Antiques Roadshow

MARK WALBERG: "Antiques Roadshow" is exploring the history and the treasures of Oklahoma at the Philbrook Museum of Art.

It's a bell that my dad found in a junk pile.

Okay.

He was a junk collector.

That's what we thrive on.

Yes.

WALBERG: The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa is a lauded cultural institution, with roots going back to the booming oil industry of the early 20th century.

Waite Phillips was a part of the throng of ambitious men of that era who headed here, hoping to strike it rich with that black gold, petroleum.

And strike it rich he did.

Phillips' fortune produced Villa Philbrook, an American interpretation of the Italian Renaissance architectural style, designed to be both formal and informal, a mix of sophistication and function.

Today at "Roadshow," we've got a mix of fine antiques and art to explore.

Sometimes the artist actually painted over a photograph.

WOMAN: Okay.

They look... they look very photo...

This one in particular looks very photographic to me at the base.

Okay.

And, like, it was just very heavily embellished with colors over the photograph.

Okay.

APPRAISER: Though it's carnival glass, which is from the late 1920s to the 1930s, and Fenton is the name of the company that made it.

That was a very famous carnival glass company.

So Fenton is a good company and a good name to have.

How do you know what color it is?

You have to flip it over, okay?

Okay.

And then, you can tell from here that this is the blue one.

WOMAN: My cousin called me and said, "I'm at this garage sale.

"Our pastor has this chair, his wife hates it, and they just want to get rid of it."

And so, I asked her how much, and she said, "$50."

And I said, "Well, I'll buy it."

So... Well, God giveth and God taketh away.

Exactly, right.

Okay.

Do you know anything about the chair?

I don't.

It's designed by Warren Platner.

Okay.

And it's produced by Knoll International.

Okay.

And that sticker is under this ottoman seat, if we lift it up here.

Okay.

Right here.

So Knoll International helps us date it.

Right.

Puts it into the 1970s, as opposed to the 1960s.

Oh, okay.

It's called a high-back lounge chair and ottoman.

Okay.

So this is a larger size and a larger ottoman.

Original fabric.

I think somebody could work with that to tighten it up, and I think it'd be important to keep the original cover with the piece.

It's a bronze base.

If we look at this metal wire base down here... Uh-huh.

...that comes in two different finishes, a nickel finish and a bronze finish.

Bronze finish is the more desirable finish.

Nickel finish has a tendency to rust.

Okay; is this one a bronze or a nickel?

This one's bronze.

Oh, okay.

So very popular style.

Postmodern furniture is very collectible today.

Uh-huh.

It serves a lifestyle.

This is a nice, big, comfortable chair.

Yeah.

The way people want to live in an informal way today.

Yes.

Now, how long have you had it?

I've had it since September.

So $50.

$50.

I'm happy to inform you that today at auction, this chair would bring between $2,000 and $4,000.

Holy cow!

(laughing): Wow, wow.

Very cool, very cool.

That's a good $50 investment.

I'd say so.

Yeah!

Individually, we'd probably put $1,500 to $2,500 on the chair...

Okay.

...and $500 to $1,000 on the ottoman.

Okay, wow.

We brought in an old lantern.

We couldn't figure out if it was a ship's lantern or a train lantern, but it's pretty old.

And we thought, "What better place than the Roadshow to bring it out?"

APPRAISER: Well, it's in great condition.

You could easily get this set up and ready to play if somebody in the family wanted to play.

Mm-hmm.

Wouldn't take much.

Has these mechanical, or, like, guitar-style tuners on here, which made it a little easier to tune.

But it also added a lot of weight to the... to up here, so when you were playing, it kind of pulled it down a little bit.

By today's standards, it's still a student violin...

Yes.

...but it's nice quality.

WOMAN: I received it from my aunt.

It's a Maynard Dixon pen and ink.

I understand it was from very early in his career.

He was about 18 years of age when he did this, and he was self-taught.

I don't know how she acquired it or what she would have even paid for it.

Well, it's a Christmas card.

Really?

So small pen and ink, and not a typical example of his work, because it was more personal for him.

On the back is actually a handwritten note to his uncle, and, and saying Merry Christmas.

So it's a really neat, personal, sentimental gift that Dixon would have given to a family member.

Maynard Dixon is one of the most important early-20th-century artists of the American West.

He was really highly regarded for spiriting along modernist movements, especially in Arizona.

So his work is, is very much sought-after among collectors of that period of time.

And while it's not a large oil, it has all the bells and whistles that one might want to see with his work.

There's an encampment.

It's very loose and innovative and modern.

And it's signed on the front and also has that personal letter on the back.

So, it's a fabulous, small example from his early period.

And today, an auction value for it would be $2,000 to $3,000.

Oh, that's wonderful!

Oh, that's great, yay!

I'm so glad you brought it.

Yes, thank you, my aunt.

And Maynard, great job!

(laughing) WALBERG: Waite Phillips wasn't the only one in his family to make his fortune in petroleum.

His brothers, Frank and E.L., also found success in the oil business as owners of Phillips Petroleum Company.

Frank's Oklahoma estate, Woolaroc, is also now a museum that "Roadshow" visited in 2011.

MAN: My brother was in World War II, in the Navy.

And when he came to port, he would buy a lot of these things and send them to our parents.

And I ended up with a lot of this stuff.

I call it "stuff" because I know nothing about it.

When was that?

That was in about '42 or '43.

He was over by China, in that area.

Did he ever explain why?

Well, the guy passed away, and, God love his soul, he never got to tell us about it.

We're used to looking at objects where you'll see on the bottom something that says, "Made in England" or "Germany" or, in this instance, "Made in China."

And, next to this, where it says "China," you see you have the, the Chinese characters over here, which, they will show us that this was made during a period of time called the Guangxu Period, 1875-1908.

So we know that this was made in an earlier period of time than when "China" was written.

So either your brother wrote "China" on the bottom, or it was done at his request by the shopkeeper, which is why it's so amateurishly written.

The first thing we notice is the profusion of bats, colorful clouds, lotus over the entire surface.

And that's purposeful, because it's meant to give you an impression of an abundance.

Okay.

An abundance of things that in China and in Chinese culture carry extra meaning, which is of long life, prosperity, and happiness.

Does that go for me, since I have them?

It sure does.

Okay.

(both laughing) The creation of these was complicated, because every color you see here-- these are called enamel colors-- they had to be fired at a lower temperature than the clay body itself.

And you actually have another one of the vases, don't you?

Yes, yes, I do.

There's a pair.

These were likely wedding gifts.

Oh, right.

And they would have been purchased new specifically for that purpose.

Exquisite workmanship.

These were made in Jingdezhen, which is the porcelain manufacturing center of China.

In recent years, this type of material has become very highly sought-after by people in China-- collectors, primarily.

There's a little bit of loss of gilding right here on the edge, but, overall, it's in, in really good shape.

So want to venture an idea on the value just of these two?

$500 apiece.

Well, I think it's a bit more.

It's going to be about $15,000 to $25,000 at auction.

Holy Toledo!

(laughing) Well!

We'll take better care of them, be sure no one takes that finish off.

(laughing) And with the other vase, you're probably in the $30,000 to $50,000 range at auction.

It's a toy, and my dad played with it when he was little, and then I played with it at Grandma's when I was little.

And I thought I'd bring it today.

And I guess it's a testament to the maker, Mappin and Webb, that it's still actually got a really sharp blade left on it, as well.

So you could still use this today.

So it's something that's over 100 years old that would work just as well now as it ever did.

You've brought this incredibly early and heavy chest.

Where did you find this?

Uh, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, on our way to a wedding in Omaha.

And my husband kept stopping, and I just wanted to get to our destination.

We drove into this little town based on a sign he saw, and it was formerly a shoe store, formerly a candy store, now an antique store and novelties.

He bought bubble gum cigars, and I bought this chest.

(laughing) Well, you always need bubble gum cigars.

Absolutely.

And I have enough chests already.

Right, right, right.

So what year was that?

Uh, eight years ago.

Eight years ago.

So a relatively new purchase.

New to me, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm going to describe it with three Bs.

It is a Baroque bureau bris.

And it is probably from Southern Germany, Northern Italy, in the 17th century.

(gasps) So it's, it's very early.

It's almost 350 years old.

Oh!

Yeah, it's... Well, no wonder it spoke to me!

(both laughing) Yeah; so the thing that, that is really stunning for me about it is that it retains many of its original brasses.

If you look at the frieze along the top...

Yes.

...you'll see this wave motion, carved waves.

Yes, yes.

And then, you look down the chest itself, and the brasses have wonderful mermaids on them.

That's why I bought it.

We thought perhaps it was firewood with really good brasses.

Well, the brasses are really good.

Wow!

And it's one of my favorite parts about it.

But the fact that this has been together for this long is extraordinary.

Oh!

Yeah.

So they call it a bureau bris, and bris is a French word for "break."

Yes, right.

So let's open it up and see what we've got, which is, essentially, a little desk inside.

Right.

Walnut.

It's got some veneers on the front of it, but all hand-carved.

Nice.

And it's a real antidote for our throwaway society.

So any idea of its value?

I'm hoping it's worth $800, which is what I paid for it.

Well, well, yes, yes.

It's certainly worth more than that.

I would say, if I saw it in a shop, possibly not in, in Nebraska, but maybe New York City, we probably would expect to pay around $3,000 for a piece like this.

Wonderful!

Well, I'm just delighted to know its age, because it stumped me.

It's really built to last.

MAN: I brought in something from my family.

It's a Civil War cannonball or cannon shot that's been in our family since the 1800s, and I was wanting to know more about it.

APPRAISER: What do you know about it?

I don't know the history of how it was found.

My family relocated to the Midwest.

And since then, the stories have gotten shorter, and I use it for a doorstop now.

That would work, that would work.

Well, because of the shape, these often get referred to by collectors as a "football shell."

Uh-huh.

In 1861, a man named Schenkl in Boston got a patent on this style of shell.

And they're very distinctive, because of the ribs... Yeah.

...along the body of the shell.

They were popular shells, but this one is special.

This one was actually a Confederate copy knocking off that patent.

Oh.

I was going to ask you whether it was the North or South that used it.

The Union used the standard version... Uh-huh.

...but this is purely Confederate.

This piece is attributed to the Marshall, Texas, arsenal.

That's where the majority of them are believed to have been made.

Uh-huh.

And most all of them are found in that trans-Mississippi area.

And there are not many of them found, because they didn't make many of them.

It was a very labor-intensive design.

Uh-huh.

And it's made as a solid shot.

It's not a shell that was designed to explode.

They fired these at forts and artillery emplacements to batter rather than to explode and rain down.

Mm-hmm.

And this one is as pretty as they get.

Hmm.

Have you ever noticed on the base of the shell... Yeah, I was wondering if that was because it had been fired or... what, what caused that?

That is one of the coolest things about this shell.

When they were making these in Marshall, Texas... Uh-huh.

...they realized it needed to get straight into service.

It didn't have to be finished, the high-quality shells.

Oh.

That is a casting flaw.

And they just left it alone, because they needed it in the field, not in the arsenal being finished.

Huh.

And these were fired out of a rifled cannon.

Uh-huh.

And if you notice, it's solid.

There's nowhere for the rifling to take...

Right.

...to put the spin on the shell.

When this left the arsenal, it actually had a wooden block that was lathed down on the back to take the rifling of the gun as it was shot out of it.

Oh.

So, can we tell if this one's been shot or not?

You can't.

Okay.

There's no way to tell, because it is that solid projectile which artillery collectors refer to as a bolt.

Bolt, okay.

So it's a Schenkl bolt, but it's a Confederate-manufactured Schenkl bolt.. Wow.

And it's absolutely beautiful.

On a one-to-ten, this one's going to be at least a nine.

Wow.

Is it made from brass or, or bronze?

It's solid iron.

Iron, okay.

Mm-hmm.

As with many of the Civil War pieces today, the collecting of Civil War memorabilia has become a hot-button topic.

But the climate doesn't affect these kind of shells today.

It'll bring as much today as it would three years ago.

This piece, on the retail market, would sell these days for about $2,000.

(laughing): Wow!

Is the door you have it stopping worth $2,000?

No.

It's not going to be a doorstop anymore.

No, that's... that's surprising.

And it could have been taken home as a souvenir, because it is... even then, it was an odd design.

I brought a "Beauty and the Beast" very old book.

(laughing) I'm a fan of the book, but I'm a bigger fan of the "Antiques Roadshow."

(laughing) The Kewpie really has held its interest.

People still love them.

It's a little bit later than that early bisque one, but it's still pretty early.

I just fell in love with her, and I just couldn't sell her.

So I'm going to keep her!

MAN: This painting belonged to my grandfather, who was a road contractor in the teens and '20s.

So he traveled all across the southwest part of the United States building two-lane roads.

And I think, in those travels, he came to appreciate Native American art, apparently.

And he bought this in the '40s, passed it on to my father, who hung it in his tractor business.

So it was on the wall of the tractor company for 40 years.

Nice.

Well, it's a painting by Quincy Tahoma.

He was a Navajo artist born in Arizona, and he was, interestingly enough, one of the Indian code talkers in World War II.

This painter was?

Yeah.

Wow!

Yeah.

So really wonderful example of his work.

It's gouache on paper, with ink, as well.

It was done in 1944, and it's titled, "Buffalo Charge."

What's interesting about his work is, he tells a story in the actual painting, and then in his signature, he finishes the story.

So here you have after the charge.

And it's kind of difficult to see exactly what's happening here, but it looks like they're, they're walking off victoriously.

He was very prolific.

It was actually a very short-lived career.

He died in his 30s.

Wow.

But in the beginning, his scenes were very peaceful.

Towards the end of his career, they became very active.

This is, has a very wonderful rhythmic quality, there's a lot of action, and that's consistent with the rest of his work.

At auction, I could see this easily bringing $2,500 to $3,500.

Fantastic.

WALBERG: The compass set into the floor of the south terrace includes the initials of the Phillips family: Waite; his wife, Genevieve; and their children Helen and Elliott.

WOMAN: It's a bell that my dad found in a junk pile on the back roads of Winnsboro, Louisiana.

APPRAISER: Oh, how long ago?

I think 30 years ago, I'm thinking.

It's a big item.

So what do you... what do you do with it at home?

Is it, do you have it out, or...

It just sits at home in my garage.

Okay.

(laughing) But you've held onto it all these years.

I have; he had it up until 2014, when he passed.

He found it on a junk pile.

Okay.

He used to collect junk.

Okay.

He was a junk collector.

That's what we thrive on!

Yes.

That's why we're all here.

So yes, and he came across it, and he just held onto it.

Do you know what kind of bell it is or what it was used for?

I have no idea what it was used for, I just know it's an old bell.

I know it's made of brass, so I was told that it should be worth something.

It's bronze.

Bronze?

It's made out of bronze.

Oh, okay.

So, it's a metal, a metal alloy, so it's copper, copper and tin.

Oh, okay.

So it's not brass, like they thought it was.

Yeah, bronze is better.

Okay-- okay.

For a bell.

Okay.

So it's marked, "The Buckeye Bell Foundry," made by Vanduzen and Tift in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1884.

So we know...

Right, I saw that on there.

Yes, we know that this was when it was molded.

They were not able to reuse those dated molds.

And what's also helpful is that the Vanduzen Company, their trade publications from the 19th century are available, so we actually know what it costs in the day and what the purpose was.

And this size and scale bell, this is pretty... it's pretty large.

It's pretty heavy, It is heavy.

Based on the catalogue, the bell itself weighs 100 pounds, and it is the largest of this type.

It was made for use in schoolhouses and in public buildings and for plantations.

Mm-hmm.

There's a catalogue from 1900 that exists.

Okay.

If you were to have purchased this at the time, it would have cost you $13.

Hmm.

$13.

(laughing) These do come up at auction.

Uh-huh.

They are collectible for the fact...

I think people are collecting Southern artifacts.

Uh-huh.

And you'd be looking at an auction estimate in today's market at between $4,000 and $6,000.

Between $4,000 and $6,000?

Yep.

Okay.

That sounds good, too.

So it was a good piece of junk to collect.

Yes, it is.

So these belong to your husband or you?

My husband.

Okay.

He's out of town and doesn't know where I'm at.

No, that's not true!

(laughs) He is out of town, though.

And so did you buy them, or did he buy them?

No, he bought them.

So you don't know what he's been paying for them.

He didn't tell you?

He didn't tell me.

Well, he paid $300 or $400 apiece.

Apiece, yeah.

I know that much.

Yeah.

There's a whole group of people who collect these little miniature advertising jugs.

I'm from Ohio.

I wouldn't want to buy these.

But if I was from Oklahoma or...

So what I'm saying is that it's a great regional collectible.

And if you were a liquor collector.

And if... or if you were a liquor collector.

MAN: I brought an unusual cap.

That's a pine needle cap.

I don't know a whole lot about it.

Have had it for about 40 years.

I bought it in an antique store in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Payne Avenue.

Okay.

It wasn't a painful experience, though.

Well, that's good to hear.

As I recall, it was about $20 or $25.

They didn't know anything about it.

As a matter of fact, I bought it to wear.

Fortunately, my head was too big.

(laughs) And so, it sat, and it sat.

We had it on the wall for about ten years, and I put it away in a box, and then I brought it here.

There are some initials on the front that indicate it may have been a fire company from some time ago.

Yeah, if we look here, it has the... the initials FVFC.

I'm not sure what the first initial, but probably "Volunteer Fire Company."

So, you're absolutely right.

I think that would be correct, yeah.

So this is a really interesting hat and a pretty rare object.

Where it was made is probably the coastal Southeast region of America.

Now, what's been a lot of debate between me and my colleagues is whether it's from the Gullah region of South Carolina and Georgia... Mm-hmm.

...or is it Native American?

So what's really neat is, it's made of pine needles.

And if we look at the top here, we see this wonderful coiled effect.

And it would have been made probably between about 1900 and 1920.

This is a technique that was used for thousands and thousands of years.

You see a lot of bowls that are made, but try and go find a hat, and it's extremely rare.

Well, it's tough to price an object that you don't find really any comparables of.

Bowls?

They're, they're pretty abundant.

I mean, the Gullah people of South Carolina, they made them as utilitarian objects to help put food on their table.

The Native Americans did the same thing.

If this were to come to auction, I would conservatively place an estimate of $400 to $600 on it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it went significantly higher.

Hmm, that's, as they say, nice to know.

Yeah, you didn't do too bad!

Yeah, I don't think so.

(fountain running) I received this from my stepfather.

He passed away two years ago.

And he had found it at a flea market, and he really liked it.

And where was that?

I think down in Nacogdoches, Texas.

How long ago was that?

My mother said probably about ten or 15 years ago.

And what do you think he paid for it, approximately?

She goes back and forth from five dollars to ten, $15.

She doesn't really know, she doesn't remember.

Okay.

He just liked the painting.

Okay, well, Charles Taylor Bowling was born in Quitman, Texas, in 1891 and died in Dallas in 1985.

He started painting kind of late in life.

He worked as a draftsman and a civil engineer.

But when he got sick in his mid-30s, he had a long convalescence, and he started to paint when he was recovering from this illness.

And afterwards, he went to the Dallas Art Institute and studied art.

And he also got very involved with, with lithography, making prints.

And he eventually bought his own printing press and printed prints for himself and other artists.

He's really known as a Texas regionalist.

And regionalism, when you're talking about art, is art that realistically depicts small-town America, a rural America, usually in the Midwest or the South.

So this is a perfect example.

It's oil on canvas, but the canvas has been backed by a board.

On the reverse, it has a title from the artist, which is, "West Texas Tank."

Mm-hmm.

And it also has a price of $35, which I assume is from 1940.

So he's in many Texas collections.

I would say his reputation is probably more local in Texas than maybe nationally.

But do you have any... do you want to make a, a wild guess as to what you think this might be worth?

My mother said this morning $150, maybe.

Well, I think it's more than the $35 on the reverse.

And I think, if it were to be sold at a retail gallery, it would be about $25,000.

Really?

No way.

I had no idea.

"Way," as they say.

(laughing): Wow!

Thank you so much.

That's shocking.

That means a lot.

I mean, he had no idea, I'm sure.

And it was made to look like real Art Deco jewelry.

So, this would be imitating aquamarines.

Okay.

This would be imitating diamonds and onyx.

But they are just costume pieces.

Yeah.

And the value today, I would say, for each necklace?

Maybe this one would be worth about $25, and this one about ten.

Okay.

So, we've just recently bought a Sears and Roebuck home, and this was in the home.

It's the fireplace that goes into the... or the insert that goes into the fireplace.

WOMAN: This piece belonged to my mother-in-law.

She's from Flagstaff, Arizona, and she's a, was a docent at the museum there.

And the carver of this kachina did some work there, and she got to be friends with him, and he carved this one for her.

This is what I have been told.

APPRAISER: And do you know who the carver was?

Well, I know he's Hopi, and his first name was... he went by Jimmy.

And they called him Jimmy K., because it's rather difficult to pronounce his last name.

It is.

(laughing): It's very difficult.

It's Jimmy Kewanwytewa.

This is a Hopi kachina, and it's carved in a very traditional way in that it's all cottonwood.

This guy was born in the late 1800s, and, at that time, kachinas were very straight-up, stiff figures.

They, they had their arms down at their side, or they had them like this, and they had a tableta on, you know, the headdress, and they were...

They weren't these action figures.

And Jimmy K. broke that tradition, and, all of a sudden, you've got these action figures.

They're obviously dancing, arms out.

And he kind of did his own thing, but he was still a traditional Hopi craftsman.

And because of that, they've become highly collectible.

I'm not quite sure who this is.

It may be an eagle kachina, it may be a hawk kachina, or it may be a crow kachina.

I think it's a hawk kachina and was probably done in the late '30s, early 1940s.

And it's neat that all the feathers are on it, because a lot of them you see, all the feathers are gone.

They look like they're all chicken feathers and different kinds of domestic birds.

So, I don't think there's any legal problems with migratory birds or protected species.

And he was trying to make something to sell that was artistic.

He wasn't doing ceremonial things.

But I think, overall, it's just a nice piece.

If you saw this in a gallery today, it would be $1,500 to $2,000.

Oh.

It's neat to see it come in.

I don't think we've had one come in the door, ever.

Oh, well, good.

(laughs) APPRAISER: So, tell me about the rifle.

Where did you get it?

MAN: I picked it up last year at a pawn shop.

Nice.

$300.

300 bucks?

Okay.

So, it's a Kentucky-style rifle, early 19th century.

It's full-stock.

It's got a little bit of damage here.

You think it's worn right there because that's where they held it with their forehand?

It could be, but that's just one of the weakest points in the stock.

In today's market, these are mainly used as collector or decorator pieces.

People like the brass patchbox designs and the figured maple stock.

I would say an auction estimate for this gun in today's market is probably in the $400 to $600 range.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

No, it's a good deal.

WALBERG: The sculpture "Joy of the Waters" in the sunroom by notable American sculptor Harriet Frishmuth competes for attention with the captivating glass floor with alternating colored lights, an unusual feature Genevieve had reproduced after seeing a similar one in a Paris nightclub.

MAN: In the mid to late '60s, I was teaching at Harvard, just starting out early in my teaching career.

And in April of 1969, there was a student strike that was essentially a protest of the Vietnam War.

But that kind of bloomed and gathered in various interlocking issues involving the community of Cambridge and the Boston area.

Probably the most publicized incident was an occupation of the administration building, and then the Cambridge police clearing that building at a certain point.

But both before and after that event, the students were creating these posters, putting them in all the Harvard buildings.

So, there are a few that we have framed, just to have at least a little better situation for these particular items.

These are not ancient antiques that have no bearing on our lives; these are really part of our... certainly your, personal experience.

One of the things that I love about posters in general is that they tell us all about history.

And the late 1960s, specifically 1969, was a volatile time in the world.

In 1968, in France, there were great student revolts.

There was this strike in Boston in 1969.

And it probably all culminated the year later in 1970, with the Kent State massacre.

Yeah.

These posters were printed very inexpensively by students working out of the basement of some of the Harvard buildings.

I think it was Memorial Hall... Yeah.

in the basement, a group called Designers for Peace had a press, and they would run off these posters quickly and cheaply, and they were handed out.

They were everywhere.

But not many of them survived because they are really flimsy.

I mean, they're, they're printed on newsprint, so very few have survived.

And, at the time, the "Harvard Crimson" was reporting, in April of 1969, that the posters are high art in its most self-justifying sense.

They make the walls they're pasted on better to look at, and they lift human participation in the strike out of pure rhetoric.

The one closest to me are basically the lyrics to a Beatles song, which seems like a very unusual form of protest, except for the bottom word says "strike."

The one closest to you quotes Pablo Neruda and some of his activist ideas.

But it's the one in the middle that, to me, I think, really represents the whole movement and has in many ways become one of the iconic images of the strikes of 1969.

It basically, in this sort of very cut-out, primitive text, this, this linoleum woodblock style, it says the reasons to strike.

Among the most wonderful, I think, is, "Strike because there's no poetry in your lectures."

"Strike because classes are a bore."

"Strike for power."

"Strike to smash the corporation," and so on.

It really, sort of, sums up the time.

Because these posters were printed quickly and cheaply, you will often see them with different-color ink.

And, that said, they are very difficult to find.

The Harvard Archives has a full set.

It's hard to say how many they, there were.

They were printed by the dozens and dozens and dozens on a daily basis.

Yeah.

You look these up online, and there are no records of them having sold.

Yeah, yeah.

And what we can find are comparable posters, other Vietnam-era protest posters... Yeah, yeah.

...that have appeared for sale.

Generally, the, the Vietnam posters that appear for sale tend to sell for between $150 and $200 apiece.

But because these are rarer, because they haven't come on the market, because they are specifically tied to the strikes at Harvard, and not the sort of anti-war protest movement as a whole, I would suggest an auction value for the three of them together between $600 and $900.

Oh, very interesting.

Well, I'm in my 70s now, and it was on the mantel when I was nine or ten.

It's something my mother picked up.

I have no idea where, how.

I'm just very, very curious what it is, and... and kind of what era it's out of, and et cetera.

It's a necklace, and it was my great-grandma's.

I don't really know a whole lot about it.

It... my grandma gave it to me.

That's pretty much all I know, and it belonged to my great-grandma.

Your mom told us that you wear it every day.

I wear it a lot, yeah-- it's really fun.

It keeps you occupied because it spins, so it's...

So, show us how it spins.

Go like that.

So, whenever you're bored, you could just, like, twist it around, and it's fun!

(laughs) I love it.

MAN: Well, I've owned this guitar since I was 19 years old, and I found it in a pawn shop down in the skid row district of Oklahoma City in March of 1964.

He went upstairs and came down with an old cardboard case that looked like it'd been run over by a city bus, and he threw it up on the counter and said, "Take a look."

Well, we worked out a deal where I paid $130 cash for it and a little $75 guitar that I already had.

And I guess you could say I have $205 and a lifetime invested in it.

They still make this guitar to this day, but 1950 is a really nice year.

They're very lightweight for J-200s.

It has a double pickguard.

Now, most people consider the double pickguard not a good thing, but there's only a few guitars where the double pickguard is not much of a hit on the value.

And that's just because they're lovely pickguards.

They were put on originally, and... and they really decorate the guitar properly.

It also has what they call a mustache bridge that's open in the center.

The later ones had a solid mustache shape, but it was a solid bridge and not near as attractive.

This guitar has also been kept in very, very nice condition.

Present retail value would be somewhere around $10,000 U.S. That's wonderful.

I've used it as a way to make a living, and it's been a wonderful tool and a real good friend over the years.

APPRAISER: Well, I see you've brought in a nice copy of "Whittier's Poems" in an attractive, Art Nouveau-style binding here with a reversed leather cover with overlapping yapp edges.

That's Y-A-P-P.

Sadly, it's not a first edition.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for bringing it in.

MAN: I found it at, like, an abandoned warehouse about 20 years ago, so I knew it was collectible when I saw the "all colored cast."

I knew about, you know, segregation in the movies, so I, I brought it home, and I've kept it.

And I heard about the show, and...

I'd like to learn more about it.

When I was younger, I used to always have an eye for looking for collectibles.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I saw these posters, and I knew that they were something.

And I didn't know what they were-- didn't know the movie, I didn't know the actors-- but I knew that they were African-American movies.

So, that's the reason why I kept them.

I've never seen the movie.

I don't know anything about the actors.

Years back, I checked to see if the movie existed.

Mm-hmm.

And I probably had it framed about 25 years ago.

So, everybody just looks at it, and it's just like a piece of the furniture.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, hardly anybody asks any questions.

If someone new comes to the house, they, they're curious.

And... but, you know, I haven't been able to tell them a whole lot, except they see that, you know, "all colored cast," and that says a lot.

So, this is from a very... a very interesting sub-genre of movies, which is called race films.

And they were specifically films that were created for an African-American audience, and they were popular between about 1915 to about 1950 or so.

As a poster, it's interesting, but the art in it isn't terribly great.

It's only printed in two colors.

Whereas, for most other popular films at the time, they'd be full-color posters with fantastic art.

But these films were created on a very modest budget, and advertising is probably where they spent the least amount of money.

Right.

This is from the 1940 movie "Am I Guilty?"

which was re-released by Toddy Pictures as "Racket Doctor."

Yeah.

It's about a young African-American man who goes to, tries to start a clinic in Harlem.

Well, this is actually one of the few cases where the star was actually a star.

This fellow, Ralph Cooper, was the original emcee at the Apollo Theater.

Oh, see, I didn't know that.

It was released by Toddy Pictures, who bought up a lot of the rights to a lot of these race films and re-released them under different names... Ah, I see.

...to try to make a few extra nickels out of it... All right, okay.

without spending any more money on actors.

Okay.

And the collectibility of posters and items related to these films has gone up dramatically in the last few years.

And right now, in this condition, we would estimate at auction, this would be a $400 to $600 poster.

Ah, okay, okay, okay.

I had no idea.

It's just been sitting on my wall in a frame, and...

So, I probably should get the other one framed, as well.

Yes, you should.

(laughs) WOMAN: My grandmother had this all wrapped up in her closet.

Samuel Kirkwood was my great-great-uncle, and he was the governor of the state of Iowa from 1860 to 1864.

And then, I guess there was a hiatus, and again he was back being the governor 1876 through 1877.

And, at some point, I guess he was very friendly with the Native Americans.

He became the secretary of the interior under President Garfield, and Sitting Bull gave this to him as a thank you gift.

The presentation tomahawk.

It's a very important symbol of status, stature for a Native American man.

A Native American man had to be a provider for his family.

He had to father children, keep the tribe vital.

And he had to protect and defend.

And this is the object that it was... was utilized.

It's both a weapon with a blade for striking, and it's a pipe for smoking.

Oh.

So, you have both war and peace...

Okay.

...encapsulated in one object.

The materials are a long, hard-grained wood, probably ash or hickory, for the haft.

The head is brass.

Okay.

And that's important here.

This is probably a tomahawk that was not utilized in warfare.

Okay.

However, it's made in a completely traditional fashion.

The hickory haft is file-branded to develop different patterns to the wood.

Okay.

The brass tacks are trade items from a non-native trader.

And, of course, the head is made by a blacksmith.

The head would have had a leather gasket to keep it firm and secure.

The hole through the haft of the tomahawk would have been fashioned from a hot wire, and it would have scorched the pith out of the interior of the wood, the heartwood.

Okay.

It dates, in my estimation, to the 1870s, maybe 1880.

But the personages involved-- the governor, the president, Sitting Bull-- these were major figures.

The president was assassinated six months after he became president.

Mm-hmm.

That's the second shortest term of a presidency in the United States' history.

Sitting Bull, after fighting George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, he went up into Canada, came back.

He was captured, he was incarcerated, and, in, in the process of moving him out of a prison to another location, he was killed tragically.

It's hard to evaluate such an important object, so historic.

It has deep, rich patina.

It's obviously been carefully taken care of.

There's so much history in the document.

You'll never want to lose that document.

Always keep them associated.

I think, on a retail basis, this tomahawk would sell for in the neighborhood of $12,500.

Wow!

Okay.

It's terrific.

I, I'm so happy you brought it.

Well, thank you.

I'm glad to show it to everybody.

MAN: My parents brought it back from Iran in the late 1960s.

My mother went with him, and she went shopping while he was working, and she came back with this.

Well, I'll tell you, I don't think it's much older than when your parents purchased it.

Oh.

It's really quite beautiful, and it's...

It's a combination of copper and silver wash.

This is probably made for the export market.

Okay.

For someone like your parents.

Right.

WOMAN: I think it is a good luck flag that was given to Japanese soldiers before they went off to war, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

It's a good luck flag.

Every Japanese soldier, sailor, or naval landing force guy that went into World War II in the... the China Incident, and before that, typically had one of these.

The idea was, it, it was an old Asian tradition where they would collect signatures from their family and friends, put them on the flag, and that was to bring them good luck in, in the conflict.

And hopefully, we would say, "Bring them home safe," but every once in a while, you're translating one of these and you'll see, "May you be fortunate enough to die seven times for your emperor."

So, if you have them translated, when they, they say exciting things like that, generally they bring a little more.

But the, the thing that excites me about this one is that we know who brought it home.

There are a lot of these on the market today, and typically, they sell for $100 to $125.

There a lot of them that come out of the flea markets in Tokyo.

There... simply, there's nobody left to remember.

The family's gone, they don't remember whose flag it was, and so it gets sold.

But one that, in this case, is brought home by an American serviceman, I would put a price on this, retail, of around $200 to $250.

WOMAN: Well, my father's still alive.

He's 95.

So, he will be very glad to learn what this flag was.

Like, I can't wait to tell him.

WALBERG: The lower level of the Philbrook has been used as a space to display fascinating Native American objects and art since the days when it was still the Phillips home.

Today, Native American art makes up the single largest portion of the museum's holdings.

WOMAN: I inherited them.

They were my great-uncle's.

And he had done some work in Costa Rica, planting trees for some kind of a government project.

I know very little beyond that.

And when... when was he there?

I could not even tell you.

I didn't even think about trying to run that down before I came.

Okay.

Do you have any idea what they are?

I have absolutely no idea.

Okay, this is Costa Rican jade, and it comes from the northwestern province of Costa Rica, in an area called Guanacaste Nicoya.

And these are three jadeite pieces.

The two on the bottom are what we call Axe gods.

Axe gods come in two different variations-- avian Axe gods and anthropomorphic.

And it's sort of hard to see the wings here, but, basically, this is an avian Axe god.

This up here is a pendant, and the two heads on either side would probably be alligators.

And you can see there's holes...

Yes.

...where it could be attached.

These are pendants.

Now, these pretty much date between 300 and 900 A.D. Oh, my gosh!

And they are jadeite-- jadeite is very hard.

On the hardness scale, it's about six to seven, which is very hard.

Now, what's interesting-- these things are reproduced, but I've examined them carefully, and all three of these are authentic.

And I'm saying, for the group here, this is $3,000 to $5,000.

Oh, wow!

$3,000 to $5,000 on a retail... Well, thank you!

...retail level.

Thank you-- I had no idea.

So, I made your day.

Yeah, happy dance!

(laughing) WOMAN: It came from Canada.

My stepfather had it, bought it back in 1929, and it has just worked its way down to me.

You've had it for roughly how many years?

Since '66.

Do you know anything about the artist?

Not particularly, other than he was sort of in the late 1800s, maybe right around 1900, and he did a lot of spiritual painting.

Well, I think "spiritual's" an excellent way to define the characteristic, the feeling we get when we see this painting.

Right.

The artist is Charles H. Wilda, who is an artist born in 1854, died in 1907.

He grew up in Vienna.

He had a studio, actually, in Cairo.

And he is part of what you were alluding to, a movement in art that became extremely popular at the tail end of the 19th century, which today is referred to as Orientalism.

The painting's an oil on panel.

Okay.

It's an original painting.

And it's signed here, "C.H.

Wilda."

A little hard to see.

I was going to say, you've got better eyes than I do, that's for sure.

And the painting is called "The Hour of Prayer."

And, in particular, the expression on the gentleman's face who is engaged in prayer, I find to be really beautifully painted.

It's a real evocation of his spirituality, of, of his being in prayer.

Orientalism really captures everyday life.

And this was all part of a coinciding interest, a subsequent interest which took hold in the 19th century in Europe of all things North African, Near Eastern, Middle Eastern.

The detail is wonderful-- the way that the figures are rendered, the architectural detail, the smooth surfaces, the attention to the texture of the surfaces.

It is absolutely a beautiful painting and a great example of Orientalist art.

The overall market for Orientalism?

Strong.

Was very strong for a while, there was a little bit of a decline, but there's been a real resurgence in interest in Orientalist art.

Wilda happens to be an artist who's a little bit lesser-known in this area, but who has done extremely well with some of his paintings at auction.

I would date the painting roughly to about circa 1880, 1890, somewhere in there, although it's worth noting that the painting is not dated.

Do you have a sense of what the painting might be worth?

Somebody had told me, "Oh, $5,000."

Well, I think...

I think there was a time when the painting probably did have a fair market value of $5,000.

Yeah.

How many years ago did you receive the estimate of $5,000?

Oh, probably 15.

I would say, in 2018, if your painting came to auction, we would value it at $30,000 to $50,000.

(stammering): Now... Oh, okay.

Well... wow!

(laughing): I don't know what else to say.

Oh, my goodness.

I...

Forget those "$5,000" people, that's... (laughing): Oh, my goodness!

WALBERG: This is "Antiques Roadshow" WALBERG: And now, it's time for the "Roadshow" Feedback Booth.

Today, I brought my ship bookend.

And I brought an antique Shinola shoe polish.

And we want to thank "Antiques Roadshow."

I finally found out the difference between ship and Shinola.

(laughs) And I have a special piece that's very sentimental to me.

So, I've enjoyed myself.

This is my first time.

I've enjoyed it, and it's been wonderful.

Wonderful, wonderful!

Wonderful.

All the way through the rain.

Thank you, "Antiques Roadshow."

How about that?

The picture we got is Asian art that my dad got when he was in the Merchant Marines.

And we found out it's worth about $800.

The sword's probably worth about $600.

My wife is worth about ten million!

And I brought my grandmother's flapper dress.

To most people, it's worth $800 to $1,000.

To me, it's worth a lot more because if she hadn't used it to attract my grandfather, I wouldn't be here.

I brought my gold pocket watch.

I was looking to get rich to find out that it was just gold-filled.

$300 to $400.

But I had a beautiful time, seen a lot of beautiful stuff, and I would do it all over again.

And I've been carrying this picture around since I was 19 years old, and unfortunately, it's not worth much.

I guess it's going back to Heidelberg Castle.

And he's my king, but I'm still the queen.

(laughs) Thank you, "Antiques Roadshow," appreciate it.

Thank you.

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."