Bismarck, Hour 1 (2015)

This week, Antiques Roadshow sets up in Bismarck, North Dakota.

It says here "North Dakota Wheat and Flicker Tails."

What's a flicker tail?

A little ground animal.

When they run, their tails flicker back and forth.

Hence the name "flicker tail."

No!

(laughing) More treasures from the Dakotas are turning up on Antiques Roadshow.

Welcome to Antiques Roadshow.

Hi, I'm Mark Walberg, this week in Bismarck, North Dakota.

North Dakota's oldest newspaper, the Bismarck Tribune, was the first to report the story that came to be known as Custer's Last Stand in 1876.

We'll be exploring the writings of General Custer's wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, later on in the show, but first, take a look at what we've found so far in Bismarck.

WOMAN: I received it from my father-in-law.

It had been my mother-in-law's vase.

I believe it was made by the sister of Margaret Cable.

Margaret Cable was a potter at the University of North Dakota back in the 1930s.

The depiction on the vase shows flicker tails and wheat, which are very representative of North Dakota.

So this would have been made between 1924 and 1949, because that's when Miss Cable and Miss Huckfield were together at North Dakota School of Mines.

You said you thought it was from the '30s.

I believe so.

I'm comfortable with that, let's say 1935, but not dated, we can't say exactly.

But stylistically and knowing for sure when the two women were there, 1935 works.

And you said you had it appraised once before?

I did, by a local appraiser, and that was about 12 years ago, and they estimated it to be between $1,200 and $1,500 in value.

We knew being in Bismarck we were going to see North Dakota School of Mines.

We were here nine years ago and we saw a lot of it then and knew that more would come in.

But I want to be selective for several reasons.

There's a lot of fairly mediocre North Dakota School of Mines out there.

A lot of it was done by students and they're smallish pieces.

The larger pieces, they're not as common.

They tended to be done by the better artists, they cost more money when they were sold, they took more time to make.

And you mentioned Miss Cable's sister.

This is in fact signed by Flora Huckfield.

Also, I should point out while I have the vase turned upside down, it says here, "North Dakota Wheat and Flicker Tails."

What's a flicker tail, by the way?

A little ground animal.

We call them gophers, ground squirrels.

When they run, their tails flicker back and forth.

Hence the name "flicker tail."

Flicker tail, yes.

It's got the local interest, it's got the wheat and the flicker tails, it's a good size vase, it's a really cool shape too, which is another problem I have with North Dakota School of Mines.

Some of the shapes are a little on the clumsy side.

This is more like a Newcomb College shape.

Since 2008, a lot of prices for a lot of American pottery has dropped, and not all of it has come back, and that's certainly been true of North Dakota School of Mines work.

The smallish pieces were selling for $1,000 to $1,500 with some decoration, and now they're $500 to $1,000 or $600 to $900.

They've really dropped and they've not come back.

I think the exceptions have been for the larger pieces like this one, because if you see 100 pieces of North Dakota School of Mines, this will be better than 99 of them.

You kept it in beautiful shape, and it's clean.

My husband grew up on a ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota, and this vase sat on the floor of their living room for years, and he said, "I knocked into it all the time," and it's just amazing that it didn't chip or break.

In my estimation, at auction, I think the piece is worth between $4,000 and $6,000.

Really?

This piece is worth between $4,000 and $6,000?

Oh, my goodness, I had no idea.

That's amazing.

MAN: Back in the 1930s, my father and his two brothers joined the Navy.

My Uncle Frank was an avid swimmer, and he became a deep sea diver.

In that process, his diving team, which I understand was an experimental team at the time, were called on to rescue the Squalus, which was a Navy submarine that sunk off the East Coast.

And I brought some of the carvings that he did while he was on board the ship, and for his effort with the Squalus, he and his team each received the Navy Cross.

It's a wonderful grouping of artifacts from one of the seminal moments in the history of the development of submarine warfare.

The Squalus disaster was unfortunately the biggest accident to happen in the U.S. Navy prior to World War II.

The U.S.S.

Squalus suffered a catastrophic failure on her shakedown cruise.

Of course, the idea of the shakedown cruise is to make sure that everything's operational, and in one of her first test dives, they thought that they had all of the openings of the boat closed, and they did not.

There was a fault in the main induction valve, and water came pouring in.

Instead of a controlled descent, it was an uncontrolled descent with the boat filling with water.

The main goal of any submariners is to have as many surface operations as you do dives.

You want that number to come out equal in the end.

For a while there, it was looking like the Squalus was going to have a bigger number of dives than surfaces.

If not for Swede Momsen, who was the leader of that unit, a very forward thinking officer, those 33 individuals that were rescued from the Squalus would not have had a chance.

And there were two separate operations.

There was a rescue operation that they led immediately after the sinking to get the guys out, and then there was a salvage operation after that to raise the Squalus.

Do you know when he carved the diving suit?

Because he was on the ship so much, he had a lot of spare time, and so he began carving.

This was one of the pieces that I received because he was a deep sea diver, and it's something that I've had a particular attachment to throughout my life.

It makes an excellent accent piece to the group.

One of the things that helps to document the group is his Navy Good Conduct medal, which is engraved with his name and the date.

But of course, the key piece to the grouping is the Navy Cross.

The Navy Cross is the second highest award in the United States Navy, second only to the Medal of Honor.

It is unlike its Army counterpart, the Distinguished Service Cross, in that it's typically not engraved, but in this case, where we have a chain of custody and provenance, we know exactly who earned the Navy Cross and why.

And in the rescue action of the Squalus, there were four Medals of Honor that were awarded for that action, and also 46 Navy Crosses.

Being a salvage diver is an incredibly dangerous occupation, and what those guys did in order to rescue the crew and even the subsequent salvage was all extremely hazardous duty.

I understood that after they rescued the Squalus, after they salvaged it, they did refit it and put it back to sea.

As the Sailfish.

As the Sailfish.

It became the U.S.S.

Sailfish.

Interesting twist of history, part of the group assisting with the rescue of the Squalus was from the U.S.S.

Sculpin.

The Sculpin was sunk in the Pacific in World War II.

Some of the survivors were captured by the Japanese, and they were on board one of the hell ships on the way to work camp when it was torpedoed by the U.S.S.

Sailfish.

Oh, really?

Oh, my.

And they were sadly sent to the bottom by the very boat that they had helped to rescue just a few years earlier.

One of those ironic twists of World War II.

A Navy Cross on its own in 2014, a retail price for one would be around $500 or $600 for a World War II Navy Cross.

That's really not what serious advanced collectors are pursuing.

They're pursuing groupings where you have an interesting story involved, and there are few more interesting stories in the history of the United States Navy than that very unfortunate shakedown cruise of the Squalus.

You have a photo album of the salvage operation.

We have a picture of the individual who earned the award, and then the citation from President Roosevelt.

As a complete group, a retail price today would be between $6,000 and $7,000.

Wow.

Much more than I anticipated.

WOMAN: This was given to me by my dad's oldest sister, and I believe she was born in about 1908.

And she told me she did not get the bear the year she was born; she got it on her first birthday, and it was given to her by some family friends.

There were three children in their family.

She said they all played with it.

It doesn't look like it's been played with very much.

But she never had any children, so she gave it to me many years ago and just told me to keep her bear.

How many years have you had it?

Almost 30 years.

This Steiff bear was made in Germany by Margaret Steiff.

This bear was made between 1903 and 1910.

It was a family occupation for her, and she just made them for friends, and then they became so popular, they started manufacturing them.

And her bears are the most sought after bears that are made.

If you look at the top, the button is marked "Steiff."

The condition of this one is really excellent.

Also how you can tell it's a Steiff is that it has shoe-button eyes, and also the arms are a lot longer, okay, and the feet are a lot larger.

This is a very unusual color, the dark brown.

It's mohair.

Normally, it's not in this condition because it's a sought-after material for moths, and the condition is really good considering it's a mohair bear.

I only see a little wear on the nose, which doesn't take away from the value.

Another thing that this bear has going for it is the size.

The size is a very unusual size and a very collectable size.

If this bear was at auction, it would bring between $1,500 and $2,000.

That's wonderful!

At one time, this bear would have probably been anywhere between $5,000 to $8,000, but the market has changed.

I'm not quite sure, but I'm almost positive it's a painting of my brother-in-law, who is a sheep rancher in Wyoming.

It was painted, I believe, from the date, in 1959, and he died in 1964.

They've had it in Cokeville, Wyoming, is where they lived.

His wife died in '89, and it came to my wife.

So it's been somewhat in the family since the time it was painted.

Okay, and do you know who the artist is?

Minerva Teichert, who, from what I've been reading about her, was quite a well known artist and did a lot of religious and rural scenes.

She was a Mormon lady in the Salt Lake area.

And it's interesting that you mention Cokeville, Wyoming, because that's where Minerva lived at the latter part of her life.

They even hold contests and exhibitions in her name in Cokeville.

In Cokeville, she was actually a well-known personality.

Yes.

She was born in 1888 in the Utah Territory.

She was raised in Idaho with a strict Mormon upbringing.

Yes.

She is one of the more famous Mormon artists actually today.

She was sent to school, first in Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied under Vanderpoel, and then later, she herself went to New York, and she studied there at the Art Students League under Robert Henri, who basically was one of her biggest mentors, and they had a very good relationship.

He really pushed her to do what she did and return and paint the Mormon subjects that she loved.

She was famous for doing a lot of large-scale works as well, a lot of murals.

Oh, yeah?

And some of her murals are in famous Mormon temples and also at the Brigham Young University.

So she was the first female artist that was really given official recognition and allowed by the Church of LDS to actually study painting.

This is an oil-on-canvas painting.

Yes, it's the original frame also, I believe.

Which we can also add to its value.

And it has her typical palette, which is a kind of a subdued, but very light colors.

She's one of those artists who are very famous, but they don't have that many works appear at auction, so to put a fair market value on it is a little harder.

But I can tell you that one work at auction, which was a similar subject, sold for $10,000 on an estimate of $800 to $1,200.

So basically, that shows you that the interest was really significant, much more than the estimate.

I would estimate this work at auction with a very conservative estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.

Oh, that's interesting.

And I think that's conservative because with enough interest, which I'm sure there would be, given the fact that she's such an important Mormon artist, I think it could do a lot better.

It could even go up to $20,000 or $30,000.

I'm sure it'll stay in the family.

For insurance, I would say at least $20,000 as a retail replacement value.

Mm-hmm.

WOMAN: This was my grandfather's bank, and there was a card in the box that said, "Happy New Year, 1911."

And it's from northern Ohio, I know.

Have you ever had it appraised?

The only thing we did was take it to a blacksmith to see about getting it repaired since it's broken, and he was more interested in the box than in the figures.

He said the box would probably be worth about $150.

And that was about 20 years ago.

Mechanical banks were very popular throughout the late 1800s.

This particular bank was produced anywhere from the late 1870s into the 1890s.

It was very susceptible to damage because of the sensitive gear mechanism on both figures.

When the button was depressed, the two outside figures would swing around and attack the center player.

It seems to be retaining a lot of its original paint.

What's also very unusual is the presence of the original box.

Do you have any idea of its value?

$500?

That would be very interesting.

You might even want to add a zero and then double it and then add some.

Oh, my...

Yes, in its present condition, even with the damage, at auction, we'd be talking anywhere from $12,000 to $17,000, including the box.

(laughing) By itself, the box is $5,000.

Oh, wow.

My grandmother would be very happy.

She never threw anything away.

Oh, that's fantastic.

WOMAN: I had bought it at an auction because it came from a former warden's home at the North Dakota State Penitentiary, and the house was torn down as they needed to expand the penitentiary, so what they did is they auctioned off all the furnishings from this old Victorian warden's home.

It was about 115 years old.

So I went to the auction, bought this table, and that's all I know.

When did you buy the table, and how much did you pay for it?

The auction was a couple of years ago, and I paid $300 for the table, plus eight lovely office chairs that went with it.

I never use the office chairs, but I definitely needed a dining room table.

So one of your questions earlier was, "Do you think that it was made at the prison, "or do you think that it was something that was bought to furnish the house?"

I think that it was probably something that was bought to furnish the house as opposed to made.

It is very typical of 19th century factory furniture.

During the late 19th century, when this table was made-- probably 1890s-- the furniture industry moves from the Atlantic seaboard over into the Midwest.

And from that vantage point, they could harness power from water, they had the natural resources for timber, and they had the railroad systems and the river systems that they could disperse that material all over the place.

I think that probably it was made in the Midwest, Ohio, Illinois, and then shipped it to rural outposts such as North Dakota.

It's a cherry table.

The wood is cherry.

And it's very typical of the type of furniture that would have been made late 19th century.

It's a square dining room table that expands.

We have one leaf to it.

When we walk down to the skirt, we can see that the leaf doesn't include the skirt, which is a way to save money.

So it tells us more about the quality of the piece.

We have these fluted columns, this expanded mushroom leg.

It's a lot of flash for the cash.

Okay.

In terms of value, though, again, when I say a lot of flash for the cash, meaning not too valuable.

In today's market, not a very expensive piece of furniture.

Maybe make $300 to $500 at auction.

Okay.

WOMAN: My parents, Bill and Jean Guy, were the longest serving governor and first lady of North Dakota.

This was given to them, and they passed it on down to me.

On the very last night that we were living in the governor's residence, a friend of theirs called up and said, "I must come and see you."

And we were all exhausted from moving and sad to leave our home of 12 years, and mom said, "Oh, please, can't we get together with you later in the week?"

And they said, "No, we must see you tonight."

So they presented Mom with this red leather box and Dad with a little tiny box that had the key to her heart in it.

The key to her heart, is that too sweet?

We see a lot of Frederick Carder's Steuben glass on the Antiques Roadshow, but that was the color period of the Steuben glass.

And Steuben Glass of course is in Corning, New York.

This is the crystal period of Steuben, and the crystal glass was the best glass made in that time period.

This glass was given to presidents, it was given to kings and queens and dignitaries, a very wonderful gift to be given.

This is a Steuben heart and key paperweight #1007.

And it was made by James Houston, 1970s.

Mm-hmm.

These are 18-karat gold.

This is gold.

And you also have the original fitted box.

The box might be worth about $150.

It's always wonderful to have the box.

They get lost, so be sure to keep it all together.

I think for a retail price, roughly $2,500 to $3,500.

Nice.

And with all the provenance, I would insure it for $5,000.

Very good.

MAN: These are four Chinese ceramic panels representing the four seasons.

My wife's parents bought these from an antique art dealer in Pasadena, California, probably in the early 1960s.

They came with some documentation which indicated that they were from a period of the last Chinese dynasty, and ended up in England sometime in the early 1700s, they think.

Okay.

They have terrific decorative value, and they represent the four seasons.

The winter season here.

Autumn.

Autumn.

Spring.

And over here is summer.

And it's a very subtle, very understated scene in each of these panels.

Very serene, very peaceful, very beautiful.

These are actually panels that date from the 1930s.

Okay.

These are not Kangxi period panels, nor are they even from the Qing dynasty.

This is from what we call the Republic Period in Chinese history.

And I know that based on a couple of different features in the porcelain, one of which is the design.

It's very distinctive Republic-style porcelain decoration.

Following on that, then, what clues do we have to pin down a time and a place and a maker, and that's in these marks, as you suspected.

This really reveals the true origin of these panels.

These marks are all different, are they not?

Yes, they are.

They are, but they say the same thing.

In a couple of different ways, these indicate the painter of each of these panels.

And the gentleman's name was Wang Yeting, and Wang Yeting was a celebrated porcelain painter and designer in his own day, and today as well, he is regarded as one of the finer decorators of this style from the Republic period in Chinese history.

Have you had any indication or any suggestion of their value?

My wife's parents purchased the four panels for $400.

$400, okay.

In 1960-ish, early '60s-ish.

My wife and I had these appraised around 1990 at $3,200.

The market has changed since 1990.

There's a good market for these currently.

The Chinese decorative art market, as you may know already, is a very robust market right now, and it's being driven in large part by Chinese buyers, the Chinese economy, the prosperity in China.

These four plaques together, if they were to come up for auction, I think a reasonable estimate range would be $15,000 to $25,000.

Okay, that's very nice.

If this entire collection, if these porcelain panels did indeed date from the Kangxi period... And what date range would that be?

That would be the late 17th, coming into the very early 18th century.

You mentioned this was the Qing dynasty.

This was early Qing dynasty, Kangxi.

If these were from that period, the value would certainly be in the hundreds of thousands.

But as I said, they didn't quite exist, not in this form, not of this type.

But if it were just that old, I think the value would be considerably more.

Well, that's interesting.

WALBERG: Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his wife Elizabeth Bacon Custer are part of the rich military history of Fort Abraham Lincoln in Mandan, North Dakota.

The Custers lived here before the Seventh Cavalry set off in May of 1876 to fight what would come to be known as the Battle of Little Big Horn.

This house is a replica of the home that Custer shared before that monumental clash.

Roadshow thought it was a great place to examine the written works of Libbie Custer, who became her husband's most fervent champion after his death.

Libbie Custer was born in 1842 in Monroe, Michigan.

During the Civil War, George Armstrong Custer visited Monroe, and he was enamored with her.

He stared courting her, but he was a low-ranking officer at the time.

She was from a prominent family.

Her parents weren't quite sure it was a great match.

But he became the boy general.

He was the youngest brigadier general in the Civil War.

He was 23 years old, boy general.

By the end of the war, they were married, and from that time on, she was with him, wanted to be with him, and forever promoted him.

Then of course there's the Battle of Little Big Horn, which doesn't go so well for Custer.

Not at all.

And controversy happens, and there is debate on whose fault it was, and that's where she really gets on the pulpit.

President Grant basically said it was Custer's fault-- he didn't wait for backup, he was impulsive-- and she couldn't accept that.

She became his champion.

She was, in a sense, the mythmaker, and she was going to do everything she could possibly do to make sure that she was putting George Armstrong Custer as being one of the greatest military heroes of his time.

That's how she used these books and her later career.

The first book, Boots and Saddles, came out in 1885.

Then Tenting on the Plains was 1887.

The last one, Following the Guidon, was 1890.

And they actually were a fabulous depiction of what it was like, the army life, the camp life, what it was like to be a woman being out at Fort Abraham Lincoln at 49 degrees below zero and how wonderful the general was.

And she always refers to him as the general.

Libbie Custer books are moderately priced.

They published a lot of them.

The 1890 book, Following the Guidon, relatively common.

They sell in the $100, maybe $200 range.

The Tenting on the Plains is a little bit harder to get.

It was a 700-page book, so it doesn't show up as much in good condition.

This one is in fine shape, beautiful cover.

It's about a $400 to $500 book.

And then the last one we have here, Boots and Saddles, in decent condition.

It's, again, fairly common.

It's a $100 to $200 book.

However, this particular book is worth more, and why is that?

Well, when you open it up, it was inscribed in 1929 by Libbie Custer, and she refers to a sword that was George Armstrong's.

The engraving on the sword says, "Do not draw me without cause, do not sheath me without honor."

WALBERG: So with that personal inscription, how does that increase the value?

It increases the value to in the $1,000 range retail.

Well, Ken, really great to see these three books.

Thanks so much for sharing them with us.

Well, thank you very much.

WOMAN: I brought a wooden bowl that has been in my family for many years.

It had been passed down from mother to daughter, all sharing the common name Mariah.

That's my middle name, so that's why I got the bowl.

It is a wooden bowl, and it's actually a burl wooden bowl.

And burl is harvested from an outgrowth on the tree, and it's cut off and then carved, and it usually has a most interesting pattern because it is an outgrowth, and in this case the wood is ash.

Oh, okay, I never knew.

So we would actually call it an ash burl bowl.

Oh, okay.

And when we start to examine it, we do agree that it really dates back very early, probably to the early 1800s and could even be late 18th century.

We see the wonderful pattern that Mother Nature has formed.

We also see a foot.

Right.

And the foot we feel that the entire conception is possibly made by a Native American.

I had a great-great-great- grandmother who was half-Native American from an Indian tribe in western New York, but nobody knows what tribe, and she was born in the late 1700s.

Okay, so we're starting to connect the dots here.

Oh, yes, oh, my goodness.

We feel that the tribe that made this, we don't know the exact tribe, but we refer to it as Woodlands.

So it could be as far west as Iowa, where obviously your family ended up, and possibly was brought there by other family members.

Right.

Yet the woodlands go right to the Atlantic Ocean back east, so it covers a pretty wide range.

Right.

And this foot we feel was influenced possibly by a piece of early Colonial treenware, that one of the Natives might have seen.

And they put this foot on the bowl, which is a wonderful additional element, as well as this crease line, which adds an element of design and a sense of style to it.

Now, when we turn it, what we see... you would call this a handle.

Right.

And really what it is, it's an abstraction of a spirit being.

And the spirit being they called a manitou, and this is actually the arms, and the head, and the other arm.

So it's actually a human form.

It's a form?

It's not an animal form, it's an actual spirit being.

Oh, my goodness.

I knew there was something special about the bowl, but I thought it was because it was a family item.

It just has all the elements in it that clearly indicate Native American made.

I would say retail value in today's market, I'm going to be conservative and say $12,000 to $15,000.

Oh, my goodness.

Really?

It was just a utilitarian item on the farm for hundreds of years.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm speechless.

(chuckles) How did you become such a big fan of Shirley Temple?

When I was a young girl we used to go to her movies.

I guess I just got attached to her.

My aunt sent me a postcard, and that started my collection.

How old were you when you started seeing Shirley Temple movies?

Oh, I suppose five, six?

Because she's one year older than I am.

Ah, so you're about the same age.

Yes.

It was like seeing a friend.

Yes.

What do you remember the most about the movies you saw?

They were always rather sad, they made us cry.

But they had some happy endings.

Yeah.

What were your favorite movies?

My favorite would be Little Colonel.

Did you remember seeing her in Now and Forever?

No, I don't remember seeing her in that one.

Isn't that funny?

Yeah.

Now, this was from 1934.

Of course, she is the greatest child actress in the history of movies and films.

I don't think anyone can really argue that.

She got her start in 1932 with a series that you probably didn't see called Baby Burlesques.

Yes.

She mimicked adult actresses like Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, and then she burst on the scene, you'll remember, in 1934, Bright Eyes?

Yes.

Where she sang "On the Good Ship Lollipop."

Yes, uh-huh.

And that year she won a juvenile Oscar, the first one ever given out for most outstanding personality in 1934.

This year she also did this movie, and it goes right to what you were saying, sort of sad-- Gary Cooper was her father, who was a jewel thief, and her mother died, and she was thrust upon him.

Oh, I see.

And he was with Carole Lombard, and she ended up getting him on the straight and narrow, and making him feeling guilty about stealing jewels.

FDR said in the 1930s that Shirley Temple, he called her Little Miss Miracle, and that as long as we have Shirley Temple, we'll be all right.

She was the number one box office star from 1935 to 1938.

So she was more popular than Lombard and Cooper, she was more popular than Clark Gable, she was more popular than Katharine Hepburn, or Garbo or Dietrich.

It was all about Shirley Temple.

This was one of her most famous movies, of course your favorite, Little Colonel.

Now do you remember the dance scene with her and Bill Bojangles Robinson?

Yes, I do.

What do you remember the most?

Them dancing up the stairs.

That's right, and you see the stairs are right here.

They were the first interracial couple to dance in the movies.

Right.

You've put together 11 scrapbooks.

I would probably say for the 11 of them, you're looking at probably somewhere around $500.

Oh, my.

And for the pitcher, you know, these were very popular, they sold by the millions.

You have another four dishes, so for the five dishes and pitchers, probably about $150.

You have the Ideal doll, and I know you have little cracks here.

This would probably be about $150 itself.

Now, tell me about this, when did you get this?

In about 1970 at an auction sale in my hometown.

And I paid nine dollars for her.

Wow, and where did it originally come from?

From the theater.

That would be in the lobby.

Nine dollars was a good value because if I were going to insure this, and these are all the prices I would put for insurance, if I were going to insure this, it would probably be for about $3,500.

Really?

Wow.

MAN: It starts with my grandfather.

He was actually born to a very wealthy family in Finland.

The farm was to go to him, but he was always teased about being this kid with a golden spoon, and he decided to leave everything that would have gone to him and came to America with nothing.

Came up to central Minnesota, found a farm that he liked, agreed to buy it, and headed out west to make money to get the down payment.

And he worked out there for several years in the mines, ended up in the redwoods in California cutting redwoods.

And then as he worked back, he came across somebody that had this watch, and so some of his money converted to this watch, and I'm not sure how much.

Got back to Minnesota, the fellow that had the farm had sold the lakeshore property off of it, so he bought another farm a couple miles away, which is where we're at now, and was able to keep the watch.

In the '30s, they were mortgaged to the hilt, and they took the watch in and had it appraised, and they were offered $300 for it, which was huge at that time, but they managed to make it through and kept the watch.

It got passed on to my dad, and then to me, and it'll be my son's.

The first thing you'll notice is it has multiple colors of gold.

Over here you have in the leaves you have this green gold.

The main case is yellow, then you see there's some pinks and some white.

The gold is 14 karat, variegated gold.

That is in itself a little extra special thing when this watch was being built.

The next thing we notice is just the ornate engraving.

You see these heavy ornamentations on the top and on the bottom.

These ornaments are what they call a box hinge.

It gives the watch a very big, chunky, square look, but it also makes the watch a little more durable.

Now, by the name up on top, over here, it says, "The Globe, N.

Gamse."

N. Gamse is the retailer.

He was in New York state, and he had a penchant for calling up watch companies and ordering big blocks of orders.

But he didn't like to order the everyday regular pocket watch.

He always went for the extras to make the watch extra special for his clients.

Each one had a name; this one's called The Globe.

So The Globe is the model.

You have a very traditional, double sunk white porcelain dial with Roman numerals.

You see the little numbers on the outside?

The little tracks?

That's for minutes, it's very railroad style.

The hands, again, not plain hands, very fancy, very ornate.

We're going to go to the back because he wasn't finished.

There's still a couple extra things going on here.

Usually a watch, when you look at the movement, it's one color, it's usually a gilt, gold color, or it's usually just a nickel, brushed.

When you start to put engine turning lines on it, we call that damascening, but here you have what we call two-tone damascening.

If you'll see, you have the bright white, and then you have the gold tone.

He usually ordered most of his watches from Illinois Watch Company, which was in Springfield, Illinois.

I checked the serial number on here.

It's too high to be an Illinois Watch Company.

He did also order some watches from Elgin and Waltham.

But judging from the serial number, if it's Elgin or Waltham, it's got to be somewhere in the early 1900s, probably like from 1908 to 1911, when this watch was made.

Is there significance to the diamond on there?

I think just again, another little add-on.

They put a little old mine cut diamond in there.

It's just a nice little accent.

It's not a terribly expensive diamond.

What was the appraisal?

$300.

Well, it's changed.

I would say at auction today, this watch would be $4,000 to $6,000.

It'll stay on the farm.

MAN: I found this at a house sale, along with another pot, probably about 15 years ago.

APPRAISER: So did you pay very much for it?

Probably around $300 for the two pots that I bought.

Two pieces together.

Yeah.

And so what's your guess about the age or origin on this?

Well, I think it's old because it's got some crazing on it.

I've never seen anything like it.

I'd like to find out what it is.

Several of us looked at it, and we agree with you that it is an old vase.

It dates probably around 1910.

And it is American.

Okay.

And it's an interesting mix of styles here.

The shape is very Art Nouveau.

We have this wonderful poppies-- these are poppies here-- design.

And you see the stems going down the front of the vase.

And then we've got this great reticulation around it.

And even on the back side, it's really hard to see, there's even some faint poppies on the back of the vase, which is kind of interesting.

So the shape is a very much of an Art Nouveau shape.

But this kind of green mottled glaze, which was very popular around 1910, is more of an Arts and Crafts type thing.

So we've got kind of a mixture of the Art Nouveau style moving into Arts and Crafts style, so we've got this green Arts and Crafts glaze.

So when we look at this glaze, we think there are so many American potters, they all did it at this time period because it was so popular.

Different shades of green and it's always a kind of a matte color, but it was made by Rookwood, it was made by Grueby, it was made by Teco, almost every potter made it.

So some of those other places, the three that I mentioned, their stuff, a lot of it was kind of hand made, kind of one of a kind, but this is more of a production piece, more of a mass-produced piece.

Actually, this piece was made by Weller Pottery.

Really?

In Zanesville, Ohio.

Wow.

There are no marks whatsoever, and normally it is marked.

It's normally marked very clearly Weller.

This one is unusual that it's not marked.

And Weller tried to get on the bandwagon and sell some of this green glaze pottery, which is so popular, and so they made a lot of this pottery.

And a lot of their pieces are okay, they're kind of interesting.

In terms of this type of pottery, this particular form is the best.

In Weller pottery, this is the vase that you want because it's very big and very large, the wonderful reticulation, the poppies.

And so this actually is desirable.

So this particular vase is almost always damaged because of this reticulation in the edges, and so it's hard to find them in good shape.

So that's another good point.

There is a white spot right here in the reticulation, and at first it may look like a chip, but it's where the glaze did not cover it completely in the manufacturing process.

Now a chip would be a bad thing, and this is not so bad.

However, it'd be better if it weren't there, but I don't think it's bad enough or obvious enough to where it would significantly affect the monetary value.

Great.

When they had these green glaze pieces they were each done individually, and the glaze can vary.

What we really like about this one, it's got some wonderful leathering look on it.

It's kind of some little crackles in the color in the glaze, and collectors like that.

That's why I bought it.

It had the crazing in it like that, and that's why I thought it was old.

That happened in the firing.

That is not a later problem where it started crazing later, which would be not desirable, but it happened during the firing process, and it actually turned out to be quite aesthetically interesting.

At auction, this particular vase would normally sell for somewhere around $2,000 to $2,500.

Okay.

It's a really, really good piece.

That's wonderful.

MAN: I guess it's either a prawn or a shrimp.

It was dug out of a box of trash that my brother brought home.

Really?

When was that?

Probably been about 30 years ago.

It was going to the back of the truck for scrap, and my mom grabbed it out of the box.

Well, so where's it been ever since?

It's been about three or four years in the flower bed in my mom and dad's.

What?

You put it in the flower bed?

Yeah, she put it there, and then somebody said, "Well, that looks kind of neat and too nice to be outside."

This is a 19th century Japanese bronze figure of a crayfish.

Okay.

And what's really nice is on the bottom is a signature plaque.

And it's signed Joun.

And Joun was a well-known 19th century metalworker.

Oh, really?

Later examples similar to this have parts that move.

And this is slightly earlier and the pieces do not move.

At auction today, this piece would sell between $3,000 and $5,000.

Wow, that's in... that's a shock.

Are you surprised?

Yes, I am because I figured it was scrap.

(chuckles) No, it's not.

MAN: I was just out antiquing one day and I went to a shop, and it caught my eye.

It wasn't marked yet.

I'm into old lamps from the '60s, '50s, '70s.

APPRAISER: And where was the shop?

MAN: Mid-Bismarck on Main.

APPRAISER: So a local shop.

And how much did you pay for it?

$35.

$35.

So it's a great example of a chromed lamp from the 1970s.

The label on the back says "Torino Lamp Company," which is an Italian company.

Other than that information there's not a lot out there about the manufacturer.

Okay.

I have seen this in various other forms.

A woman, a shorter figure, a dog...

I've seen a policeman as well.

But other than those items that have sold or are selling, there's really no information about the manufacturer.

I did find a Montgomery Ward catalog from 1979 online that has the original retail price for the piece at $129.99.

Wow.

So you're ahead of the game already.

Despite the fact that we don't have information about the company, the modern market has exploded in the last ten years.

So anything that has a great look, which this does, is going to do well in the marketplace.

Condition-wise, it's almost perfect for a piece of this age.

It wouldn't be uncommon to see either pitting or rust coming through.

You don't see that at all on this.

It has the original light bulb on the top.

These are replacements here on the sides.

I love this on-and-off switch, which is his nose controlling the lights.

All three on.

I love the illumination in the eyes, which is fantastic.

Well, I talked with some of my colleagues backstage, and this does have a lot of wow factor.

I think in today's marketplace, at auction, we'd be looking at $1,500 to $2,500.

Wow, very cool.

MAN: About seven years ago I was at an auction in South Dakota.

I eyed this thing all day and I was hoping I'd get it.

The crowd kind of thinned out at the end of the day, and I ended up getting the item.

APPRAISER: How much did you pay for it?

$15.

$15?

Why did you want it?

Well, I always like agricultural related things.

I think it's a woodblock print, I believe.

The date, 1899.

What have you done with it since you got it?

(chuckling): I've kept it rolled up.

It's a great image, and it's a shame to keep this rolled up.

But obviously the reason you keep it rolled up is because it's starting to flake apart.

You're actually missing a little bit here and you have other places of flaking, so that's really a concern.

Right.

It is in fact a woodblock, you're absolutely right.

It's huge.

This is a woodblock that was made in nine different blocks.

I mean there's no way you could carve a thing this big.

So it's nine sheets.

Each sheet would be about this kind of size, and he carved it, and then they printed it on separate sheets of paper, and then the papers were mounted on this linen.

You can see the linen here.

And it was mounted to that and then hung on this.

It's by W.-- and that's William-- Strang, and it was done in 1899.

It was actually commissioned from Strang by the Art for Schools Association.

And it was an association, a British association, that provided prints, some that went into schools, but they also sold prints that were then used to raise money for schools.

It is done in the Arts and Crafts style.

Now, condition is an issue, obviously.

And the reason you got it for $15, I think, is because most people looked at it and said, "Great image, but what am I going to do with that?"

You can fix it up, it would be expensive, and then you would have a very valuable print once you fix it up.

So really to determine what a reasonable value is, you subtract your cost of restoration from what it'd be worth when it's fixed up.

So I think a dealer could sell this in a retail environment for about $1,500.

And I'm basing that on the fact that it would probably cost you about $1,500 to fix it up.

And when you fix it up, you would have a print that would be worth at least $3,000, possibly as much as $4,000.

I mean one of the concerns is can you fill this in so it looks good and how stable it'd be, but I think you could make it look really nice.

MAN: They date back, I believe, into the 1890s where my great-grandfather was a missionary to what is now called Haines, Alaska.

And they've been a part of the family ever since.

When they moved back to the mainland states they brought various items with them, and this was in the collection.

Did your grandfather have much contact with the Natives from that area?

Oh, yes.

Yeah, he was a teacher and a missionary there for about ten years.

So he established relations and friendships.

These are early masks, much earlier than what we typically see.

The mask to my left depicts a wolf.

The mask closer to you probably depicts an ancestor, a revered ancestor, perhaps a guardian figure.

The wolf, a major predator, was a revered animal in the Native world.

A fierce hunter, a feared beast, and something that maybe warriors would like to emulate, that ability to hunt.

In the ears there are eyes and there's a bit of a beak.

This represents a raven.

So this animal, this wolf, is being further empowered by a raven, an animal of the upper world.

Both of these objects are shamanic.

It's interesting that your great-grandfather was a missionary.

I presume he was a Christian missionary?

Yes.

In this instance, in the Native world we have an animistic religion.

Everything has a spirit-- rocks, trees, clouds-- everything has an in-dwelling spirit.

The shaman attempts to reach the spiritual world through the intervention of these creatures of the natural world-- wolf, raven-- and that empowers the shaman to help us in our world.

In the mouth of this wolf we see red pigment.

Red is an envivifying color.

It associates the creature with the upper world and the powers of the upper world.

So we have color symbolism here.

You'll notice also a bit of abalone in the ear and also in the eye.

It would have also been in the eye here.

Abalone reflects light.

That's a spiritual reflection in Native animism.

The mask to the right of similar age is painted black, these are mineral pigments.

The green-blue is from a copper oxide pigment.

All natural pigments, no trade materials whatsoever.

The wood, by the way, would be a cedar, cedar or spruce.

It's a soft wood, easy to carve, resists moisture.

One of the reasons why they've been able to last so long.

These date to the 1700s.

Oh, my.

These were being worn in shamanic rites 100 years before your great-grandfather collected them.

It's unheard of to find objects, generally speaking, from the 1700s.

It's just very, very rare.

The fact that these are so old and have such power I think obviates the issue of condition.

The wolf, on a retail basis, I believe would sell in the neighborhood of $75,000.

The guardian figure, the mask, perhaps also in a retail basis would sell in the neighborhood of $175,000.

We've never seen... No!

(chuckling) Oh, my gosh.

This is really, really remarkable material.

Oh... wow, oh.

These are among the most rare objects in North America.

They're really, really special.

They come from the Tlingit tribe.

These are the northern tribes of the Northwest coast.

Incredible.

I'll have to watch the episode to find out how much you really said.

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

I brought this painting.

It was found behind my mother-in-law's needlepoint.

The appraiser said that's where it should stay.

And it's one of the greatest pleasures of my life to be here with my mom.

We've traveled all the way up, and I hope she'll forgive me for breaking her chair.

(chuckles) And I brought these Tiffany 14 karat gold cufflinks, which are so ugly they're cool and they were worth about $700 to $1,000.

I brought this World War II sword that my dad got in Italy, and I found out it was a sword for a pilot, and it's worth about $350.

We don't particularly like the clock.

It's pretty ugly.

But... we thought it was ugly, but we wanted to bring it here because everybody said, "Well, you know, it's an old clock, you need to have it appraised."

So we brought it here.

They said it's worth $700 or $800.

That's good.

And that's fine, but we still think it's really ugly.

And my grandpa and uncle carve fish decoys, and they're worth about a couple hundred dollars, so these won't be swimming with the fishes.

Woo-hoo!

I had my little Indian Sonic Supersonic Plane.

Bought it for two dollars out in Los Angeles 30 years ago.

It's worth $200 now.

Flying away.

Thanks, guys!

Have a good one!

I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

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

Sir, I've got to see what's in the box.

What you got?

A ship.

It's an old ship.

It's an old ship.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org