work unwrapping that.

MAN

It had to go in the back of a car, so. I'm thinking decorative value, which is a nice way of saying not a lot, low hundreds. I bought it at a farm auction in Wisconsin about 40 years ago. It was advertised as guns and household, so I went for the household and there were a lot of people there for the guns, and not so much for the household.

And I had this paddle, and I just held it up because I really wanted it, and I never put it down. So I think I paid $20 or $25 for it. So you just kept your paddle up so everybody in the room knew that you wanted this. And they told me not to do that afterwards because I might've raised the price.

But yet you still got it for... I wanted it....$25 or $30. Yeah. How long ago?

35, 40 years ago. It's a spectacular example of an antique advertising glass globe. Now, the White Elephant Brand Coffee and Tea Company, pieces are very scarce. We can put the date anywhere between 1909, 1910, as high as possibly the early 1920s.

You just don't see much. We've seen some small cans before, but never have we seen an advertising glass globe like this. What's great is it has the advertising for the coffee on one side, and then the tea on the other. The condition, as far as I can see, is absolutely perfect.

The color appeal is off the charts. Any idea what this is worth? No. (chuckles) Well, again, we've never seen this piece before come through Antiques Roadshow, or anywhere else.

And I'd put an auction value on this of $2,500 to as high as $3,500. No... That's great. I loved it.

It's a wonderful, scarce piece. I knew I was right to hold that paddle up. My grandfather was Henry Louis Scott, he went by Louis. He was a track runner the early part of the last century.

He was chosen for the 1912 Olympic team, and one of the events he raced in, the American team won a gold medal in a 3,000-meter team race. One of the stories my father said his father told him was that on either the trip over or the trip back, he became friendly with a man he called Georgie. Georgie was on the pentathlon team, which involved equestrian events. And during either the crossing or the return, the seas got rough and Georgie went down to calm his horses, and one of them kicked him and broke his nose.

And my father found out later that Georgie was in fact George Patton. General, of course, also, little known, was a participant on the pentathlon team. Yes. I don't think he won.

No, he did not, because the 1912 Stockholm Olympics are best known for Jim Thorpe winning both the decathlon and the pentathlon. But your grandfather ran in the 3,000-meter race. Now explain what the 3,000-meter team race was. It's rather complicated.

But my understanding, what I've gotten from information from the U.S. Olympic Committee, who was most helpful, was that each country ran a series of heats. The countries that won the most heats got to put five runners in a final race, and the top three runners for each country were calculated to determine which country won. My grandfather won his heat, he did not come into the top three for this particular race.

But since he was on the team, the whole team of five people got a gold medal. And what happened to the gold medal? We have no idea. Ah...

Absolutely no idea. But instead, you do have this wonderful piece. Some people call it a certificate, other people call it a diploma of merit. And you'll see here, it says, "I Pris" right on there.

And that's from the 1912. And you'll see there's your grandfather's name right there, H. Louis Scott. Both of these posters, by the way, were done by a gentleman named Olle Hjortzberg, who was a professor of the Royal Art Academy in Sweden.

He was a great Swedish painter. And he won a competition to produce the poster. This poster is great, but as you can see, there's a lot of damage to it. You've got missing pieces here.

And because it's not a rare poster, you have to take that into consideration. For the poster alone, I would probably place an auction estimate maybe of $1,000 to $1,200, which is still pretty good. They've sold as high as $4,000 or $5,000 in great condition. So you can see that this is a fraction of that.

I'm very surprised. The patch is great because he wore it on his blazer. The patch is probably about $300 to $500. But this is the most intriguing piece, particularly since the gold medal has disappeared.

You don't see these certificates of merit very often. It's a fantastic piece. And normal diplomas or certificates of merits that they've given out have sold between $1,000 and $3,000. But this one, because it's first place and it's 1912, I would put an auction estimate of about $5,000 to $7,000.

I'm very surprised. I had no idea. I don't think you're going to sell this, so if I was going to insure all of this, I'd probably insure the group somewhere in the vicinity of about $15,000 for insurance, for retail replacement value. Of course, for you it's irreplaceable.

I'm very surprised, I really am. I had no idea. If you had the gold medal today, an auction estimate would probably be somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000. My goodness.

This is a funky old chair that my grandmother had in her home. And I always liked it because it's sort of lopsided, and it's sort of one of a kind. It really looks very cool. And they were in central North Carolina, Wake county, Raleigh, in that area.

Okay. Obviously it's just something that she enjoyed too, and she held onto it. You think it came down in the family? Do you have deep roots in that part of the world?

I think so. I am pretty sure that her family probably came south in the 18th century sometime. Okay. And set up shop in Raleigh and went from there.

It's a charming chair. I love the fact that it's... I think wonky is a word that comes to mind. It's just a little off kilter, but this is a really rare and interesting chair.

The chair, I think, probably does have roots where your family does. I think the chair was probably made in North Carolina, possibly southern Virginia. And the history of this chair would take us all the way back, I'm thinking to the first half of the 18th century. So we're thinking 1720, 1740.

Way before the Revolutionary War. And at a time when that part of the world is really rural and remote. This is a great touchstone, I think, to that part of our early history. These kind of turned chairs are among the earliest furniture forms that we see.

The sort of great chairs of the 17th century lead into these early chairs. We call these great chairs, and they have history in the 17th century with the master's chairs and that sort of thing. And there are some details that I think are wonderful, and point to that. You've got this great little simple baluster turning on the rear stile, and that's mirrored on the lower part.

It gives the chair great coherence. The support of the arm is a very simple tapered column. Without a lot of detail or adornment, that tends to be a very early detail. And the chair shows its age, but it comes down in remarkably good condition.

Despite being a little wonky, it's really all there. And not only that, it has this great lustrous old color on it. The chair is composed almost entirely of ash, which is a kind of wood that takes turning very well. And it was used a lot in this kind of chair.

And I think it's ash top to bottom. Everything about it is really pretty intact. I mean it's had some wear to the front rungs and legs, but the chair has survived really well, and not many have. Because that's a lot of history.

You're talking upwards of 300 years. It currently has a rush seat in it. The original seat could have been hickory bark or some sort of woven split. So despite the fact that it has its bumps and so on, I do think it's something that an early collector, or even an institution would have a real interest in.

I wouldn't do a thing to it, the condition's great, leave it just like it is, enjoy it. It'd be great to document it at one of the museums in North Carolina so you've got it recorded there. If you want to insure it, I would suggest a value of maybe $6,000. Wow.

I'm thrilled you brought it in here. Congratulations. Thank you so much, this has been really terrific. Being a North Carolinian myself, I'd love to see, it's like an old friend coming in.

(laughing) All I know, it's been in my family for many years. My mother originated from Korea, where I was born as well, and this was... I've always known this painting, but nothing more about it. Well, that's exactly where it's from, is Korea.

It's an image of a Buddhist divinity called Avalokiteshvara, and in Korean is called Gwaneum. And this one is called the "Water Moon Viewing Gwaneum." And the halo that's in back is the full moon. And she's sitting on a rock like above the firmament of the universe. With the two attendants that are there.

From the color and the style of the painting, it's actually quite early. It's probably 17th century. Even like the first half of the 17th century, could even be a bit earlier than that. It's ink, a mineral pigment on a heavy textile.

Probably a hemp cloth. It's a very beautiful image, very elegant in form. It's kind of interesting that this divinity changes gender from a man to a woman. Earlier images portray him as a man.

Later images portray him as a woman. There are two attendant figures. The one on the side here, on this side closest to me is probably the donor that had the painting made. And the other one is just a figure that eventually morphs into kind of a Madonna and child by, like, the 18th century.

But it's a very, very beautiful image. It's glued down, it has its condition problems, but it's worth restoration. Okay. And a good restorer could take care of this, and it'd probably be worth doing because I think it would actually add to the value also.

What did you think it was worth? I don't know. Yeah. This image is probably, at auction, it would probably sell between $8,000 to $10,000.

Okay. Wow! So do you know where it was made? I'm thinking Far East?

APPRAISER

I think it's Indian. If you look at the quality of this carving and it's just beautifully done, this is probably early 20th century, maybe 1890.

MAN

I... I had no idea it was that old. Did you see the rubies? Are these rubies?

Uh... Pretty sure.

APPRAISER

I think we'd need a gemologist to actually determine whether they were in fact real rubies. Should we do that? I think so. All right.

MAN

There's 90... 91 possible rubies and one emerald. Or 92 birds. All right.

All right, they're not emeralds, and they're not rubies. Okay. They're... in the old days they used to call them chatons.

They're rhinestones. So it's glass. That's what I did with this. Right.

If it was corundum-- sapphires, rubies-- the needle would move all the way up. Sure. The needle hardly budged.

APPRAISER

So I think that what it does is it gives a little glitter and sparkle.

MAN

Sure.

APPRAISER

But it's just not gemstones.

MAN

Right, exactly. Thanks.

APPRAISER

So, I love it, it's great.

MAN

Well, thanks.

APPRAISER

Not huge money, but not nothing either.

MAN

This is my friend Albert. I came across it in a... quite frankly, a junk pile. Albert had been thrown away.

And I rescued him, and I've had him since the early '70s. I actually was stomping on him when I found him. I didn't realize what I was stepping on. Ever since around about the 1920s, people have been obsessed and really interested with robots-- good robots and bad robots.

So what we've come to the conclusion on this is it is a store display. Who would not walk into a store if you saw this robot in the window? And he's got a little... a little...

it looks like he was in a cage fight or something. Well, he had been laying outside in the weather for years. The motors that operate the arms and the head were disintegrated. They just rusted apart.

So I went in there and pulled those motors out, and replaced them with Volkswagen windshield wiper motors. Which seemed to work fairly well because he's happy with having different motors in him. It seems that way. And the cord is on a...

a long cord, so I guess the person could hide... maybe behind a curtain if they wanted to do that kind of a thing. His arms do move. And his head goes...

very fast. He's... he's paranoid, I think. And have you ever had it appraised?

No, no. I love it. All of my colleagues here love it. We think it's so cool.

It's such a great piece of like 1950s... whether it's folk art or Americana, it's just so cool. If I saw it in a store today, I would expect a price, a retail price of around about $2,500 on it. Cool.

My great-uncle Lavern Meyer was an artist with Erie Lithograph Company back in Erie, PA, back in the '20s to maybe '40s or '50s, and painted a collection of circus artwork that was then passed from when he passed away to my grandmother, my grandmother to my father, and my father to myself recently. It's lived in attics, in basements. And we framed a couple pieces to hang up in our house. It's been in the family for a long time.

So it's your great-uncle. Yes. And his name was Lavern Meyer. Correct.

So one of the first things I'd actually love to do, and I am privileged and honored to do it, is introduce the world to Lavern Meyer. The reason I say that is, the artists who designed so many of the American circus posters largely labored in almost absolute anonymity. They were craftsmen, and none of these posters are signed, as you see. Right.

And most of the posters that I come across in my daily job for circuses are not signed. So the fact that we now know through your family that the artist was Lavern Meyer actually adds something immeasurable to the canon of circus posters. Oh great. So, world, meet Lavern Meyer.

Lavern Meyer, the world. That's the first thing, which I think is great. Now you said he worked for the Erie Lithograph Company. Yes.

And the Erie Company was one of the great American lithography companies. But one of the greatest American lithography companies was the Strobridge Company. And this poster was actually printed by the Strobridge Company. Oh, okay.

So it would appear that your great-uncle actually worked for several different lithography houses. Certainly the Strobridge Company, as well as the Erie Company. Oh, very neat. And it's interesting, because a lot of times we come across family stories that are a little bit vague or a little bit foggy, or maybe not entirely accurate.

It's sort of like a big game of historical telephone. Where information gets lost and twisted. But we know he worked for at least two different companies. Huh.

Now, watchers of the Roadshow might remember from many, many years ago when someone else came on the show with original artwork. And this is original artwork for posters. And the word for that is maquette. Okay.

Many, many years ago, when someone else came in with maquettes, I pointed out that for some unexplainable fluke of the market, the original artwork never seemed to be worth as much as the posters were themselves. But in this case, I think it's slightly different. As they are sort of family heirlooms, do you have any idea of what they might be worth? I have not the faintest idea.

Well, it's very difficult to put a value on original artwork that until this very day was basically anonymous. But we look at these pieces, and here's what I see. I see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey poster, which according to my research was printed in 1931.

Okay. And Ringling Bros. really is the gold standard name for circuses. I think artistically, this is really one of the nicest images that you have.

Yes, there's a little damage down there. Not great, but I would say at auction that the Ringling Bros. is worth $800 to $1,200. Oh, great.

Then we have the Al G. Barnes and the Russell Bros. Circus. Now, someone is going to get angry at me for saying this, but if the Ringling Bros.

and Barnum & Bailey are the gold standard, the Russell Bros. and Al G. Barnes are kind of like bronze standard. They're not as famous circuses.

The images are great though, and I think together the two of them are worth $800 to $1,200. Okay. And then finally we have the other Ringling Bros. poster, which is smaller.

I haven't been able to establish an exact date for it, but it is a dramatic image. And on this I'd put an estimate of $600 to $900. Nice. But that's a lot of numbers.

I'm going to sum it up for you. The auction estimate for these four pieces together would be between $2,200 and $3,300. Oh, excellent news. Yeah, thank you.

And as I said, this is sort of new ground. Now that we know who the artist is, there's a chance that at auction they would sell substantially higher than that. Oh, excellent news. Yeah, we just...

we never knew having them staying around our house for years and years what they might be worth. We have my grandmother's bat necklace. It was given to her in the 1920s by Mrs. Clark, a very wealthy woman of the Clark Sewing family.

My grandfather and grandmother had done work for her. He was an interior decorator, and had painted a black satin bedspread for her. And my grandmother was a fabulous seamstress and had done some work for her. So she invited them over one afternoon to say thank you.

My grandmother admired the necklace that was hanging around her neck, and Mrs. Clark-- much to her amazement-- took it off and hung it on her, and said, "it is yours, thank you so much." She told my grandmother that they had bought it in Paris. Did she give her any idea when they bought it in Paris? Well, this was the early 1920s, and they were a wealthy family, and they were not young.

So it could have been anywhere from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Since it's translucent when I hold it up to the light, I thought it was mother-of-pearl and probably freshwater pearl drops. What we have here is a real French Art Nouveau jewel. Now, the first generation of French Art Nouveau jewelry comes from the masters such as Ren Lalique.

But then to bring the media down to the less wealthy, French manufacturers and German manufacturers and American manufacturers and the English, they started making jewelry for what was becoming very quickly a very popular style. So the French Art Nouveau starts in its high point in the 1895s. And I think this piece dates from around 1900 because it is mass manufactured. I'm sure they didn't make thousands of them, but they probably made hundreds of them because it's a casting.

The necklace is made out of cast sterling silver, and those are indeed sea pearls on the bottom. The material on the bat's wing is plique--jour enamel, it's backless glass enamel. And if we illuminate it from behind, you can see... that it's fairly translucent like a stained glass window.

Yeah. This is a jewel that we call a festoon necklace. Festoon necklaces are wonderful, they're better than just a straight necklace, and it's a bat. Which a lot of people don't like.

They think it's... it's a menacing creature. But in fact the iconography of a bat comes from the Japanese influence on the Art Nouveau. In the Chinese iconography it's a symbol of good luck.

This is a great piece of jewelry. It's bold, it's big, it's extremely wearable. A fair auction estimate for this piece is in the range of $4,000 to $6,000. (laughing): Really?

I'm shocked. (laughing) Thank you, Grandma. Yeah. These are two books and a picture that my father was given by Roberto Burle Marx, who's a landscape architect down in Brazil.

And what did your father do for a living? He was a botanist. He went around the world collecting plants. And he knew Roberto Burle Marx through collecting plants.

Which is really interesting because Burle Marx is known as kind of a jack-of-all-trades. But his main thing for what he's known is for being a landscape architect. Correct. And a botanist as well.

Right. So there is that connection. And let's take a look at these books right away, I think it's really interesting to see these drawings that he made for your father, right? Right, yeah.

So can you tell me what the one right over here says? It says, "to Monroe Birdsey, my friendship "and for our mutual love for plants, Roberto Burle Marx, 1977." And that's a self-portrait of Burle Marx. Correct. Okay, and let's look at this one, too.

This one says, "To Monroe, for our mutual love for nature, and principally for plants." "Your friend, Roberto." And then this was dated in 1984. Burle Marx was a fascinating person, as well as a fascinating artist. He was known for anti-mimesis, which is really life imitating art more than art imitating life. But I didn't say that, actually Oscar Wilde did.

Oh really? (chuckling) It's where artists teach us what to see in nature. So let's look at the drawing, for example. What we see in the drawing is abstraction.

But in this abstraction there's a lot of organic type forms which talk to us about nature as well. Now Burle Marx was very, very famous for a lot of architectural projects, large-scale architectural projects in Brazil. One of the most famous that he did was the promenade in Rio de Janeiro. Right.

Yeah, on the Copacabana Beach. On the Copacabana Beach, exactly. And that's probably one of the most world famous landmarks people will instantly recognize. And when you look at that promenade, for example, it has that same kind of curvilinearity, that same kind of non-repetition, that same kind of natural look to it.

There's always like an interplay between life and art. Now, this was just one of his projects. He was also very famous for projects in Brazil, in Venezuela, as well as in America. I can tell you that the market for Burle Marx is a strong one.

Brazilian art overall has gone up in value over the last ten to 15 years. The drawing that we have here, if it was sold by itself at auction, I would put an auction estimate of $2,000 to $3,000 on it. And that's a conservative auction estimate. Now, what we also have are these books, which are wonderful, and they're also self-portraits.

In and of themselves they might not be so expensive, but maybe $500 to $700 each. Oh really? Yes, because you know, they also lend authenticity to the grouping, as well as to themselves. So if we put them together as one lot, I would put an auction estimate of $3,000 to $4,000 on the group.

Really? That's cool. Thank you. I appreciate it.

We're from Boston and it's Boston, but that's all I know. It was in my dad's garage. He's clearly a French Renaissance scholar. This is in the Renaissance Revival.

So this would have been cast around about 1900, 1910.

APPRAISER

And what happened was in the late '70s people started going to England and buying container-loads... Containers of stuff. That's right, bringing it home. And so it all kind of integrated into the American fabric.

I could be wrong, I'm famously wrong about a lot of things. I had a first wife, but I... (laughing) My family is friends of the brother of the artist. And we've actually traveled with our friend Zeng Xiaojun to visit his brother in Beijing and spent a month there, it was wonderful.

We came back, and our friend gave us a choice of two different scrolls from his brother. I chose this one because this is Yellow Mountain, a sacred mountain, Huangshan, and that's one of the places we went to visit when we were in China. How wonderful. So you've got a great image of this famous mountain peak, very compelling.

Xiaojun is considered one of the top painters in China today. Yes. Now, most of his market is in the retail sector, in the gallery sector, not the resale auction market. Right, right.

So there's relatively few works of his coming up at auction because he's my age. He's young. Xiaojun and I were born roughly at the same period of time-- thank you for saying I'm young. And he's still active and painting, very much so.

But his works sell for a pretty good amount of money. And he does these large-scale works that sell for large amounts of money. Yes, right. But with all that in mind, and knowing who he is, and how many people like his works, I think this has got to be in the $50,000 to $70,000 range.

Wow... (laughing): That's much more than I thought it would be. I think that's got to be right in there where it would be. I was going to probably not faint if you said $15,000 or $20,000, but wow.

MAN

This was a pocket watch that I bought at an antique shop in London. From what I know about it, it was made mid-1800s, give or take. It was made to commemorate the restoration of the British crown, the 200th anniversary of that. So the movement inside is very special, carved in the shape of the British crown.

And then it was meant to be presented to the royal family, but for some reason never was. Changed hands a few times, and then ended up in this antique shop.

APPRAISER

Fascinating story, can you tell me how much you paid for it and when you did purchase it? A thousand pounds, and I bought it about 15 years ago. So I do collect watches, actually. I don't have very many, but I have about a half a dozen of them.

I started wearing three-piece suits when I was in high school, and I figured that it made sense if I was going to wear a vest, to have a pocket watch to put in it. So I've been collecting them for a little while now. It's a wonderful watch, and a lot of the intrigue about watches lies inside with the mechanism. The quality and the accuracy that they could achieve in the mid-1800s-- and you are correct, it is from 1860, roughly, give or take.

It's a fusee driven watch. It's a solid gold case, massive, 18-karat gold. And on the inner cover, it actually says "chronometer." Chronometer is the generalized term that means accurate, very high quality timekeeper. Okay.

When I open it up, there's where it really shines as a timepiece. Right. It's decorative, it has the royal crown set with stones, it has ruby jewels. And then it has another feature, which is very unusual.

Okay. It's a detent chronometer escapement. The detent chronometer is very accurate. It releases the time and the power in fractional seconds, rather than sweeping along at a regular rate.

Also the secondary feature, which is unusual, is the blue hairspring, which is controlling the balance wheel. Instead of being flat and circular, it comes up in a helical curve. Right. A very wonderful timepiece and extremely accurate.

It would have been really an award-winning timepiece. The watch has all the characteristics of being a special order watch for a special occasion, yet without provenance we can't really determine that. All we know is it was a one-of-a-kind watch when it was produced initially. Right.

Do you have any idea of value, if you got a good buy? I... honestly I would never sell it, even if I did have a good offer. But I mean I hope that it's worth at least as much as I paid for it.

For insurance value, in today's market, I would put a value of $10,000 on the watch. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wonderful piece.

That's... and a good buy. You made a very good buy. Yeah, thank you so much.

MAN

The story in the family is that it was made by my great-great-grandfather in Concord, Massachusetts-- Cyrus Benjamin. Okay. And that's all I know about it. It's been in the living room of my mother's house and my house for as long as I can remember.

So family lore says it was made by Cyrus Benjamin. Cyrus Benjamin. About what time would that have been? It would probably have been-- we thought-- about 1860, 1870.

Okay. About the time his son had gone into the Civil War, and he had a shop in the back of the house. Okay, well, as sometimes can happen, family history is off by a generation or two here. A table like this is generally referred to as a demilune card table.

Made in eastern Massachusetts, about 1800. So 60 or 70 years earlier than family lore would suggest. And before Cyrus Benjamin was born. Exactly.

This table, though it's based on a Boston example of a demilune table, is likely made, if not in Concord, certainly in the Concord, Massachusetts, area. That makes sense. Without a doubt. It would be referred to as a Federal period card table.

It relates to Federal furniture made in Concord and Sudbury and Carlisle, all neighboring towns of the general area west of Boston. From where my relatives would have originated anyway. Exactly, which was the countryside at that time. Yes.

It is a remarkably colloquial table. What does that mean? Well, there's a lot of country cabinetmaker things that are going on. Especially with relation to the inlay on this table, which relates to a lot of Boston forms.

At the top of the dies here, you can see what I would refer to as a contrasting quatrefoil. I see. Very similar to a lot of furniture made in Concord, certainly. What I like best, however, is the really delicate line inlay just below that, at the top of each leg.

You can see this maybe light wood, could be holly, wavy line inlay that sort of intersects a couple times, and then ends in drops that we looked at very closely and can't really determine exactly what the substance is. It may be horn, it may be mother-of-pearl. Wow. It's difficult to know.

The whole table is covered over in a varnish that sort of obscures exactly what materials are being used. But what's so interesting about the table to us is that it's a great country example of a city form made with indigenous woods like cherry on the top. Actually two boards of cherry. And it excited us when we saw it because it's a good rarity to have a table made in that area of Massachusetts.

Is it something you've ever had appraised? Never. Well, in its current state, we'd estimate it for auction purposes at $3,000 to $5,000. (chuckles) That will shock my brothers and sisters.

(laughs) Well, good. Wonderful to hear. I appreciate that, thank you very much. This sort of thing does not hold up very well, so these have been taken care of.

The value is more to who made them. When they're made is more decorative value. If it's decoration, probably in the $50 range for the pair. It looks like it could have been a Cub Scout project to make a casing for this clock.

It is kind of decorative. Might have had painted highlights on it at one time. He was the bat boy as well? He became their...

he was the bat boy, and then when they noticed his toes, they made him their lucky charm mascot. Of course. I would, too. (laughs) It's one of the best nicknames I've ever heard, "Six Toe" Joe.

I never got to see his toes. You have a collection here worth $2,000 to $3,000, just the baseballs alone. I was visiting an Asian store in my neighborhood that sells mostly mahjong stuff and Asian things. And I saw this and thought, "That looks kind of out of place." So I went to the owner, who I knew, and I said, "What's this thing doing here?" She said, "Somebody dropped it off, said sell it." I said, "I want it." She said, "How much you want to pay for it?" I said, "Well, $30." She said, "Let me call the owner." She called the owner, "Sell it." That's how I got it.

Wow, and what year... About five or six years ago. Five or six years ago. Yeah, yeah.

This is actually from the state of Nayarit in west Mexico, a place called Chinesco. And this is everything that we want to see in a large west Mexican piece. Now what we have to do is figure out whether it's real or not. If we look at the overall style, the overall configuration, it's pretty good.

The way it's hunched over, that's accurate. The shape of the head, that's okay. When we start getting to the paint, we got a little bit of a problem. The paint on the face is not quite right.

The nose and the little nose ring, that's okay. The eyes are a little bit strange. So this is a red flag for us. Unfortunately, that means it's a reproduction.

Ah, okay. And... but, as a reproduction, it's a big, impressive piece. And even on the decorative market, I would put a value of $300 to $500.

That's a good return for $30. Now do you want the bad news? Yeah, go ahead. What do you think it might have been worth if it were real?

Well, that's probably more like $20,000, $30,000 or something. You're close. How about $30,000 to $50,000? Wow.

I acquired that ring some years ago back in the '70s from a friend of mine.

APPRAISER

Why did your friend give it to you? Well, it wasn't actually a gift, he kind of got in a little bit of trouble, and called me. And I had gotten him out of trouble two other times, and I told him I needed a little collateral this time. So I went by his house and picked up the ring, and told him when he gave me the money back he could have his ring, and that was in 1972.

Now when you say he got in a little bit of trouble, can we ask a little bit more about that? Well, it was a phone call from the jailhouse. Oh, my. Yeah, yeah.

He was one of those people who enjoyed life kind of illegally, let's say. Aha, I see. So he needed a little bail money, and $500, what I had to give for the bail money to get him out of jail. And I'd had the ring, and hid it at my mother's house, and all of a sudden some years later we all went out to eat and I thought I had it hid in a chest drawer, but evidently she found it.

She'd been wearing it and she claimed it. She claimed it? Oh, she said it was hers? Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But I think she knew it was mine anyway. But I've only had it back in my possession probably for the past five, eight years now. Well, it sounds like your friend had a good friend in you.

Certainly. To go and take care of him in his time of need there. Right. Have you ever had anybody else take a look at that ring for you?

Well, we took it to a jewelry store in Charlotte, North Carolina. Weren't too happy with what the lady told us. (laughs) Weren't sure about what she was saying. Didn't know exactly what she was telling us.

I see. So that's why we decided we'd try to come to Antiques Roadshow and get a true appraisal on it. Bring it in here. Okay, well, it's a great old ring, and I think you got...

you told me you got $500 into it. Right. That's right. It's a early 20th century ring.

It's an Edwardian ring. It's got some old mine cut diamonds in there. There's a couple of them that are about three-quarters of a carat. A couple of them are about a half a carat each.

Can you tell me what she said at the jewelry store that didn't make you so happy? Well, it was actually the money. (laughs) Oh, yeah. That's always the story, isn't it?

Yeah. She was telling us the weight of it, then she was telling me what kind of metal the ring was, which I'm not sure what she said it was now. And I forget how many carats she said it was, but she offered to purchase it for $1,200. Aha.

That sounds a little bit unethical to me. Exactly. A ring like this is... it's pretty desirable in today's market.

We see these from that era pretty regularly, and it's a great ring. It's platinum, which is commonly what they used to make jewelry back then. That was kind of the new metal in town back in the early 20th century. This ring is probably made in America, would be my guess.

I see a lot of rings like this made from people who emigrated to the U.S. who had the craft of making jewelry like this. And it's in great shape. So nobody wears it now?

My wife, she says it's too big for her. She's got little hands. I see. So she says it's too big for her hands, so she doesn't wear it.

So it just kind of just... So it's not hers now? It's still yours? It's hers.

Okay, all right. I give, I fess, it's hers. Okay, all right, just checking. It sounds like it has a storied history to it.

(whispers): It's mine. (laughs) Okay, all right, I'm not going to get in the middle of that one. I know better than that. I think in today's market, an auction value on something like that would probably be in about the $3,000 to $5,000 range.

Whoa! Yeah. So a little different than what you'd originally heard at your jeweler there. So hopefully that's a little bit better number that sits with you better.

That's good news. My family has been kind of indirectly associated with the space race for years and years. My father was a manager of a hotel that was partially owned by the seven original Mercury astronauts. And through that friendship, he got to meet a lot of the other people and become friends with different astronauts.

And subsequently some stories came out of it, and ultimately that's why we're here. Yes, I have a collection of a lot of different astronauts and autographs and all that. But I think it's the story behind it that really made it interesting for us. Through this entire space industry, interesting childhood for my sister and myself.

There'd be dignitaries coming in because it was so fresh and new to the U.S. that at one point we were told to try to keep the kids of Wernher von Braun busy. Went bowling with his kids. You've got an incredible collection of items here.

And I only chose a few specific items for us to actually look at today. We've got this great photograph of your dad in front of the hotel. But it's got something interesting on the sign here. "Try our cornbeef, it is out of this world." There are stories that kind of came and went a little bit over the course of, you know, a few decades now.

They've changed a little, but my father is recently passed, and there's no longer going to be another congressional investigation. But what had happened was Dad and John Young were talking about the food that they had to eat-- emulsified, reconstituted stuff in bags and packages. And Dad said, "Well, John, if you'd let me know, I could have catered it from Wolfie's," which is a great delicatessen in the Ramada Inn here in Cocoa Beach. Well, out of that, these two got together and they tried to figure out a way that they could get a couple of corned beef sandwiches into space.

From there, Dad and John went into the kitchen, took a full thick slice of corned beef, and then they started wrapping it in cellophane. They go to the top of a six-foot ladder, and they would drop it. Okay, it's going to hold together. Well, there was no Ziploc bags back then, so this is how it had to be done.

Well, I think with Wally Schirra's help, they were able to get a couple of corned beef sandwiches into the flight suit front pockets, and the joke was going to be to Gus, basically-- he knew nothing about it, Gus Grissom and John Young were going to be on this flight-- he was going to say, "Gus, what do you want on that corned beef sandwich?" Well, they pulled it out, and the sandwich has just disintegrated. There was caraway seeds and crumbs and everything everywhere. And nobody probably would have heard anything about this had it not gotten back down to ground. They had the capsule on the top of the carrier, and as they were taking photos, there was crumbs and stuff everywhere.

Well, out of that, there was a congressional investigation that I don't really know where it went too far, but things were changed around to keep my dad's name out of it at that time. Well, it's fantastic. I mean one of the aims of the Gemini III mission was to test different foods in space. And to have a corned beef sandwich brought onboard, along with all these emulsified glycerin-covered foods.

Yeah, yeah. I can see why the government might get a little upset and decided to do a little bit of an investigation about it. Stuff was put in jeopardy, no doubt, but, thankfully, no harm, no foul on that one, so... Well, it seemed to go over pretty well, and it wasn't the last time that John Young brought a corned beef sandwich into space.

On his first space shuttle mission, they actually had corned beef sandwiches onboard. I'm not sure if it was by his request or... Well, I would... I would think.

You've got this great letter from Alan Shepard to your dad on the Ramada Inn stationery. It says, "Carlos, I needed a corn beef sandwich, and all I got was baloney!" Kind of corroborated what transpired. I'm sure they all knew about it afterwards. It was...

it was common knowledge after a while, so. We also chose two photographs. Both signed by Neil Armstrong dedicated to your father over here, your father and mother. Mom and Dad, yeah.

And to you as a kid. Correct, yeah. This is an incredible collection. The photograph, it's a wonderful photograph, shows Ramada Inn at the height of the astronaut training in Florida.

It's wonderful that it has Wolfie's, where the sandwich supposedly came from. And then we have this great letter on the letterhead signed by Alan Shepard to your dad. We estimate at auction this would sell for between $3,000 and $5,000. (laughs) Too fun, too fun.

Just for this great little slice of astronaut history. It's just a wonderful personal note. How fun, how fun. And now we have these two other photographs here.

These are some of the earliest signed photographs with the NASA background of Neil Armstrong. It's a wonderful, clear signature, wonderful dedication. It's just a beautiful, beautiful photo. We estimate at auction, each one would sell for between $7,000 and $10,000 each.

Chair, please. (laughing): Very good. No clue it was going to be anything like that. They are beautiful, it's a great young picture of him.

And the signature, you couldn't ask for better. And we look at this entire collection, there is so much here from the early astronaut days, it's absolutely beautiful. You've got some great photos here of some of the greatest astronauts. As a whole, we'd estimate around $40,000 to $50,000.

Wow, wow. Thanks, Dad. And now, it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth. Well, we brought a painting from Ben Essenburg, a Florida artist from Englewood, Florida, and found out it's worth about $8,500.

So I only paid about $10, I'm happy. (laughing): Me too. I brought Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, and Stonewall Jackson's biographies, and they were worth a combined $40. In fact, the shirt is more memorable than the rest of the stuff we brought.

(laughter) We brought Trusty to the Antiques Roadshow and he had a doggone good time. And I have a tile that is part of a nursery rhyme category. This one's the "Frog Prince." I tried to kiss the frog, no prince. We brought this 1932 Democratic National Convention pencil.

It was actually used to hold up the votes on the floor of the convention house. And we also have one of the first merchandise items that Disney ever created from 1930s. We're so happy, it makes us want to dance. Yeah!

Came down here to find out how much this poster was worth-- Muhammad Ali poster. I thought it was worth about $25, they told me between $150. Makes me want to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. (laughs) Oh, God!

And we could not wait to come to Antiques Roadshow. Has it been the best day ever? Uh-huh. It has been so much fun, and we found out all about our four different objects that we brought.

So it was so great. Thank you, Antiques Roadshow!

WALBERG

I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching. See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.