Billings, Hour 2

Welcome to "Antiques Roadshow" from Billings, Montana.

I had to dig through a garage, and it was buried way in the back.

My mother would just cry.

This is beautiful.

Oh, my gosh, John.

Oh, you gave me shivers.

If you think that was good, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Stay tuned for more "Roadshow" right now.

♪ ♪ (fireworks exploding) ♪ ♪ Welcome to "Antiques Roadshow."

Hi, I'm Mark Walberg in Billings, Montana.

Montana's state motto is "Oro y plata"-- "Gold and silver."

The discovery of these precious metals in the Montana territory brought thousands of prospectors to the area in the 1860s.

Our experts have unearthed more of Montana's treasures.

Take a look.

WOMAN: It was purchased from a Goodwill store under another painting.

I don't remember how it got away from the original picture, but it was underneath and...

So this was behind a painting that somebody bought at a Goodwill store.

In the frame.

And then at some point you took that painting out of the frame and discovered this behind it.

15 years ago.

It's a woodcut by the Chicago artist Charles Turzak.

And you can see down here, signed in pencil.

Mm-hmm.

And it's titled right here, "The North Entrance."

And it's a view of Chicago and these four skyscrapers, which are classic examples of 1920s Chicago architecture.

And Charles Turzak was born in Illinois and had studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.

And by the 1920s, he was busy making views of Chicago, none quite as memorable as this one.

This is a wonderful aerial look up Michigan Avenue.

And it's quite a thing to find beneath another picture at a Goodwill store for... Really?

...what must have been, what, a few dollars perhaps?

Oh, abs... yeah.

I can't even remember, but I'm sure it wasn't very much.

Now, you've got a couple things going on here.

The print is actually on paper, but at some point in time, somebody glued this down to... it looks like a board with newspaper on the back.

So that's a little detrimental to its condition.

You can see there's some glue damage up along the top here.

Mm-hmm.

And what's also apparent is some light staining.

The original color of the paper is more this lighter strip here, Oh really?

and this yellowing has occurred over time as a result of sunlight hitting the paper.

Mmm.

That affects its value.

That being said, all of that can be reversed by taking it to a reputable paper conservator.

Really?

In this condition, as is, at auction, you're looking at about $2,000 to $3,000.

Really?

Now, after being cleaned and removed from the cardboard that it's on-- that would cost you about $200 to $300 to have that done-- Mm-hmm.

we would estimate this at auction for $3,000 to $5,000.

For collectors out there who go for views of Chicago, this is about as good as it gets.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

WOMAN: This painting is from my step-grandfather's art gallery and frame shop that he had in Toledo, Ohio.

I've always admired it.

He gave it to my mother and my mother gave it to me.

I really don't know anything, but I've always loved it.

First of all, the artist is an artist by the name of Luigi Rossi.

And while there's a plaque on the frame, which makes it easy for us, it's also very clearly signed over here.

Oh.

Or I should say clearly signed if you know what to look for because it almost looks like it's integrated into the grass in the painting.

After the signature is the number 74.

And what that means is that this painting would have been painted in 1874.

It's painted on a wooden panel.

Very characteristic of pictures done in Europe in the second half of the 19th century.

He was born in Switzerland in the early 1850s.

And he was educated in Milan and in Paris.

And he became a very proficient painter.

If you look at how just exquisitely painted it is.

These tiny little shoes and these little flowers on her dress and these wonderful chickens down here that she's feeding-- Yeah.

his skill with the brush was really extraordinary.

He was also versatile.

He painted landscapes and portraits and what we call genre scenes, which are scenes that sort of tell a story, like this one does.

And I think one of the things that's fascinating about Rossi is his pictures were very popular in his own time.

He became quite a wealthy artist.

This was the material that was being sold to the bourgeoisie, the wealthy middle classes, these very traditional, very Romantic pictures.

Whereas what was going on in the very contemporary art world with the Impressionists and then the modern painters was completely radical and different.

He didn't die until the 1920s, and he was still painting like this.

The frame, I think, is original.

Now value-- do you have any idea what it's worth?

I figured, oh, I don't know, maybe $5,000.

I didn't really know.

Well, would you be surprised if I told you an auction estimate on this picture would perhaps be between $12,000 and $18,000?

I'm very surprised.

I love the painting.

Thank you very much.

You are welcome.

MAN: It's a small collection of memorabilia from a dude ranch that my grandmother was part owner in in the late '30s.

Ernest Hemingway wrote a couple of books up there while he stayed there.

He spent a part of five different summers between 1928 and 1939.

And this is a picture of a cabin that was built for him.

This is a hat that all the guests signed, and it's kind of a veritable who's who of Cody, Wyoming.

But Ernest Hemingway signed it here.

And this is my grandmother here that owned the ranch.

You also had a book that Ernest Hemingway had at the ranch.

And he was good enough to leave his signature in it.

That's correct.

A lot of places-- you go to hotels, you go to estates and they have a guest book.

And you walk in and you have the normal guest book that people sign their name in, maybe they add a little here or there.

But it's a book.

Right.

You have a hat.

The Hemingway signature is right here.

Now, it's also... what was the L-Bar-T... L-Bar-T.

So it says where he is, but then it goes around and tells sort of a history of the other people who were out here visiting.

Now, were they all visitors to the ranch?

No, a lot of them were either outlaws or dignitaries in Cody, Wyoming.

There was a lot of ranch owners, dude ranch owners.

Here's my grandfather.

He had the Diamond Bar ranch.

Here's Frost Richards, which was a big dude outfit.

Under this hat band there's a little signature here that is Lee Molesworth of Molesworth Furniture.

Lee was his son and he snuck in and signed this hat in an obscure place.

There are just a lot of people who were of some importance and/or happened to stop by and sign the hat that lived in Cody in the late '30s.

As far as value goes, the book, it happens to be a copy of Swiss Family Robinson.

Right.

If you didn't have this book signed by Ernest Hemingway, it has no value.

None.

(chuckles) It's not in good condition.

The fact that it's signed by Ernest Hemingway, probably $500 to $750.

I'll be darned.

That is a retail value.

It's not a Hemingway book.

If it had been one of his, it would be worth much more.

The hat is the real thing, though.

I think where the real value of this comes in is historically, researching, looking up, checking who all the other people on the hat are, and then somebody locally is just going to go wild for it.

It would be such a showpiece.

I think, conservatively, this is a $4,000 to $6,000 hat.

Oh, you're kidding.

And with further research, I think it could even go a lot higher.

WOMAN: From the mid '30s, my father worked for the Billings Hardware Company until the late '70s, when he retired.

And that's where he got it.

My father was planning to come to Roadshow and bring this.

He unfortunately died very suddenly, although peacefully, at the end of April.

So I flew to Billings and spent the entire morning looking through the garage and the basement.

And finally I found it under the bed.

So, it was meant to be here.

Well, it is an important sign.

It's an advertising sign for Frazer Axle Grease.

The key things about this sign are, one, its rarity.

But secondly, its rarity in this condition.

This is what's called a self-framed sign.

In other words, the image continues off of the central scene into a simulated frame.

The frame then wraps around a wood stretcher on the back.

And this one dates from around the turn of the century.

It was made by the Meek Company in Coshocton, Ohio.

The condition is off the charts.

We found several similar signs selling at auction, but none came anywhere close to this condition.

There's no pitting, there's no rust, there's very minor discoloration.

There's very minor scratching.

It is the way you really want to find a wonderful old advertising sign like this.

And also the fact that it tells a funny story.

You have the gentleman on one side who's saying, "If I had used Frazer axle grease, I wouldn't have had this trouble."

And his friend's saying, "Don't worry about that, Frazer axle grease will solve all your problems."

It tells a great story.

All of those things combined to equal, I think, a retail value on this sign easily of $4,000 to $5,000.

And I hope that that would have made your father happy had he known that.

I'm sure it would have made him happy.

It would have made him very happy.

WOMAN: Well, I brought in my great-grandfather's Civil War memorabilia.

He belonged to the Pennsylvania Bucktails.

The Bucktails were from the mountains in Pennsylvania.

And as they were going out to battle, they would put a bucktail in their hat.

And it was feared by the Confederates because they knew that they were sharpshooters.

These were mountain men.

Mm-hmm.

They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew how to do it.

In the diary, his entry for June 7, 1862, it's got a fantastic inscription.

It says that he was shot at and the ball hit the metal that was holding the strap on his rucksack.

During the Civil War we had a shoulder strap that went on the cartridge box, and in the center of that was an eagle plate.

The Confederates would call it a "Yankee bull's-eye."

And it's because it's the target.

When you aimed down, that was what you aimed for.

And this one saved his life.

Mm-hmm.

If you notice, it completely indented the side of it.

And he mentions in the diary that it glanced off.

So it hit it and bounced off, and it hit it so hard-- the back of this is filled with lead-- it ripped the lead out of it.

That's what kind of force it took when it hit it.

Mm-hmm.

I love this.

This is one of my favorite pieces of all time.

We have his picture during the veterans time frame.

Even after the war, they were still proud to be Pennsylvania Bucktails.

This hat is his veterans hat.

It's not the one he wore during the war, it's when he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

A regular eagle breastplate just like it left the factory is around $150 to $200.

This one, because of that bullet strike, it's probably worth about $2,500.

As a group, with the diary, the hat, the photograph and the breastplate, we're talking about $5,000.

Wow.

WOMAN: Our folks were antique jewelers in Hyde Park in Chicago in the 1930s and '40s.

And this was just passed down and it's one of the treasures that I've received from the family.

My folks did not tell us what it was worth or anything, so I'm basically quite clueless.

I was at first really impressed with the color scheme.

We've got pink stones here and really pale green stones.

Right.

Without a refractive index, it's hard to say 100% today, but I'm going to say that these are most likely a green beryl, which is in the emerald family.

Okay.

These pink stones, they could be one of two things.

This is either morganite, which is pink beryl...

Okay.

Or precious topaz.

Really?

I have a feeling it's morganite.

I believe it's circa 1830.

We can see these foil backings on the back of the pink stones.

This is one of the techniques that the jewelers use to make the stone more intensely colored.

This is in a gold foil.

It's a very thin sheet that's put on the back of the stone.

All right.

But we have the green stones here that are open.

So it's just sort of a play of color that the jeweler has used.

We also were looking at these beautiful beads here.

And this is very typical of jewelry that was made in that time period.

We in America call it Georgian jewelry.

Georgian?

Yes.

But it's really pretty bead work and very delicate culets around each of the stones.

So these really take the place of prongs.

The pendant is another great piece right here.

There's some evidence of a pin stem on the back.

Mm-hmm.

I noticed that, yes.

So what this was originally was a brooch/pendant.

Okay.

So it was sort of a convertible.

It could be made to be worn as a brooch or a necklace here attached.

At one point in time I believe the jeweler probably soldered it back on so it would be a permanent pendant.

Most likely there were also earrings that went with this, and possibly a bracelet.

It doesn't have any hallmarks or marks on it.

Oh, it doesn't?

No, so it's hard for us to say exactly where it was made.

Possibly American, but we really have no definitive answer to that.

It's a really beautiful necklace, wearable even in today's fashions.

I would say auction estimate, you'd be looking at $7,000 to $9,000.

Really?

Yes, absolutely.

Oh, the family will be so pleased.

My mother would just cry.

Aww.

This is beautiful.

I can just imagine a beautiful lady wearing this with a long gown and dancing the night away.

WOMAN: I received this lamp from my godmother.

When she passed away, she passed that on to me.

When we were children she had it in her living room, and she loved to collect knickknacks and breakables.

And so as a child I remember we weren't allowed to go in the living room.

And on a special occasion we could go in there and look.

And I remember I was always fascinated with it because it looked like a tree.

I do know that it's a Handel lamp and the base is stamped.

And then I saw that there's "Handel" underneath the lampshade also.

And I think Handel was made in Connecticut.

But beyond that, I don't know what year or span of time, and I have no idea about value and whether it's authentic or whether it's a replica.

Well, Philip Handel started in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1885.

And then I think in 1893, he moved to New York.

And then up until the 1930s, produced Handel wares.

This is a very pretty lamp.

It appears to be all legitimate.

It's late 19th, early 20th century.

The very nice base, above average.

It's patinated metal in low relief of a wooded scene.

And it works so well with this interior painted shade.

Is that cast?

It is formed in a mold, yeah.

Okay.

This is a chipped ice finish.

The base is impressed underneath "Handel."

The rim is marked "Handel" and then the shade is signed underneath "Handel 6160"-- which would be a production number-- and then initialed "W.R.," which would be the artist.

So we have above average base, very nice shade, interior painted.

I think a good auction estimate would be $8,000 to $12,000.

That's phenomenal.

That's great.

MAN: Well, it came through my mother's family, I believe.

I think it may have been her uncle who lived in New York City all his life, but he traveled around the West some when he was younger.

And I don't know if he acquired it during travels or if that's where it came from or not, but I just remember seeing it for a long time, and then I ended up with it after my parents died.

Well, Gaspard Latoix is the artist.

Even though his name is French, he was actually born and raised in England.

Okay.

He was born in 1858.

Mm-hmm.

And came to the United States, he's recorded as having painted and exhibited here in the 1890s through about 1910.

He and his wife led a peripatetic lifestyle, traveled all throughout the States.

Mostly, he's known for these Western pictures, of course.

Yeah, right.

When his wife died, he apparently went back to England and was distraught.

And, actually, he died penniless and in an insane asylum.

Oh, really?

This particular work was done on a Navajo reservation.

This is very typical of his work.

He worked in watercolor as well as oil.

Uh-huh.

And, actually, we see more watercolors in the marketplace than we see oils.

This particular work is oil on canvas.

There's a nearly exact comparable that came up in 2007.

The only difference between yours and the other is that there are a few more animals and Native Americans in the other picture.

Oh, yeah.

That picture realized just under $11,000 at auction.

Uh-huh, hmm.

What's wonderful about this picture is that it has almost a modern composition, with these blocky areas...

Right.

...and then this very clear, beautiful signature at the bottom.

We see in this top area a certain amount of what they call drying crackle.

Right.

And that is a factor of the ground drying at a different rate as the top paint layers.

Uh-huh.

And sometimes that's exacerbated by heat.

So, I don't see that as a huge issue in this picture, and it certainly does not impact the value.

There is a little puncture here, and certainly that should be addressed.

A very good restorer could probably put a tiny patch.

Oh, okay.

I don't think it's necessary to have the whole picture relined.

Right.

Because it is in untouched, original condition.

So much so that even on the back, there's a little label from a New York gallery.

Right, right.

I do believe that this is the original frame.

Uh-huh.

That little tiny patch in inpaint, they could probably even weave the canvas... Oh, really?

Wow.

And have it inpainted, and it's really a minor job.

But you do want to have a very good restorer do that work.

I think this painting has been through a lot weather-wise.

I think at one time, it may have been stored in... out in an out-building on a ranch, and it could have seen below zero to over a hundred degrees in its... Wow.

(chuckles) ...in its lifetime, so it's being treated a lot better now than it was.

I would say that for insurance purposes, you should probably have it valued at around $12,000.

Okay.

WALBERG: With the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Great Plains to the east, it's easy to see why Montana was promoted as "high, wide, and handsome" in a 1940 travel brochure.

From about 1933 to 1961, Thomas Molesworth showed he had a knack for channeling this majestic landscape and the rugged souls who called it home into his craft: Western-style furnishings.

Molesworth furnished lodges and hotels all across the American West, and although he didn't invent the rustic style, it's been argued he was the most successful at bringing it to a national audience.

Furniture expert John Sollo met up with us to explore some of Thomas Molesworth's work.

John, it's great to see all this beautiful Molesworth furniture right here in this perfect setting, almost as though it lives right here.

And yet we're fortunate to have it on loan from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Absolutely, they were kind enough to bring this up and it's great to have it here today.

Molesworth lived in Billings for about six or seven years and actually sold furniture, and I think that's where some of his inspiration came from.

He moved to Cody, Wyoming, in 1931.

By 1933 he was building furniture.

This chair really represents a lot of Molesworth production.

It's called a keyhole chair.

It started very early in his career.

It's made out of fir.

I think the ducks, the shotguns sort of add a layer of interest to it.

In a lot of chairs you'll find the back has Indians, cowboys, elk, deer.

All add value to a chair.

At auction, a Molesworth chair like this one is probably in the $6,500 range.

If it had a cowboy on the back, an Indian on the back, a great elk head on the back, it would be worth more.

Okay, terrific.

Well, it's a great place to start, an earlier piece by Molesworth.

And we have a little bit more intricate piece behind us I'm dying to look at.

Absolutely.

So here we have the entertainment center of the 1930s.

If you looked at this, you might not know what it held.

It looked just sort of like a custom-made cabinet.

But actually inside it has a phonograph.

Down here we have a radio.

And we see this Indian face on the front here, sort of a caricature.

Tell me about that.

A lot of times Molesworth would sell furniture to people that lived in the East.

And what happened was, I think, to a large extent, they had sort of a romanticized version, sort of a Hollywood version of what the West was really like.

And Molesworth did a lot to make his furniture fit that image that Hollywood produced for them.

This is piece is in excellent condition.

The other thing that makes this piece particularly interesting is on the back of it, it has a Shoshone Furniture Co. label, which, of all the Molesworth I've seen, it's one of the few times I've ever seen a label.

If I were to find a piece like this, a custom cabinet like this in this kind of condition, what would I expect to pay for this, John?

If you could find a piece in this sort of condition, at auction it would be worth about $35,000.

And that's without the phonograph working.

That's right, without the phonograph working, absolutely.

Pay a little extra for that.

We've got a couple more pieces to look at here.

Tell me about these.

These are classic Molesworth pieces.

When we think about Molesworth, this is what we look for.

Molesworth furniture, like so many other pieces of furniture, the wilder it is, the more expressive it is, the more value that there is.

The chair, in this case, is as good as it gets.

It's expressive, it's out there.

Everything that Molesworth did well is in this chair.

The couch is a little bit more plain.

So I would put... generally speaking, couches bring more money than chairs.

In this case, they're probably worth about the same, $35,000 at auction each, $70,000 for the pair.

John, it has been great looking at all this beautiful Molesworth furniture.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

My pleasure, and welcome to Montana.

Glad to be here.

WOMAN: I rescued them when the family was cleaning out my husband's grandmother's place.

Nobody wanted them.

I had never seen them before, but they called and said they know they're old, and so I said I will take them and care for them.

What I do know is that my husband's great-grandfather bought them at an antique store in Illinois for his wife.

It sounds like a housewarming gift sometime in the '40s.

And do you know what they depict?

The family's always called them the four seasons.

The one next to you is spring, Okay, okay.

and the one following that is summer.

The next one is fall and we see she's got wheat in her hair and in her hands.

And then the last one is obviously winter.

She's wearing more clothes.

We've got ice dripping out of her jar.

Yep.

The quality is so great.

The modeling on these is remarkable.

Her drapery is so clearly and crisply modeled.

Also on this other one, all the little flowers in the dress are painted.

And we can see those in the front and the detailing here over on the cornucopia is really, really nice.

We're certain that they're German because the way they're made.

They're very much in the Meissen style, but they are definitely not copies of anything that Meissen ever made.

Meissen is the top German company.

They set a precedent of really high quality, and most of the other people who were working in their style just didn't live up to the quality.

These figures are made out of hard paste porcelain.

Hard paste is an attribute of German porcelain.

They pretty much only made hard paste.

We're fairly certain that these date somewhere between about 1850 and 1880.

Oh, wow.

So they do have some very nice age.

We have a fairly clean break here on this wrist, but it's glued back together fairly well.

And since it's in a kind of unseen spot, it doesn't affect the value that much.

Oh, good.

So, taking into consideration the age, the quality, the condition, which is almost perfect, our estimate that these would have a retail value between $1,500 and $2,000.

Wow.

If we did additional research, Yeah.

we might figure out who made them and that might help the value a little bit.

I had to dig through a garage that a woman had a garage sale in.

And it was buried way in the back, and she said, "Just take stuff out," and there it was, and I purchased it.

Well, you've brought us an Empire card table from the Empire State.

New York is known for its very fine card tables, and this shows lots of skill.

It's got a wonderful mahogany veneer top to it, and then the skirt of the table is all stencil decorated.

It's got cornucopia with fruit on the front, and then there's some more decorative motifs here on the side, and then you move down to the pedestal of the table.

It's been turned on a lathe and then also carved by hand.

The Empire period is drawing from Greek and Roman motifs.

So the acanthus leaf is something that we see in Greek and Roman architecture.

Then move down to the knees, which are carved acanthus leaves.

Also hairy, a little, on these knees... Yeah.

And then this great paw feet.

Now, there's something missing at the bottom of these feet.

Yes, there were wheels that came with it and I loaded it on the car, I took the wheels off and I have left them at home.

Okay, but you have them.

I have them.

Okay, the good news is you have the wheels.

So let's go open up and show the card table itself, the way it works.

I love this because the interior of this table has got its original baize green cloth.

It's a wool cloth.

So this is where you'd store your chips, your cards, and any other accoutrements that you'd use to play a game.

And then you flip it over and you're ready for a card game for four.

It was made in probably about 1825, and a lot is going on in New York State.

I mean, the Erie Canal is finished.

It's a very prosperous time.

And it was, I think, evocative of the prosperity that was happening.

So you said you bought it in a yard sale.

What did you pay for it?

Twenty-five dollars.

Twenty-five dollars.

Twenty-five dollars.

Wow.

Okay.

Well, I would say that the table, if I saw it in an antique shop, I would think it would be priced at, say, $1,000 to $2,000.

So it is worth much more than $25.

How nice!

WOMAN: My grandfather was a real adventurer, and he was a prospector, and he and his friend-- this is my grandfather and his friend-- decided to go to the Klondike and prospect for gold in 1888.

Did you know him as a child?

No, he died when my father was 12 years old, so I never got to meet him.

What you have here is an amazing historical group of items.

This photograph here is... particularly strikes me funny.

This is a picture of his mine.

The title is the Need More Mining Company.

I love that.

In 1896, gold was discovered in Alaska, and by 1897, word got down to Seattle.

So all these guys were coming up from California and Wyoming and up through Seattle.

And they were making their fortunes.

There were some major money makers up there.

Now, what is this?

That is a gold poke.

It's made out of leather and it's just a bag, and that's what they put their gold dust and their gold nuggets in.

So while they were prospecting, they would tuck it under their belt.

Could have had nuggets or maybe gold dust in there.

And what he has in the nugget right here is almost nine grams of a gold nugget that's imbedded with a quartz crystal.

And a bonus is that you've got a Montana sapphire that he set in there.

No, actually, I set that in there.

You set that in there?

Yes, because I was from Montana, and I love the Yogo sapphires, and I just thought they went together.

They do go together very, very nicely.

Yes.

And you've also brought this book, which is a book of photographs, and I'm going to open it to one page here that I've marked.

The title is called "The Flood at Dawson, June 1898," and it has his signature on there.

Yes.

Now, do you know why he might have signed this particular page?

Because that's the only one he put his name on.

I really don't know.

The photographs we found are copies, so they have relatively little value.

The little poke-- sack-- is worth maybe $65, $70.

Really?

The book is worth about $1,500.

Oh, my!

But the best part is this nugget.

And we think this nugget, on a good retail level, is worth about $4,000.

Oh, my goodness.

Thank you so much.

MAN: My dad bought it in the mid to late '50s from a friend of his brother.

He was needing some money.

My dad really liked the piece and he was really fascinated with the samurai, just the history of it, so he bought it for $25.

I did some research and I really couldn't find anything about it, but it was... you know, growing up, when I was little, we, me and my brother, we put it on and we wore it and took pictures.

When you're a little kid, it's a blast.

You're a samurai.

How old were you when you were wearing this?

Probably ten or 11.

It's very interesting that you wore this at that age, because actually the size of this is pretty small.

People are often amazed at how small the scale was, because we've grown so much as a human race.

Oh, right.

Armor was meant to protect, and Japanese armor in particular was meant to protect while being extremely lightweight and durable.

And this was the most efficient and innovative and cutting-edge kind of technology that was available at the time this was made.

The purpose of these different layers of fabric and lacquered metal-- and you see that all the way going down here-- is to protect against glancing blows or direct blows with a samurai saber.

And samurai sabers are very sharp.

When you hit it, it's going to glance off.

Okay.

And it's not going to be able to cut through.

And if you hit it directly, it would be very difficult to cut straight through this, these different layers of fabric.

As we lift this up, you can see how the scales were made, overlapping, and they're lacquered metal.

Oh, wow.

Very lightweight.

You'll notice here that this is a dragon with clouds and a flaming pearl.

This is actually silk.

Really?

And I think the majority of these pieces were intended to be together.

Oh, wow.

And one of the clues to that is not only just the surface appearance, but also the fact that this type of fabric appears on virtually every piece of this armor.

And what's interesting about this is this is not Japanese fabric.

Really?

This is Chinese fabric, and it's 18th-century Chinese silk that would have been considered extremely valuable and rare and unusual for whoever had commissioned this suit of armor.

Wow.

Now, one might assume that this is an 18th-century suit of armor.

I actually think it's a 19th-century suit of armor.

Most of these ceased to be manufactured once you had the introduction of the Meiji period in the late 19th century.

What's also terrific is you've got the box, this original box, and you can see it would have been brightly lacquered, red and black or burgundy color.

You also have, when you were in battle, you'd want some sort of an insignia, called a mon, which would be your family crest or whoever you were fighting for, that would be placed on top, up here, so you could be identified as you were part of the larger group of soldiers streaming across a battlefield.

Mm-hmm.

Now, this is gilt brass, so it's a little bit of a lesser material.

Okay.

Now, there are some missing pieces.

We have here on the box the arm guards, which are chain mail.

Mm-hmm.

And you'll notice that these have the same Chinese silk panels.

Right.

But they're missing the gloves, and these would have been articulated with little scales over each of the fingers, Mm-hmm.

and it would have been metal.

So you're missing some pieces.

Most of it's in pretty good shape.

The Chinese silk part of it is not in terribly good shape.

At auction, I would expect this suit of armor to make somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 today.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Great.

If all the pieces were here and this were in perfect shape, it probably would be $10,000 to $15,000.

Well, the bear has been in our family for about 15 years, but in my husband's family, his uncle had it.

And we're thinking that it should be about 80 years old.

He got it when he was a boy.

Anything else you know about it?

He's from Germany, so I don't know if it comes from there, if it's from the States, or what.

It is from Germany.

It's a Steiff pull toy.

It's an early Steiff bear.

If you notice here, you see the Steiff button.

Oh.

What makes yours a little bit unusual is the size and also being on wheels like this.

And it's not as common as the other Steiff bears, because most Steiff bears have a longer mohair.

This is a very tight wool.

Mmm.

This size is very sought after.

Any idea what it's worth?

Ever appraised?

No... no, we thought maybe a couple hundred, maybe.

You know, thinking stuffed animals, bears... Let's try maybe six times a couple hundred, maybe $800 to $1,200.

(chuckling): Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

MAN: I was born on Nantucket.

My grandfather's name was Jones.

Was he related to Edward Coffin Jones?

That would be probably my great-grandfather.

The Coffin name on Nantucket is like...

Huge.

Huge.

And the Jones name is huge.

By mid-century, Edward Coffin Jones in New Bedford had interest or full ownership of 15 vessels, many of them whaling vessels.

What's cool to me is that you, as a direct descendant of this great family, with Nantucket history, that these baskets, many of them have come down in the family, right?

I think they all have.

They call these Nantucket lightship baskets.

Lightship baskets.

And about 1854 or 1855, they decided that they should have a lightship, right?

Right.

25 miles off the coast, so that other vessels wouldn't crash...

Into the reef.

On the shoals of Nantucket.

So these sailors had to be there, what, 24/7?

On the ship?

Yeah, on the ship.

And what do you have to do out there?

Nothing.

So what do you do?

Weave baskets.

You weave baskets.

This basket right here, for instance, is an early basket.

The wooden stave coming up here with copper on the inside, the wonderful oak and ash and hickory staves.

Basketmaking, of course, moved on to the island by about 1900, even the late 19th century.

What you want to look for on some of the late 19th, early 20th century baskets are these brass staves here.

And it's really tight.

And the baskets, your family has kept them in good condition.

We move up in date, and as you know this, "antique Nantucket basket "made in the 1930s by A.D. Williams on Orange Street in Nantucket."

A well-known maker who often used poplar on the bottoms.

That's poplar wood.

Now, this basket is missing... did you know this?

No, I didn't know that.

Right there you can see... You can see where it's supposed...

It had little loop handles, and they're broken off.

This basket is made by the same man, because the technique is the same.

We have a poplar bottom and the original label on the bottom, which mentions 120 Orange Street.

He made a lot of baskets 1910, 1920s.

And then we have just this nice basket that's probably early 20th century, never had handles.

Condition really important again.

All the reeds are in good shape, they're not busted off.

Because all that affects value.

In 1945, a man named Jose Reyes came from the Philippines and began making baskets, and he did something different.

The earlier ones are made of oak and hickory and ash, and he started using rattan, just like he did in the Philippines.

So he made these baskets.

Here's a very inexpensive basket, but it is signed by him and engraved.

The one basket that he alone developed is the friendship basket.

And this is kind of a symbol of Nantucket, right?

Right.

He worked until 1980, right through the '50s, '60s and '70s.

And these baskets originally sold for $15.

I'll go through value, and I'll start out with the most recent baskets, okay?

This little basket, because there's not much going on, a Reyes basket, at auction is about $150 to $200.

Friendship baskets, it depends what's on top.

These are seagulls.

That is ivory, and earlier on they used whalebone, but that's ivory.

And ebony.

It's a very nice rectangular shape on the bottom and the mark is really nice.

That would bring $2,500 to $4,000, okay?

Wow.

Okay, just for that basket.

This is a nice, clean, simple basket worth about $1,500.

And this basket, because the handles are broken, this is about $500.

It would be $1,500.

Going on to this basket, that is in rough shape a little bit on the side, it has some damages.

A little break.

And that affects value-- about $1,500 because of the damage.

It would be $2,500.

This basket, nice and early, very tight, is about $2,000 to $2,500.

And finally we get to my favorite basket, okay?

(chuckling) This is the one...

The one...

I saw you come in with this.

I said, "Aw, that's the basket of my dreams."

(laughing) "I want to take that home!"

Because of its rarity, because of its condition, would be worth in the range, at auction, of $6,000 to $8,000.

And that's easily.

It might even bring $10,000, $11,000, $12,000, $13,000.

For that one basket.

It's a lot of money for a basket.

A lot of money for a basket.

I don't even play music.

I don't know how to play music.

It was just a whim to buy it.

Did you ever try to plug it in?

Well, no, my husband did.

He plays and sings, and I thought, "Well, this would be a good present for him."

So you bought this guitar at an auction sale.

Yes.

How long ago?

About a month ago.

A month ago; so it's brand new?

It's brand new to me, yes.

Okay.

Can I ask you how much you paid for it?

Yes, I gave $1,000 for it.

A thousand dollars?

$1,000, and it's probably not worth nothing.

That was a tremendous leap of faith on your part, wasn't it?

Yes, it was.

There was another fellow bidding against me, and afterwards he told me that he had another guitar almost like it, and he wanted it as a double.

Oh, okay.

But when I go to an auction and I want something, I usually just... that's what I want and I get it.

You have that determined look that would scare off even a professional.

Well, I hope so.

(both laughing) I hope so.

It's called an SG special.

The Gibson company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, had a line of guitars designed by the guitarist-- the late guitarist-- Les Paul.

Oh, yeah.

And it was a line that was very radical for its day.

It didn't quite catch on, and after about ten years, they decided to actually change the design without consulting him.

Okay.

So starting in 1961, they started with this new body design, what we call a double cutaway.

Okay.

And they modernized it and they gave it a new style.

Problem was, he didn't authorize that change and he said, "Take my name off of that guitar."

So, starting in 1962, they had to call it the "SG," Okay.

rather than the Les Paul model.

It's a beautiful design that we recognize as sort of iconic to the 1960s, and they're still making it to this day.

The whole body and neck of this guitar is made of mahogany, a very thin piece for the body and a very long, narrow piece for the neck.

The reason that this very guitar is special is because it's from the year 1963.

Gibson was experimenting with a new design, a very slim design, and what happened was they found out that so many of these broke.

This is one of the most fragile electric guitars ever made.

Oh, is that right?

And it's even worse because they sold it in this case.

It's a very cheap cardboard or chipboard case.

Yeah.

It was only about two years before they completely changed the design of that neck joint.

Is that right?

And they made it much stronger.

So what happens?

It becomes a collector's item.

Oh, wow!

Because there are so few of these left, and when you're talking about a Gibson SG, which is usually common, Yeah.

to find one from that year in drop-dead gorgeous condition is very unusual.

Well, that's what I liked about it.

The back is just phenomenal.

Right, it's hardly got a scratch on it.

And it just looks good.

In a retail or a replacement value situation, this would be about a $6,000 guitar.

Wow!

Just because of its condition.

Wow!

That's great.

APPRAISER: You've brought these great letters from Dorothy Fitz.

Was she related to you?

MAN: She was not related to me.

She lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the Yankees had spring training for several years, and the way I understand it, she received this baseball from Miller Huggins, who became her real good friend, and these letters are to her from Miller Huggins.

Well, how did you get them, though?

I got them from her grandson, who went to college at Montana State University in Bozeman about 20 years ago, and he was needing some money for college, so I purchased the letters and the ball from him.

Miller Huggins, best known for being a manager of the New York Yankees.

When everyone thinks of the Yankees of the 1920s, who do you think of first?

They always think of Babe Ruth.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

And Lou Gehrig.

But someone had to corral all these guys, That's correct.

and it was Miller Huggins.

He started out as a baseball player.

He was only five-six.

He was known as "Mighty Mite."

Managed the Cardinals, but he came over to the Yankees just about the same time Ruth did.

I think he came over a year earlier, and he led them to three world championships, six American League pennants, before he died in 1929.

The best thing I love about Miller Huggins is that he was not afraid of Babe Ruth, who was known for his carousing, for his womanizing, for his late nights.

And, in fact, in 1925, Huggins suspended him indefinitely, but it ended up being a couple of weeks, and fined him $5,000 for misconduct for the team.

Well, let's pick up the story.

We have this card here from Miller Huggins to Dorothy, saying "Uncle Miller."

So obviously he must have been a family friend of some type, not a romantic relationship.

And this 1927 World Series ball.

Now, the first thing we look for, of course, are Ruth and Gehrig, but here's Huggins on there, who is far rarer because he died in 1929.

There's the Ruth, of course, that you want to see on the sweet spot.

And you have Gehrig here.

The letter is my favorite, because here's a handwritten letter from Huggins, which you never see, to Dorothy, and in it he talks about the Yankees and how she gave him a four-leaf clover that he could put in his hat.

He was going to take it out when the season was over.

But the Yankees were in second place, and he wasn't sure that they were going to get out of second place.

Well, of course, that was the year that the Athletics went in, took over, came out 104, I believe, and 46, and the Yankees, even with their phenomenal team, which is considered the greatest of all times, came 18 games behind them.

When you purchased these, how much did you pay for them?

I believe it was around $2,500.

The letters are actually rarer than the baseball.

If I were going to put a value on the baseball, auction value, I would put on somewhere between $8,000 and $12,000.

The letters, because they're from Miller, because he died of blood poisoning...

Some people say that, some people say it was a skin infection.

He lost weight, he went into the hospital in New York, never was able to come out.

These letters I'd put at about $6,000 to $8,000.

That's amazing.

Our house burned down.

We built a new house and our friends gave us a housewarming party.

And our dear friends brought us this object.

And how have you been displaying it in your home?

Well, it comes in three pieces, so we bolted them together in the back and hung it as a mirror, because I thought it belonged on a table, but we didn't have a table big enough.

Your instinct was right.

This was made for a table.

It's what we call a plateau.

Oh.

This has all of the spectacular qualities that you hope to find in such a piece.

What did they use it for?

Do you have any ideas?

Well, I thought it went on a table and had fruit on it.

Right.

And it was used for putting a whole array of fruits and ceramic figures.

There are wheels on the bottom of the piece that you may have noticed.

Yes.

So it could in fact be moved on the tabletop.

I see.

And they are the original wheels.

What is especially important about your piece is that these elements-- for example, these anthemions-- these were bronze cast pieces, and the surface was applied by fire gilding, which was mercury and gold mixed together and then heated up, and the mercury would then disappear and the gilding would adhere to the bronze mounts.

Stay.

They don't do it anymore, because it's rather dangerous to do it.

But this piece was actually made in Paris in about 1820.

My goodness.

Now, plateaus are so rare that when a great one from the 1820s, from Paris, comes onto the marketplace, we would give this an auction estimate of $50,000 to $70,000.

Oh, my gosh, John.

(laughing): Oh, my gosh, John.

No... no!

Oh, you're giving me shivers.

It was the essence of dining in Paris.

Only the elite, perhaps even a royal family, would have had such a spectacular piece.

And I know it came to you from your friend.

Yes.

She's going to faint.

Well, when she sees the show she'll be in for a surprise, but you may have a good story for her.

I'll have to call her before that and tell her she's rich.

(laughing) You're watching "Antiques Roadshow" WALBERG: And now, it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

And found out this isn't worth much, but more importantly, the experts tell me it's not really a cowboy-size coffee cup.

And we had this little Asian stamp box appraised, and it was worth about a hundred bucks.

It's used for stamps, but I put my kids' teeth in it all these years.

I got this for ten cents at a garage sale, and it's worth $40, so I think I did pretty good on my investment.

With our priceless family heirlooms... that aren't so priceless.

And I don't know how much this is worth, because I was too busy looking at the delicious man who gave me the valuation to remember.

I can't match that, but I have a German pitcher that has a face-- when you turn it upside down and this way-- and it's worth $75.

We had a great time.

Fabulous.

We came to the Antiques Roadshow with this pot that came on the Mormon Trail in 1847 with my great-great-grandma.

It came from Russia.

But it's only worth $500.

Your family's priceless, your pots aren't.

But I have brothel tokens which are worth $40 to $50 each and no longer refundable.

We came to the Antiques Roadshow with our horses.

We found out that one of them is worth what we paid, and the other's worth a whole lot more.

This guy!

Yoo-hoo!

And we had a blast at the Roadshow that we learned that these earrings are not ivory but plastic.

But it was fun.

It was super fun.

I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."

Hi.

Hello.

Oh, that's pretty.

Thanks.

Where'd you get it?

Oh, it's an etching that came with my parents' house when they bought it in '67.