Washington, DC, Hour 3

Antiques Roadshow is visiting Washington, D.C. How did folks make out in the nation's capital?

I've only seen guns like this in books.

Really?

I've never actually seen one in person.

APPRAISER: Liquor is cheap, it's plentiful, and people are drunk.

(toy squeaks) You won't want to miss this hour from Washington, so stay tuned.

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

Hi, I'm Mark Walberg, in Washington, D.C.

So many of our country's treasures are expertly cared for in our nation's capital.

We'll take a look at one such place, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, later in the show.

But now, let's see what our experts have to say about some Washingtonians' personal treasures.

My grandparents were missionaries in Korea from 1890 to 1908.

Wow.

And, uh, this is something that my grandfather purchased ostensibly from a Korean tiger hunter.

This is just before the fall of the dynasty, around 1911... Really?

When the Japanese occupied the country, which was a very, very sensitive time for the Korean people...

Yes.

Because they were under enormous pressure from the Japanese...

Yes.

And were looking for any kind of foreign help to help them out of the situation they were involved in.

I see.

And things like this were coming up on the market at the time, but it's an exceptional rarity.

I've only seen guns like this in books.

Really?

I've never actually seen one in person.

Interesting.

And it is a matchlock.

Is it?

Yeah.

And it used to have, up here, a cord that would have been soaked in saltpeter...

Yes.

And then lit on fire.

Oh, interesting.

Hardwood stock, handmade barrel, very, very early form of gun.

Is that right?

And the Koreans just kept this model basically because it worked.

Right.

And in terms of it coming from a tiger hunter, highly probable.

Is that right?

Highly probable.

Interesting.

You're not going to be picking off sparrows with something like this.

This gun is probably 19th century, even 18th century.

Okay.

I would say, conservatively, at auction, the estimate would be, like, $3,000 to $5,000 on this gun.

Is that right?

The Korean market has a tendency to fluctuate wildly.

This is the kind of thing, in the end, I wouldn't be surprised if retail on a gun like this was $10,000 or $15,000.

Really?

Well, thank you.

I've wondered for years what kind of gun it was, and, uh, when it might have been made.

WOMAN: I inherited this chest about 20 years ago.

My father's second wife was from Pennsylvania and she said this came down in her mother's family and that it was a very old Pennsylvania piece, but that is really all that I know about it.

Did she give you any idea of how old she thought it was?

She didn't say.

My guess was that she was talking 1700s, but I didn't know.

And have you ever had it appraised?

I've never had it appraised.

She told me that she had been offered $8,000 by a dealer at one point for it.

However, this was very close to the end of her life and she was rather grandiose then, so she could have been offered $800, and it sort of grew.

$800, okay.

Well, it's what we call a Queen Anne figured walnut chest of drawers, and it was made in Philadelphia, between, probably, the years of 1745 and 1760.

Oh, my!

It's an exceptional chest, and there's really fabulous craftsmanship.

We have this wonderful top, with what we call canted corners.

Your typical chest would have a rectangular top with a molded edge...

Right.

But this has got these cut corners that are supported with the molding underneath, and the case follows with these beautiful fluted pilasters that go from top to bottom and continue to what we call a triple-faceted foot, and what's really interesting about that foot, with a little more research, we could probably figure out the maker, because this faceted foot is only done by a few cabinetmakers in Philadelphia.

Oh!

All right.

And then, it's got this figured walnut, really what we kind of call tortured grain, or crotch walnut.

This comes from the Y in a tree, where the... Oh.

And that's what creates that wonderful motion in the wood.

The grain will draw your eye up the chest.

And then the American cabinetmakers strive for verticality in their pieces.

And then if we also look at the front of the chest, you've got these period Queen Anne brasses, but what really makes this special is its size.

It's what we call a diminutive chest.

It's got a very narrow width, and when you start taking in inches on the width, you can start adding dollar signs.

Now, that being said, there are a few condition issues with the chest.

The first thing is the surface.

Now, if you're a fan of the Roadshow, you know we like those dirty, grungy surfaces.

Right.

But this has been refinished.

It's kind of got this shiny surface.

If you look at the front of the chest, you'll notice white marks on the drawers.

Yes.

Those are what we call "halos," and as one of my colleagues say, "Halos are great on angels, but not on furniture."

Does that mean that it was painted at one time?

It isn't.

What that is is residual brass polish, so someone has put the polish on the brasses and rubbed it in, and it's worked its way into the pores of the wood.

Oh... all right.

You also have some repairs and cracks to the foot facings, but that being said, it's still a special chest.

I think we can easily say, at auction, we place an estimate of $12,000 to $18,000 on this chest.

Oh, really, on this chest?

I would never have known that.

If this had its original surface, we'd easily say $30,000 to $50,000.

MAN: I got this watch from my grandfather, who passed away three years ago.

We had it appraised about two years ago, and he said it was probably around $3,000, but I could put some work into it, maybe bump that value up to about $5,000 or $6,000.

Have you done any of the research, in terms of the history behind it?

I believe it's from the '50s.

What did your grandfather do for a living?

He was an electrical engineer.

It's made by Rolex in Geneva.

Rolex is a very, very large, very famous, Swiss watchmaking company.

It is a very famous model.

It's a reference 6234.

Okay.

Made in 1954.

It differs very slightly from regular pieces of this type of era, in that it also has a chronograph feature.

A chronograph is designed as a stopwatch.

You have two buttons on the side.

The top one is to start and stop the time.

The bottom one is to reset it again.

Mm-hmm.

They're actually largely popular with auto racing, which is why I was quite curious about his profession.

But the other aspect of this watch is they were antimagnetic, so if you worked in magnetic fields, then it could well be that he needed an antimagnetic watch.

Yeah.

It looks like he took good care of it too.

Originality comes into play quite a lot when you're dealing with vintage pieces in any type of sense.

The glass that's on there is still the original glass.

It has a few scratches on there, et cetera, but in my view it sort of gives it great history behind it.

The hands are original, and the dial is a multicolored, so it's white also with the blue and the black outer track.

It's a still excellent-condition dial, and very often with these type of pieces, because they were sports watches, they tend to get slightly discolored.

The bracelet, incidentally, is not original and really doesn't add any value to the piece.

This piece, I think, estimate today for auction purposes, is around $25,000 to $30,000.

(laughs) Um...

So it's a little higher Wow.

than the value that they had given.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you very much, Charles.

So, Larry, you came up from Turkey Creek, right?

Turkey Creek, Kentucky.

Tell me about this bus you brought.

Well, I think it's a 1920s Turner, is what I was told.

Got it from a friend of mine.

He's a real good friend, and he actually gave it to me.

He gave it to you.

I didn't have to buy it, he gave it to me.

I think he got it at an estate sale.

Now, you collect toys?

I do collect toys.

So he decided that he'd be a real good friend and give you this bus.

Yeah, because I don't have anything like this.

I've got a lot of cars and trucks, Uh-huh.

but nothing this early.

This is that early pressed steel...

Right.

And you're absolutely right, it's 1920s, it's Turner, and of course you know a little bit about toys.

You know Buddy L made buses and Buddy L made the big pressed steel stuff.

Then there were companies like Turner that came along.

It's a nice toy and pretty nice gift.

Yes, it is.

You have any idea what it might be worth?

I'm beginning to think it's worth pretty good money.

I don't know; I've had a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs" on it.

Well, I'll tell you, it's a rare bus.

Is it really?

Frankly, it's about the third one I've ever heard of.

No way.

Well, boy, I hope your friend doesn't want to take it back now.

I'm hoping not.

I don't know.

Well, even though it's missing a headlight, I don't think that's that important once you get into this level of rarity.

The last two of these that I know of, selling at auction, were $5,000 and $6,000.

No way.

Are you serious?

I am dead serious.

Wow.

And the last one was $6,000 and it had a repainted running board.

Running board.

This is a little bit better than the last one I know of that's selling at auction.

This is a minimum $5,000 to $6,000 bus.

I'm going to have to do a lot of, uh... You're going to have some fun with your friend.

Yes, I am.

Yes, I am.

Well, you might just have to buy him lunch or dinner.

He's a good guy.

He's a good guy.

I think it was maybe worth your drive from Kentucky.

Yeah, I'm really tickled.

It was an honor to be here.

WOMAN: It came from my brother's estate, and although, um, it's not the type of art that I generally, um, warm to, I was intrigued by the fact that it appears to be oil on board.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, which I thought was somewhat strange for a pin-up pose.

It's an interesting painting, and it falls within the genre of illustrator art.

Earl Moran did, not only magazine work, started his career with Sears Roebuck, born in the Midwest, studied at the Chicago Art Institute, ultimately settled out in Hollywood, very prolific.

Knew Marilyn Monroe, knew Betty Grable.

His works were highly prized.

I had a couple of colleagues who were very familiar with Marilyn look at it.

And the consensus seems to be, unfortunately, that it's probably not Marilyn.

It's got a little bit of flake and a little bit of paint loss, but nothing really extreme.

It's a terrific work, and sometimes, if it is of an absolutely known subject, such as a Marilyn Monroe, it can be worth more than if it's simply a beautiful woman.

A painting like this, condition aside, probably $5,000 to $8,000 at auction.

It's a really nice painting.

It's a great example of illustrator art.

MAN: It's been in my family for as long as I can remember.

It was owned by my mother's side, and when my grandmother passed away, it came over from Scotland to where I grew up, just outside of Buffalo.

Well, it's a beauty.

It's a vase or an urn.

It's a vessel.

The most striking part of this piece is this medallion here.

It's made to look like a carved cameo shell, but it's made of porcelain, on porcelain.

And that technique is called pâte-sur-pâte-- French term, "paste on paste."

And that is done by applying one thin layer of slip, which is liquid porcelain, over the other, over the other.

So, instead of casting this, like a piece of Jasperware, like Wedgwood, this is applied with a paintbrush.

So you'll get these beautiful, translucent effects.

So usually when you see a piece with pâte-sur-pâte, which are quite rare, they have these diaphanous gowns, these long, flowing shawls, so that you get to see the light through them.

Now, this technique was perfected by a Frenchman called Marc-Louis Solon, and Solon worked for the Sèvres factory in France.

So when one sees a piece like this, so beautiful, one immediately thinks, mmm, perhaps this was done by Solon, perhaps this is a piece of Sèvres, and then, when he went to England, Solon worked at Minton, so I thought, perhaps it's a piece of Minton.

And it is none of these folks.

I'm going to show the bottom.

And we see the mark of the crossed swords of Meissen.

Meissen is German.

And not only is it German, it is seminal German porcelain works-- the most important.

They have been around since the earliest part of the 18th century.

And so this mark is widely copied, and often you see fake Meissen marks.

Uh-oh.

This is real Meissen.

Oh.

It would be difficult to fake the entirety of it.

The quality's too great.

I've never seen pâte-sur-pâte faked.

This particular mark tells us that the piece was done between 1850 and 1924, and because of the decoration style, we all thought that the time for this was probably during the 1880s, and we don't know who this artist was.

This is not Solon.

He didn't work at Meissen.

We're going to turn it around so folks can see the back, with these lovely serpent handles, not uncommon on an urn at Meissen.

And the value on that, at auction, would probably be somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000.

Sweet!

Great!

I'm surprised.

WOMAN: I came by it through my parents, and they're gone, so it went to my sister.

She's gone, so I have it now.

And do you know where they acquired it?

My parents were traveling in Europe right after World War II.

I think he had business over there, and they came upon this in France.

Mm-hmm.

And brought it back.

That was maybe the late '40s.

And do you know where in France they acquired it?

I heard it was from Aubusson, where they used to make the old tapestries.

It is from Aubusson.

It is a tapestry from the mid-20th century.

I would put a date 1945 to 1950 on it.

The cartoon, which is the design of the tapestry, was done by a gentleman named Jean Lurçat, who is, without a doubt, the premier tapestry designer in France, of mid-20th century France.

Ooh, la, la.

He is also a painter, also was a carpet designer, but he's really best known for his tapestry designs, his cartoons.

And he really was one of the driving artists behind the revitalization of the Aubusson tapestry looms in the mid-20th century, after the war, to make these very modern, fantastic pieces.

It's a hand-woven tapestry weave.

They still had trained artisans in the town of Aubusson.

This particular piece, while designed by Lurçat, was made and woven by a company called Pinton Brothers, which was one of the leading Aubusson workshops in the mid-20th century.

Lurçat, his signature is here in the bottom corner, but next to it is a "PF," which is Pinton Frères, which is Pinton Brothers.

The name of this tapestry is "Gobi."

It's inspired by a night scene in the Gobi Desert in China.

You mean you recognize it?

Which is why you have kind of bamboo-looking motifs Yeah.

through the tapestry, and these blue dots that are kind of hinting at stars, as a night scene.

By the Modernism of the mid-20th century, everything was highly stylized, so the suggestions of ideas as opposed to really naturalistic depictions.

I know a lot about Lurçat.

I know a lot about Lurçat tapestries.

You do, okay.

This is one of the greatest ones I've ever seen.

Really?

Lurçat tapestries can tend to be quite busy, a little too much going on.

This has a cleanness to it that is really, to me, the best of mid-20th century French tapestry.

Yeah, it's... Do you have any idea of value?

Well, I was thinking maybe $5,000.

The retail value is $15,000.

Whoa.

It's really quite a remarkable tapestry.

My husband has an Aunt Betsy, and she has over the years collected automata dolls, and she was very nice and generous and gave me this doll for Christmas two years ago.

And I think she just wanted to make more room in her house so she could collect a few more.

But this is very special, I don't really know a whole lot about her.

I think Aunt Betsy bought her maybe ten or 12 years ago, but she does not remember what she paid for the doll.

What you have is what we refer to as an automaton, or mechanical, French doll.

It's made by the Jumeau company.

Oh, it is?

What's wonderful about it, many times the mechanism is in a box and the doll stands on the box, but the mechanism on this doll is actually right inside the torso of the doll.

The head is very adult, which is very unusual.

They're usually childlike-looking faces.

And this has another unusual feature.

It has an open mouth with teeth.

That doesn't always translate into more valuable, it just is very unusual to see this head with teeth.

This doll was made probably between 1880 and 1905.

I wanted to demonstrate how it works.

There's a key underneath the skirt, here.

And then there's this lever that you pull out.

Right.

And then we can see it operate.

And she has a surprise, of course.

There it comes.

(toy squeaks) (laughs) (laughs) The doll is bisque, the arms are bisque, the chest plate is bisque, which is unusual on this doll.

Usually the clothing comes up to the neck.

Oh, okay.

The shoes are not original, the hat is not original, the dress is not original.

But I believe it's well done, whoever dressed it.

Mm-hmm.

This doll is the "Cadillac" of mechanical dolls.

It is an amazing doll, and on the retail market, we're talking about $30,000 to $35,000.

And she gave this to me?

Oh, my goodness.

(laughs) She may want it back!

(laughter) Thank you again for bringing it.

It's just wonderful.

No, I'm totally shocked and surprised.

(toy squeaks) WALBERG: We think nothing of snapping pictures of friends and family today, and with digital photography, most people have hundreds, if not thousands, of images of loved ones.

But for early Americans, one single miniature portrait might have been all there was for someone to remember his kin.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has over 400 miniature portraits on display at the Luce Foundation Center.

Expertly designed for study and comparison, the institution's holdings are ready for their close-up.

NANCY DRUCKMAN: Well, the first one is really a masterpiece.

It's by Charles Willson Peale.

He was born in 1741, and he was the patriarch of one of the most important painting dynasties in America.

In 1767, he was sent to London, and one of the patrons who financed Peale's trip was a man named John Beale Bordley, from Maryland.

And, done in watercolor on ivory, these are Bordley's two sons, Thomas, age 12, and Matthias, age nine.

What makes this even more touching is that Thomas died in 1771.

This is considered one of the best things he ever painted, so if we're talking about relative values, it would probably be somewhere in the range of $50,000 to $75,000.

This one is a really intriguing piece.

This is the work of a woman artist, initially self-taught.

Her name is Sarah Goodridge.

She was born in a small town in Massachusetts and found her way to Gilbert Stuart, one of the most important and influential portrait painters of the late 18th and early 19th century.

And Stuart took her in as a student and mentored her, and this portrait, again on ivory, is of Gilbert Stuart, painted in 1825, and he said, "This is the only true likeness that has ever been painted of me."

And those are actually strands of Gilbert Stuart and his wife's hair.

WALBERG: That make the bracelet?

DRUCKMAN: That are braided into that bracelet.

My goodness, what a treasure.

It is a treasure.

The highest recorded price for a miniature by Sarah Goodridge is something around $6,000.

But this one is really out of the ballpark.

Very difficult to assign value, but that gives us some context.

Yes.

These two represent a real shift, because these are works that are done on paper.

So we're out of the precious sphere of watercolor on ivory made for the American aristocracy, and we're now into miniatures in a democratic kind of way.

This one dates to 1850, and it's by a named folk artist, James Sanford Ellsworth, and in Ellsworth's time, we have the introduction of photography, nipping at his heels, and so he did these funny little abstract renditions that have curlicues and wings.

There are a lot of them that do exist in the marketplace, and there's a fairly consistent price level.

They usually sell somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 to $7,000.

Well, they're really remarkable pieces and incredibly beautiful, and thanks for sharing them with us.

Thank you.

WOMAN: We think it's maybe a temperance banner.

It came from my grandmother's attic.

My mom and one of my aunts were cleaning out the attic-- that's the home that they grew up in-- and found this folded up in a little plastic bag.

So, I've unfolded it and have tried to take as good care of it as possible.

Well, the first thing we want to do is we want to try to date this.

And we date something like this by looking at the material Right.

and by looking at the style of the lettering.

We see it's made of a very, very fine linen material, on a beautiful cotton backing.

And it's quite early.

It depicts the railroad.

It's the metaphor, because railroads are something exciting, so they're telling you not to get on this train, and if you do, the stops on the train are pretty hazardous, leading all the way to Black Valley, and your tickets are sold at all liquor shops.

Now, what's interesting about the temperance movement at that particular time is it's part of the overall reform movement that's going on in this country.

So, this is not necessarily just something by a preacher who is anti-drinking.

This is part of a serious awakening that's going on in a country that is new, and that all of a sudden, people have to show up at work, all of a sudden people are operating machinery, and liquor is cheap.

It's plentiful, and people are drunk... a lot.

So this whole reform movement that was coming in, we're talking about education, child labor, diet, and drinking.

So it's a very, very important facet of American history.

It would have probably been hung by a traveling temperance person giving temperance speeches.

In a way, the roots of this all led up to Prohibition.

There are some condition situations here, but I'm not going to use the word "condition problems," because this piece was used, it took journeys, it was hung, it was taken down, it was rehung, and really has no effect on its value.

Condition remains extraordinary, because of what it is.

So in terms of value, I think a retail value of this is in the $5,000 to $6,000 range.

Well, thank you.

WOMAN: My boyfriend passed away a few years back, and it's from his estate.

It is an 18th-century American tankard, and this is made of coin silver, which was what they used in the late 18th century into the mid-19th century in the United States.

There was not a tremendous amount of silver made in the United States in the 18th century.

Not a lot of it has survived, either.

Most silver at that time was imported from England, because that's where all silver craftsmen were in the late 18th century, for the most part.

There were some very good silver makers, and they were in the more metropolitan areas, and Baltimore at that time was a major port city.

So it is made by George Aiken, who was a prominent Baltimore silversmith, and he did make a tremendous amount of silver, actually, and a lot of it has survived.

It's marked very clearly on the bottom with his mark, and that mark has his first initial, G, and Aiken, his last name, and that was a mark that was used around 1790.

He began making silver in Baltimore as early as 1787, which is when he first ran some ads in the local papers.

What struck me most interesting about it was that they made lots of spoons and lots of small cream pitchers, but not a lot of large hollowware.

You do see it in America in the 18th century, but it's primarily in the northern part of the country.

Another thing that's interesting about it is the name on it.

It has two names, Griffith and Lee, and I learned from the Baltimore Historical Society that Griffith was actually a very prominent merchant family in Baltimore in the late 18th and early 19th century, and then, of course, the Lees were very, very famous in the Baltimore, Annapolis, Maryland, and Virginia area.

So, what did you pay for it?

I paid the... into the estate I paid $1,000 to get this.

And do you have any idea what it might be worth, or any thoughts about what it might be worth?

I had it appraised about seven years ago, by somebody who was not specific on the silver appraising.

Thought it was worth about $6,000.

I would think if this came up to auction today, it would conservatively bring $12,000 to $15,000, maybe as much as $15,000 to $20,000.

Wow.

It's a very rare example by a Southern colonial silversmith, and whenever it comes up, they do really fight for it hard, so there'd be a lot of competition if it did come up for sale.

Okay, well, that's wonderful to know.

My father was the last original Cleveland Brown to retire.

His career extended from 1946 to 1968, and he's known as Lou "The Toe" Groza.

And why is that?

He was a phenomenal placekicker, and he's inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

I might add that if there was a Hall of Fame for fathers, he'd be in it as well; he was a great dad.

I was probably seven years old when he retired from the Browns.

A recent honor is the NCAA has an award named after him for the top kicker of the year, which is kind of a neat thing to continue his legacy, even though he's been long gone.

He died, unfortunately, ten years ago.

At 76, right?

76 was his age when he died, and that's the number that they retired many years ago with the Cleveland Browns.

Now, what did he do after he retired?

Well, even when he was playing back then, they had to have second jobs.

He had an insurance business, and he'd get out of a football game and the next day he'd be trying to sell insurance.

So these are items from your dad's career.

Yeah-- what we have here on the right is one of his football jerseys.

On the left here, I have my dad's... one of his sideline jackets.

And one Thanksgiving after my father passed, my mom came in with a paper bag and we all drew cards, and we selected rings out of a bag, and this is the ring I got.

It's the 1950 championship ring, which he wore many, many years, and it means a lot to me because it was the Browns' first championship in the NFL, and he won it with a last-second field goal on Christmas Eve back in 1950.

Right, against the Rams, right?

Exactly.

Exactly.

I get home after getting this ring.

I was going through some images and the one up top is actually a picture of him holding me as a baby, and he's wearing that ring, so it kind of gives you chill bumps, seeing that.

That's fantastic.

Well, I think you're even being a little modest about your dad, because your dad was part of eight championship teams.

The Browns played in the AAFC, All-American Football Conference, winning four championships in a row.

The league folded and they became part of the NFL.

When you think of the Browns today, they haven't been to a Super Bowl in years.

Exactly.

They haven't won since '64, and it's largely part because of your father, Otto Graham, Paul Brown, Jim Brown.

Exactly.

These were the men who were behind the great Brown teams, and they won, of course, in '50, this year, as well as '54, '55 and '64.

He was the only member of the Browns in history to be on each of their championship games, which is kind of neat.

Is there a funny moment that you remember about your dad in football?

There's one where he was probably 45 when he retired, and in his earlier years he used to take great pride in kicking off and running down and making the tackle as a kicker.

Right.

But in the later years, when he was older, he was 45, he was slower, heavier, as you can see in that picture, so Paul Brown would keep him back as a safety valve, and he happened to be kicking off, it was probably one of his last games, and a rookie from the opposing team knocked him down on his back, and my dad laid there, dazed, and this young guy reached down and said, "Sorry, Mr.

Groza."

(laughs) So that kind of emulate... that tells you what kind of respect you earned from being in the NFL that long.

Well, let's get to the values.

So you have this great sideline jacket that your dad wore, I'm guessing this was in the '60s, as well as this jersey.

We can't place it for sure.

Now, insurance value on the jacket, which of course has the old Browns logo, the Brownie logo...

I'd probably put about $5,000 value.

The jersey, because we can't place it to a particular year, I would put about $10,000 on that.

Okay.

If you had a jersey from one of the four championship years, or even the AAFC years, then that would be a higher value.

Okay.

But the bulk of the value here is in the ring.

It's the first championship that the Browns won after they came into the NFL, and they won it in an extremely dramatic fashion.

So an insurance value on it, it would be at least $45,000.

Wow, okay.

Exactly.

So you have a total value of around $60,000.

Okay, wonderful.

WOMAN: I purchased this at a flea market that my sister and I were selling at, and my sister was selling it for $20.

Okay.

And I purchased it there in Brooklyn.

And how long ago?

Um, maybe two years.

It's a Chinese duan stone screen, and it dates from the late 19th century, so late Qing dynasty.

It's a volcanic rock, or a volcanic slate.

Now, duan is typically identified from its purple-to-green hue.

One of the charming features of this plaque is the fact that the green natural hue has been carved in a cameo design.

So it highlights the mountain peak, shown at the top, the pine and tree blossoms, the highly reliefed carved pine tree issuing from the rock work at the base.

So what they've done is incorporate the natural features of the stone, or slate, to show a cameo effect.

It's been mounted with iron painting hooks.

However, it was never meant to be hung on a wall.

It would have been on a reticulated bracket base, and stood 24 inches tall or so.

Oh.

The reason this is quite an unusual example is the fact that it's a large piece of carved slate.

Most duan examples are small inkstones.

The carving's very, very highly worked, so it's a good quarter-inch off the base of the stone.

Ten years ago, this would have been worth between $800 and $1,000 at auction.

All right.

However, China's just become the second largest economy after America.

The Chinese are investing huge sums of money in decorative art, Chinese works of art.

It's difficult to find large pieces of duan stone carved in this cameo effect.

For those reasons, in today's economy, at auction, this would be worth between $7,000 and $10,000.

Wow!

Well, I acquired this set of pens from my grandfather, who worked for President Johnson as a White House aide for congressional relations, and he was an integral part for getting a lot of these acts passed, and he was given these pens by President Johnson.

To me, the coolest one is right here, and this is the one that says "Public Broadcasting Act of 19..." Sixty-seven.

Sixty-seven.

And if that pen was not used by President Johnson, you and I may not be chatting here today.

Very true.

Because that's what really got public broadcasting on its feet and going.

There's other really important bills that were signed here too throughout the whole thing.

As far as an insurance value, anything that's handled or used in any kind of act by a president has substantial value.

To replace one pen like this, you would easily, easily have to pay somebody $500 for a pen, maybe more for a pen.

You have 60 of them.

So if I was going to insure this, and make sure that you're protected, God forbid something should happen, I would put around a $30,000 insurance value on this as a collection.

Couldn't have been more fitting.

Couldn't have been more fitting.

Thank you.

These were a gift from my dad, who worked at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and these were given to him as a retirement gift, and I'm not sure who gave them to him.

He gave them to me about 15 or so years ago.

And when did he get them originally?

He got them in the early '70s.

Okay.

Currier & Ives were the biggest publisher of prints in basically the second half of the 19th century, and they did hand-colored lithographs.

A lithograph would print the black and white image and then they were hand-colored on top of that.

Now, they are the most famous and popular.

Especially these would be; the size is called small folio, and they've been copied over and over and over again, and so the real question is, how do you know?

Right.

Now, do you have any idea how you can tell?

Someone once told me that it has to be a certain exact measurement.

Okay, well, that is actually one of the ways you tell, because many reproductions are the wrong size.

You can also look at them through magnification, and if you see little dots-- a lot of the reproductions have little dots of color-- that's a reproduction.

Mm-hmm.

I'm happy to tell you these are originals.

Good.

(laughs) Now, there were almost 8,000 different prints by Currier & Ives.

A lot of them they kept issuing over and over and over again, and they were very popular.

Most of their market was in the East Coast.

These were done in the 1870s, and you see a couple of them have the date.

Right down here you can see the date, 1871.

But they were done in that period because that was when the great western migration was there.

Right.

And, of course, Currier & Ives were merchants who were selling any kind of print they could, so if they thought there was a market for it, they made prints.

Everybody's moving out west, California gold rush, they wanted to sell prints.

So, they're actually... the western prints are scarcer.

They didn't issue as many.

They also happen to be more desirable, because people nowadays are really interested in the American West and the period of exploration, more so than the common sort of genre prints or little kitten prints.

Now, if you've looked online, you see a lot of the small-folio Currier & Ives sell for, in a retail environment, between maybe $100, $300.

These are better than that.

The least valuable is probably Th e Western Farmers Home, up here in this corner.

It's a great scene, but it's not really specific to any one place.

It's about the immigration out there.

In this condition, in a retail environment, I would expect to see that one for maybe around $500.

Now, the Hunting in the Northern Woods is a hunting scene, which is very popular, great color on it, a little indistinct in where it is, so it's a good print, but maybe not quite as valuable as some of the others.

About $1,200 is what I expect a shop to have it in that kind of condition.

Now, when you get to these two, they're specific locations.

There are a number of Yosemites.

This is probably the best of them, because it has the Pioneer cabin, which is really a great Currier & Ives scene.

So that one, in this condition again, in a retail environment, probably would be about $1,500.

Now, this print is even better.

First of all, it's a gold rush, which is a great American subject.

There were a couple times people voted on what they thought the best 50 small-folio Currier & Ives.

This, both times, was in the top 50.

I think it was number 11 once and 12 the other time.

Really?

Wow.

So it's one of the most desirable of the small folio.

So in this condition, this would sell for about $2,500.

Wow, that's great.

(laughs) WOMAN: This violin belonged to my aunt, my father's sister.

She was a Roman Catholic nun for 20 years when she was very young and she played the violin in the convent.

Family legend says that she was very good, but at some point her superiors told her that she could no longer play and that she needed to teach, so she shut the violin case at that time and put it under the bed, where it stayed for almost 50 or 60 years, I would guess, until she passed away.

I tried at one point to get her to play at my wedding, but she would not, and I'd never even seen it until after she passed away.

Did she actually play in a convent orchestra?

She played in a convent orchestra, and I hear that she played in Carnegie Hall, but I don't know all the details on that end of things, but I hear that she was very good.

One would have to be very good to play at Carnegie Hall.

That's what I hear.

What area was she from originally?

Michigan.

Michigan, okay.

It was made by Anders Halvarson of Meyers-Halvarson.

Halvarson actually is...

In the history of American violin makers, he's not that well known.

Halvarson came from Sweden in 1923 and worked at one of the major Chicago violin shops, which was William Lewis & Son, and there he worked under Carl Becker Sr. and Jr. Carl Becker Sr. is pretty much acknowledged to be one of the greatest American makers of the 20th century, so he had excellent instruction under Becker and his son.

He bought first-quality wood and made instruments in the basement of this house, and he was extremely industrious.

He had a very beautiful, even, orange varnish that he applied by hand, and although there are a couple of scratches in the top, they can easily be retouched.

Turning the violin, we can see a beautiful flamed maple back, and this is first-quality wood that Halvarson probably bought in Germany during the late '30s or maybe even the early '50s.

It's hard to tell, but it's a one-piece back, and it has extremely deep flames, and it's a very lightweight maple that comes from the Balkan Peninsula, and that's the first-quality maple for violin making.

He also had a very beautiful method of carving the scrolls by hand, and these are done with a series of chisels that correspond to the different curves of the scroll, so he used a different-sized chisel to cut each of the turns of the scroll.

Now, if we look inside of the violin, we can see the label that says "Meyers-Halvarson," and it's a very understated label.

And he worked in this area of Nashville, Michigan, I think because the area was very well supported by the auto industry, so there was a lot of money that supported classical music.

So, he turned out to be one of the major American makers of the 20th century.

Because of the violin's quality and because of the relative rarity of these instruments, I would place the value of this violin between $4,000 and $6,000.

Wow, wow.

I like a lot of different quilts and, um, coverlets and things like that.

I happened to see this at a thrift store here in Washington, D.C., about two years ago, and the colors and the texture of the wool caught my attention, so I actually purchased it.

Did you pay a lot for it?

No, I paid, I'm thinking, $12, but I don't remember, but it was less than $15.

Yeah, and do you know what it is?

Well, I know it's a Native American blanket, someone said maybe a chief's blanket, but I really don't know any more specific details than that.

Well, it's called a Third Phase chief's blanket.

Mm-hmm.

And the reason it's a Third Phase are these stepped triangles in the corners Uh-huh.

and at the halfway point and in the center.

If it was a First Phase, which we've had on the show before, it would just be the stripes.

Oh, okay.

And it wouldn't have all the red.

If it was a Second Phase, it would have the stripes with kind of box designs, without the triangles.

It was probably done in western New Mexico or eastern Arizona.

It's Navajo.

This blanket was probably woven in the 1870s.

Uh-huh.

The blue here is indigo from the plant.

Right.

The white is the natural color of the yarn.

The brown is the same.

Now, the interesting yarn is this red, and all of us at the table feel like that this is probably made from cochineal.

Now, cochi beetles... you know what a prickly pear cactus is?

Yes.

Well, in the Southwest, it looks like a growth on it that's sort of a fuzzy white look, Okay.

and you pull that off the cactus and squeeze it, and there's a little beetle in there, and it looks like that when it's smashed.

It turns this deep reddish-purple color.

Oh... Now, we can't be sure that that's what it is, but we strongly think it is.

It would take some tests to determine that.

This green may be another plant called rabbitbrush... Oh.

...that grows in the Southwest.

Now, this is in pretty rough shape.

Originally, it didn't have all this fringe down the edge.

It was smooth, and it had a cord whipping it off, and somebody's tied these little things on with yarn and done that on both sides.

It also has a little bit of damage here, and I'm going to turn it over because you can see it better.

It's been cut and sewn-- pretty big cut, pretty smooth cut-- but nevertheless it's a cut.

Now, value at auction in this condition, probably between $6,000 and $8,000.

Oh, mm-hmm.

So, more than your $15.

Right, right.

(laughs) Now, fixing it.

Right.

It's worth cleaning up, having the selvage put back on the edge, having the cut fixed, would cost some money, with the tests on the dye, probably $4,000.

Mm-hmm.

But, the other side of that money spent is that your weaving would then be worth between $16,000 and $18,000.

Mm-hmm-- wow, great.

MAN: I acquired it at an estate sale here in Washington, D.C.

It was the midweek, and I was going to the barber shop to get my hair cut, and I passed and I saw a sign in front of the house that said "Estate Sale."

I said, "Well, who in the world would have an estate sale in the middle of the week?"

So I drove on to the barber shop, and, uh, so when I came back, the sign was still there and I almost passed it again, but something told me to go in and take a look.

So I turned the car around and went back, and that's where I found this painting.

And you're a collector in general, is that right?

Yes, I collect African-American art.

This is somewhat of a departure with what you collect, so why did you happen to acquire this painting?

Well, after I did my research on... just on this lady, her teacher was Thomas Eakins.

And I said, "Well, this is the closest I'll probably ever come to owning a Henry O. Tanner painting," because Eakins was Henry O. Tanner's teacher.

Tanner was one of the most important African-American artists in the early 20th century.

Yes.

Jessie Willcox Smith is sometimes called the Mary Cassatt of illustration, because she loved painting children, as did Mary Cassatt, and she was also from Philadelphia, where Cassatt was from.

She was born in 1863 and died in 1935.

And before she studied at the academy, she went to the Design School for Women, and then she did study with Eakins, and then eventually she meets an illustrator named Howard Pyle, and Howard Pyle is one of the premier illustrators in America, and he was working in the Brandywine area, where the Wyeths were.

Pyle had started a school at the Drexel Institute, and there were mostly women students, because as you can imagine, at that time, women were somewhat limited in what they were painting, usually portraits or still lifes and illustration, and even in her class was the famous artist Maxfield Parrish, so she certainly was in great company.

She was mostly known for being a book illustrator.

She illustrated well-known books, like Little Women, Heidi, Li ttle Mother Goose.

She was also a very well-known illustrator for magazines.

She also did advertisements for Ivory and Procter & Gamble and Kodak and things like that.

Now, this painting that you've brought today shows a little girl, and in terms of her work, the most desirable paintings are actually paintings of little girls, rather than little boys, so we have the right subject matter here, certainly.

It's actually in pretty much its original condition.

It's an oil on board.

It has yellowed, as you can see here.

That's the varnish discoloring, so that can be cleaned.

The biggest issue seems to be the sort of tear or the breakage here, and one would have to get a conservator to see how that would repair.

If it were a canvas, it would be much easier to repair than a board, but it certainly can be tended to.

Now, how much did you pay for it?

The sellers had separated the frame from the painting, and they charged $90 for the painting and $10 for the frame.

(laughs) So I paid them a total of $100.

Wow.

That is the original frame, which is great.

This artist and illustration work like this is very, very popular in today's market, and the prices do span quite a gap.

In its present condition, it might be worth $75,000.

In order to maximize the price, you would have to have it restored, and the cost of restoration for something like this shouldn't be more than maybe $1,000 to $1,500, but for a painting like this, if it were for sale in a New York gallery, if it were in good condition, repaired, might be asking as much as $100,000.

Well, in the Gullah country in South Carolina, there's a dance that we call, we call the rain dance.

I feel like doing the rain dance here, but I just don't have any music.

So thank you very, very much.

Oh, you're welcome.

I should teach you the rain dance also.

You should, you should!

Thank you so much!

You're welcome.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

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

And this guy is from northern Maine and made the trip all the way down here to find out he's worth more as pork chops.

He's a pig with personality!

(laughs) Thank you, Antiques Roadshow.

We found out that our radio was worth $100!

Thank you!

I brought in these cufflinks at the very last minute, and they were worth $1,000, so I wanted to say, thank you so much, Grandpa, wherever you are.

I love them, and I will wear them proudly.

These are almost like half the price they used to have in the 1960s, but I just...

I just love snow and naked ladies.

I brought these two items that were my grandparents' from Germany.

I thought this was worth a lot.

It turns out not to be worth anything at all.

And I thought...

I didn't know what this was, and it's a silver spice container, and it's worth $800.

So I had a great time.

And then my lamp, which I found is bamboo, everybody loved it walking through the show.

I got 100 comments or more.

Everyone was impressed except the appraiser.

The paintings go back in the garage... the puppets go to the grandchildren... and we're going to play with these maracas!

We keep the maracas.

And I brought in my carved rock pendant that I got at a flea market in Hawaii for $40, but is worth $1,000.

Thank you!

I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time on Antiques Roadshow.

How you doing?

Okay, wonderful.

Been in line a long time?

No.

Pretty much I was waiting for a friend of mine that's working here... What you got?

I've got some art...