Vintage Las Vegas

She's lifting up her skirt ever so slightly to show her foot.

A hundred years ago, that would have been a very provocative thing to do.

Goodness.

APPRAISER: This is actually quite a valuable object.

Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER: It's one of the best that I have ever seen from this period.

Wow, I'm thrilled to pieces.

So you can tell right from the title page that this is something worth looking into.

I guess I won't give it to my five-year-old, then.

MARK WALBERG: When we visited Las Vegas in 2000, folks flocked to the Roadshow hoping to get lucky.

Among the neon lights, we found a jackpot of treasure, including a 1920s magic collection.

Abracadabra!

Let's see if the value of these vintage tricks went up, down, or stayed the same in this fresh look at Las Vegas.

WOMAN: My father was a magician and he put this together in the '20s and '30s.

Well, I thought it was great to actually have magic memorabilia in Las Vegas.

I mean, I was excited to actually even see it.

And it's a great scrapbook of your father's life.

And when we got to this page, I was just stunned to see what great things you have.

The first thing are these magic pieces, and if we know the magic word, what would happen?

Well, we could take our little butterfly and make him into a big one.

They're from the 1920s, they're from Paris.

Here on this page, you have a piece of Houdini memorabilia.

And you said your father knew Houdini?

My father knew Houdini.

They were friendly, yes.

This is actually his card from the Society of American Magicians.

It's someone else's card; it's not my father's.

But Houdini was the president and he signed the card.

And it is his original signature.

It's very exciting.

And then the next piece, we turn over here and we see Harry Keller.

And Harry Keller was a magician around the same time, and Harry really didn't sign as many things as Houdini did and his signature is rare and hard to find.

And he is very famous in the world of magicians.

Your book is filled with a lot of ephemera and a really great history of magic in the early 1900s.

This book and this souvenir program, it's in excellent condition.

And it could only be gotten at the program.

You couldn't get it anywhere else.

The whole collection itself, with all the ephemera and Houdini's signature and the Keller signature, you're really looking at about $8,000 to $10,000 for the whole thing.

Holy cow!

I found this at a local swap meet about 17 years ago.

It was on a table with a lot of broken items, and this was the one thing that wasn't broken.

This piece is very unusual.

It's a French piece from the turn of the century, and it's signed right over here with the artist's initials.

His name is Alfred Daguet, and he worked at the turn of the century in the Art Nouveau period.

In fact, most of his work was done for a shop in Paris owned by Samuel Bing, and the name of his shop was "Art Nouveau."

And that's how the name for that whole movement-- Art Nouveau-- came to be, it was named after his shop.

How interesting.

Your box is made out of copper on the lid here.

It's worked in relief, which we call r\pouss\ work, and it's set in with these colored pieces of glass-- it's not turquoise and this is not mother-of-pearl, but this is actually glass.

As I said, it's really quite rare.

His work is quite unusual.

How much did you pay for this in the swap meet?

$12.

Well, that's pretty good.

At auction, this piece I think would bring in the range of $3,000 to $5,000.

Is that right?

You're kidding!

That's right.

Oh, that's wonderful.

My husband inherited it from his mother in 1982, and she had inherited it from an uncle in the mid-'60s.

What did they say about the table?

They said it was an Italian library presentation table and this was Italian red marble.

They were absolutely correct in the marble being Italian, but it's not an Italian table.

It's an American table.

Oh.

It was produced about 1865 to about 1875, so roughly right after the Civil War.

Now, this work, this outline, this form resembles a lot of work that we see by Pottier and Stymus, which was a New York cabinet firm, one of the most significant New York cabinet firms working in the second half of the 19th century.

This piece compares to documented examples, and I feel very firmly that this is the work of Pottier and Stymus.

This should be cleaned and restored a little bit but the rest of it, I should also note, is in tremendous condition.

It's nice, original finish, and that certainly adds to the value.

You're looking at roughly about a $40,000 collection.

A fantastic piece of late 19th century American art furniture.

Oh, well, then, how... nice.

That is great.

WOMAN: This book was a gift from my grandfather to my aunt, and after both of them passed away, we located the book in a storage unit and it did have this cover on it.

Yes, it's got what we call a slipcase, or a portion of an original slipcase from the time of its publication, and it was meant to really protect the book because as you can see, this book, which is an edition of Alice in Wonderland-- a later edition, it's not a first edition.

The first edition was from 1865.

But that doesn't mean it's insignificant.

This book is from 1930 and it was published by the Black Sun Press in Paris.

Publications from the Black Sun Press are very interesting and often can be valuable.

It happens to be illustrated by a well-known French illustrator, Marie Laurencin.

So you can tell right from the title page that this is something worth looking into.

Did you go through it and look at the...?

I did, and I noticed the beautiful lithographs that were protected by the tissue, so I realized that this was probably something that did have some value.

You did the right thing in assuming that.

Marie Laurencin prints and drawings sell for into the thousands.

These are color lithographs.

They're not signed, although that's signed in the plate, so that's not her signature.

But nonetheless, since there are four lithographs in here, the illustrator adds to the value of the book.

I don't know if you looked at the very back of the book?

I did not.

It's usually not the first place people look.

In the back, there's what we call a colophon page, or a limitation leaf.

It was what we call a limitation-- a limited-- and therefore it gives us an idea of its rarity.

The book itself, in this condition-- which is I have to say in very, very nice condition; the spine is nice and white and bright, it's been protected by this box-- would be something that we've seen come through the rooms and sell in the neighborhood of $3,000.

Wow!

I guess I won't give it to my five-year-old then.

Don't give it to her yet.

She's young.

She'll have time for it later.

WOMAN: I brought you a vanity set.

Art Nouveau, sterling.

13 pieces.

There's two mirrors of different types and then a variety of hairbrushes, nail buffers, nail tools, buttonhooks, combs, and a jar.

We see sets like this, similar to this, quite often.

They're not that rare.

It is unusual, however, to have 13 matching pieces now.

Most of them have been dispersed in families because it is a hundred years old or a little more than a hundred years old.

But the most interesting thing about your set is how you came about acquiring it.

Yes, I didn't inherit it.

I found three pieces in an antique store in Reno where I used to live, and I bought them because I liked them.

And then I moved to Vegas, and a few months later, I found the buttonhook which matched it, and that just started me looking.

So I started looking in antique stores, in on-line auctions, things like that, and I slowly bought each of the pieces to assemble the set.

And you found all 13 pieces within 12 months?

Yes.

Incredible, unbelievable.

To find 13 pieces, all in the same pattern, all made by Unger Brothers, one of America's premier silversmiths in the late 19th and early 20th century, and they went out of business in 1907, so we know it has to predate that.

Right.

Perfectly wonderful set.

What did you pay for these things?

It varied depending on, you know, the item-- anywhere from $25 to $125.

So do you have $800, $900 in it, maybe?

Yes, about that.

Well, I would say in a well-advertised auction, beautiful Art Nouveau pattern like this, a 13-piece set, you're probably talking in the range of $2,500 to $3,500.

Oh, wow, thank you!

Wonderful.

I don't know how you put it together in one year.

Dedication.

WOMAN: This has been handed down in the family and we, fortunately, are the ones that have it at this point in time.

This is, indeed, quite an old Dutch clock from your Dutch family.

It was made in Rotterdam.

It was made in the late 1600s.

The name of the maker is signed right up here.

I wasn't able in my sources to find out any direct information, but this isn't unusual.

When Holland made this clock, a man named Christiaan Huygens had developed theories regarding the pendulum.

My personal theory is that many of them were made and then exported out of Holland to the rest of continental Europe, and other names ended up on them.

So this is interesting to me because it's an original Dutch-source piece.

But look at the care that they took in making this.

The velvet is a later addition, but it's a restoration.

They were made with velvet.

Often they were bright colors just like this.

And then the very finely made hands to this clock-- look at the minute hand-- all sculpted, and with each minute engraved on the chapter ring on a solid silver base, which is another sign of the quality of this clock.

If we turn it around, we can get a chance to see the back.

Normally it's covered, but we've taken it off.

When you look for an old clock, look for things like this cock here, or potens-- it is all engraved and shaped-- this oddly shaped screw and this count wheel on the back.

So this is one of the first pendulum clocks ever made.

Oh, my.

The condition, all things considered, is good, and the clock strikes.

I'll activate this for you so the people can see that the hammer up there causes it to strike the hour and the half hour.

And it sounds just the way it did 300 years... 300 more years ago.

That's fantastic.

Given its condition, which isn't perfect, but which is, nevertheless, pretty much original, would bring in the area of about $7,500 to $8,500.

My goodness, that's fantastic.

MAN: It's been in our family from the time this horn was originally made.

About the only thing I really know about it, as far as Benjamin is concerned, he made it through the Revolutionary War okay.

It's a wonderful example of Revolutionary War folk art.

Engraved powder horns are one of the earliest forms of folk art indigenous to North America.

And this horn is engraved "Benjamin Markham, his horn made at Northcastle in the year 1776."

And it says, "Liberty and property" and "Steal not this horn for fear of shame, for on it is the owner's name."

And then, as we turn it, we see the Royal Congress.

In 1776, they were still British.

They were fighting the British, but they still had a lot of British influence.

And then we see this wonderful grouping of soldiers opposing each other.

"G.W."

I suppose was George Washington.

And "G.H."

might have been General Howe, a British general.

And here we see this tavern with a tavern sign, right there.

And over here, we see a wonderful engraving of a mermaid and the ships.

And this is just a grand piece of folk art.

It's worth $25,000.

That much?

Yes.

(whistles) Ooh...

I cannot believe that.

Well, it's going to stay in the family for a long time, I hope.

I hope it does.

Take good care of it.

WOMAN: My mother worked for the company that imported Noritake china into America, pre-war.

She began working for them in 1921 and unfortunately retired on Pearl Harbor Day.

Oh, really?

So the company closed on that day?

They closed on that day.

She got this vase somewhere in the '20s.

And do you know what she paid for it at the time?

About a dime.

About ten cents-- that's amazing.

Well, probably she got an employee discount but nonetheless, that was an amazingly small amount of money even back then.

What was the name of the company?

Morimura Brothers.

That is the name of the Noritake company.

They imported under that name.

Most of the people who worked there, were they mostly Americans?

Did Japanese people work there as well?

Both.

Well, the management was mostly Japanese.

The salesmen and secretaries were very much Americans, I think.

Well, that's an interesting period in American history, and it would be wonderful if we could go back and talk to her and hear about it.

She said they were the most wonderful employer anybody could work for.

Yeah, well, let's go ahead and talk about this vase.

This is really quite an exceptional vase.

The Noritake Company was formed in the 19th century and by the turn of the century, about 100 years ago, they were an important force in exporting massive amounts of porcelain to the United States.

Most of their products were very affordable.

They were mass-produced, they were pretty, they were usable.

After World War II, they mostly are known for making dinner services-- sets of china and pottery for use in the home.

But they also made a great deal of decorative objects.

Labor was quite inexpensive in Japan at that point, and they could afford to paint something like this and still send it to the United States and sell it for not a lot of money.

We'll look quickly at the mark on the bottom here.

It says, "Noritake, handpainted, Japan."

And over the years, they used many, many different marks, this just being an example of one of the marks.

Also, there is an artist's signature right here.

And that is very unusual for a Noritake.

Very rarely did the artist ever sign their works.

And I have seen only a handful that were ever artist-signed.

Because this is an exceptional vase, it's worth a lot more than most.

A normal, pretty Noritake vase from the early part of the century might start for as little as $25 and go up to $50 or $100, and really good ones, several hundred dollars.

But because this one is so exceptional with such great painting and such a big size, I would estimate it to be worth between $2,000 and $3,000.

No kidding!

Possibly even more.

It's one of the best that I have ever seen from this period.

Wow, I'm thrilled to pieces.

That's delightful.

WOMAN: It was given to me as a wedding gift by my father and stepmother.

It's a Walter Baum.

I know very little about the artist.

My stepmother, I believe, was one of his students.

Right, and they lived in the Philadelphia area?

Yes.

Well, Walter Baum was one of a group of Pennsylvania artists such as Edward Redfield, Walter Schofield, and John Folinsbee, who painted in Bucks County.

And they rejected what their New York contemporaries were painting, which was urban landscapes, and decided to focus on the country landscape of Bucks County.

And they painted it with a combination of realism and American impressionism.

And Baum was well known for painting out of doors even in the worst weather.

And his son tells a story that his father used to attach an easel on the front of the car, on the fender, and a palette on the door of the car and drive off and paint like mad while his mother sat in the back seat and read novels.

His mother was probably freezing to death.

It's really a lovely picture.

It's one of the nicest ones I've seen.

I just want to point out on the back...

The artist has inscribed it "Pennsylvania Scene, Hosensack, 1955," which I believe has a certain significance for you.

It was our wedding anniversary.

The year you were married.

I think at auction in today's market, it might bring something like $8,000 to $12,000.

Oh, my word.

So that was a nice wedding present.

It certainly was.

MAN: I bought this chest in 1982 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

There was an antique store on Atlantic Avenue that had a "Going Out of Business" sign.

He had a price on it, I made him an offer, and he delivered it the next day.

He represented that it came from the East Coast.

He thought it might have been around the Philadelphia area.

Well, you're actually right.

This is a Philadelphia chest of drawers.

It was made about 1780, and it's actually a Quaker chest of drawers.

Wow.

One of the reasons we know it's Philadelphia is that these quarter columns here, which are really distinctive-- fluted quarter columns-- are typical, as well as the molding configuration on the top.

This ogee curve, with a bead on the top, and the ogee bracket feet are typical of Philadelphia.

The Quakers were founded in the 17th century in England.

The most famous colonial Quaker was William Penn, who came here, and in 1682, founded Pennsylvania as a Quaker refuge.

The Quakers had very neat dress and very neat manners.

They liked their furniture very neat and very simple.

And it's interesting because earlier today, Bruce, when I was looking at this, I had the drawer out.

We looked at this drawer, and everyone came around and said, "Oh, the drawers are all replaced."

All the secondary wood is totally replaced because it looks very fresh.

Yes, absolutely.

It tells us about authenticating American furniture-- any furniture.

All the pieces have to add up to a puzzle-- why is that like that?-- because usually, it's oxidized and brown and usually, these nails have this ferric oxide rust around them where the wood has reacted with the metal.

Well, this particular chest was made very neat and very well made.

And inside here, we have dust dividers, so it entirely encased the drawer so it kept it looking very, very, incredibly fresh.

What I love about your chest as well is that it has its original brasses.

And you see this little mark right there?

That's where this bale handle hit over the years.

It's very hard to fake that.

And inside, it has the original washers.

Excellent.

Tell us, please, what you paid for the chest.

Well, he had, I believe, uh... $6,500 on it, and at that time, I'd been working a lot of overtime and I had some cash in my pocket, so I offered him $2,000 cash if he'd deliver it the next day, and he took the offer.

It's probably worth between $10,000 and $15,000.

Wow!

Outstanding.

That's an estimate that may be a little on the conservative side with the original finish.

MAN: My great-grandfather ordered that from the factory.

My father gave it to me before he died this past year.

It was ordered custom-made by my great-grandfather.

My father wrote to the Marlin Factory in 1950 to see if he could get a copy of the original invoice.

But there had been a fire apparently and they didn't have it, but they gave him some information that the original cost was probably between $30 and $35, and it was probably shipped sometime after 1897.

What you have here is a Marlin rifle called a model 1895, and caliber 45/90.

And they were built by the Marlin Firearms Manufacturing Company, and they made about 18,000 of them.

And they were designed as a big-game hunting rifle.

This particular rifle your grandfather or great-grandfather special-ordered the gun from the factory, and it has a lot of special features on it that would not have come on an ordinary rifle that you bought over the counter, like this pistol grip, which is checkered.

The fore-end, which is checkered.

It has this lovely engraving here with a moose on the side of it.

And then it has a special barrel take-down mechanism.

By pulling this forward and taking this out, the gun comes apart in two pieces.

And then the barrel is also made in two dimensions, what is called a half-octagon barrel.

The reason for the take-down feature was that the gun was made so you could take them apart and put them in your suitcase, and you could travel on trains at the time.

It is very desirable to collectors to have a gun like this with these special-order features.

Well, if this gun was still in brand-new condition, it would be worth more than it is today because there is a little wear from hunting and stuff on the checkering and the finish on the receiver.

But in today's market, this is a very desirable gun and it would bring somewhere between $6,000 and $8,000.

Oh, wow.

That means a lot to me, and my father would be very pleased to hear about this.

My father had bought a nightclub about 30 years ago, and it was in the nightclub when he bought it, and he took it down and took it home and had it hanging on their wall for many years.

And then they took it down and he put it in a closet, wrapped it in a blanket, and put it away.

And where was the nightclub?

In Lohman, Missouri, which is close to Jefferson City.

And it's probably also close to St. Louis.

About 110 miles.

Which is where they brew Budweiser.

Uh-huh.

The first thing that strikes me about this poster is that some things never change.

I mean, I would date this piece approximately 1900, which makes it just over 100 years ago, but they're still using sex appeal to sell beers.

Now, here's a very attractive young woman, and I want you to notice that she's even lifting up her skirt ever so slightly to show her foot.

100 years ago, that would've been a very provocative thing to do, and they were obviously trying to appeal to consumers.

Now, the second point of interest is the frame, and usually I don't talk about frames when I talk about posters because I say, "I sell posters, I don't sell frames."

But in this case, the frame is very important.

It has not only the name of Anheuser-Busch, the brewer, but it also has these fabulous images of hops and of wheat and of the ingredients that go into beer.

This print was originally sold in this frame.

Yes.

So the frame is an integral part of the piece as a whole.

Now, the third thing about this that makes it so special in my mind is the detail.

Look at the necklace that she's wearing and the detail with the Anheuser-Busch "A" and the eagle.

And also, if you look at the bottle, not only can you see the writing on the bottle, but it also has a metal casing on top to hold the cap on from all the pressure.

Well, I would say that you've put three coins into the antique poster slot machine and come up with three gold stars.

I would put its auction estimate conservatively at $2,000 to $3,000.

Goodness.

That's an awful lot of beer.

Yes, it sure is.

I've been looking at icons for the last five years on the Roadshow.

What I want to show you first is... the hallmark on the bottom.

It's right along here.

You know it's an Ovchinikov?

Right.

It's dated, roughly, about 1860.

He was one of the finest icon makers before Faberg\.

This is not a Faberg\, which makes it, I think, nicer.

How'd you get it?

I got it around 30 years ago from an importer who brought it in from Shanghai.

From China?

Okay.

He was one of the first ones who came out of China with exports.

And what did you pay for it?

$7,500.

Oh, okay, that's very nice.

Now, the enamel work has four hallmarks.

There's a hallmark on each one of the plaques.

That is done by "C.T."

Now, we have to go in and look this up and find out who is the maker on the enamel work.

The frame was done by "A.O.," and that is Ovchinikov.

Next thing is the decorative work on the engraving, and there's a hallmark way over here, and that's "E.R."

This particular piece has three or four different hallmarks.

I think there's even a hallmark on the filigree which I haven't found yet, but probably done by another jeweler.

So this is a conglomeration of about four or five jewelers, making this roughly about 1860.

It's one of the best icons I've seen around.

And since you only paid $7,500 for it 30 years ago, it has increased in price.

It's roughly somewhere in the vicinity of about $30,000 to $35,000.

What do you do with it?

Do you put it out?

We put it out now and then just as a display, as a piece of art.

WOMAN: My mom was a private beautician on Long Island, New York, and went to all the estates and did the people's hair and they, in turn, gave her gifts and presents over the years, because she did it for about 50 years.

In turn, my mom gave it to me.

So these were sort of things that she received as tips.

As tips, yes.

For her styling.

Yes, that's right.

The artist who made this is Pierre Renoir, and he is one of the most famous Impressionist painters during the late 19th century.

And this is an etching that he made of his son, Claude Renoir.

It looks like a little girl, but it's actually his son.

You have some condition problems with the print, which are visible.

There's a number of small dots.

That's something that's known as foxing.

And if I open this up, you can see that there's foxing throughout the entire page and also, this heavy stain, which is called time stain, and that's usually caused by something being exposed to light, very strong light, for a long period of time.

That's what's happened here.

Okay.

On the flip side of the coin, you have what is the first printing, or the earliest printing, of this etching, and you can tell that by the edition number, right here in pencil.

It's numbered "19 of 100" in pencil.

After this was printed, maybe 1,000 more were made, and they weren't numbered in pencil and they were on a smaller sheet of paper.

In better condition, if it were to come up at auction, it would bring close to $4,000 to $6,000.

In this condition, it would probably sell for around $3,000.

The good news is all the condition defects that you have here are reversible.

I would estimate the cleaning on this to be between $300 and $500.

It's very close to being a $4,000 to $6,000 print.

Wow, that's amazing.

Surprised to hear that?

Is that good news?

Well, yeah, that's very good news.

Sure is.

It's a collection of some items that I bought in Phoenix at a yard sale.

The items belonged to an Olympian by the name of Fred Lauer.

He was a four-time Olympian, 1924 through 1936.

All this stuff came out of one little box.

I was looking for a postcard, and it had an Olympic swastika on it, and that's how I recognized what it was.

Now, Fred was a water polo player, and he was in four Olympics, and apparently he was also a collector of Olympic memorabilia and his own memorabilia.

In the box, you found this sweater-- his Olympic sweater-- his Olympic pinny and his hat, probably from 1924 to '36.

Uh, we had programs.

Two of the more interesting items are this program right here from the 1924 Olympics, which he got signed by the '24 Olympics swimming team, which included Duke Kahanamoku, who is generally regarded as the father of surfing.

He was a Hawaiian.

And also Johnny Weissmuller, who was the world champion and later became Tarzan.

But your real treasure is this little book right here, and it's from the 1936 Olympics.

The Olympics were in Berlin, and Hitler and the Third Reich wanted to use the Olympics as his platform to show the dominance of the Aryan race.

Uh, one fellow didn't really agree with that.

His name was Jesse Owens, and he signed this book, as did every other Olympian on the U.S. team.

Jesse Owens, of course, won four gold medals in that Olympics and became one of the first great African-American stars in the United States.

What's fascinating about this book is there's another signature in here of a silver medalist named Mack Robinson.

Mack Robinson had a younger brother named Jackie Robinson.

Of course, Jackie Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in baseball and become one of the greats of all time.

This collection is absolutely magnificent.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

There are 63 signatures in this book alone.

It's amazing.

What did you pay for the box?

I bought everything at a yard sale for five dollars.

The whole collection, probably worth about $10,000, probably more, at auction.

It's just marvelous.

It's a real piece of history.

Thank you.

WOMAN: It was given to my grandmother at the Jubilee of 1847 in Salt Lake.

She was born in Nauvoo, the second company after Brigham Young came.

They camped in Winter Quarters and she was born there in 1846 in August, and then they came on to Salt Lake and arrived in September of 1847, and this is why she got the pin, is because she was a pioneer.

And when did she get the pin?

50 years later, at the Jubilee.

At the Jubilee in 1897, right.

Mother gave it to me, but she was one of 14 children, my mother was.

They had... Sarah Anne Lena had 14 children.

When I opened the box, it says that it was made by Tiffany & Company, and it was done when they were in Union Square.

In 1854, they were on Broadway and then in 1870, they moved to Broadway and 15th Street.

Now, the pin has wonderful symbols.

It has the beehive, which is the symbol of Utah, and then the bees, which means productivity, and then, of course, the covered wagon, the locomotives and the Pony Express.

It's really interesting.

But what else is curious to me is the back of it is not marked with gold, and Tiffany did not put gold marks before 1920, so this was done 1897.

And it has your grandmother's name, Sarah Sterling.

So this is really a wonderful piece of American history.

I would say, in the market today, about $2,000 to $3,000.

Oh, my heavens.

It's very collectible.

To me, it was just a keepsake, really.

MAN: It's something my sister got at a garage sale about ten, 11 years ago.

I don't think she paid over five dollars for it.

We were taught never to pay that much.

It has its home on my mother's wall in the living room, but to all of us, it's ugly.

It's an interesting painting, and I think there's some clues here about it that we're going to go through that make this a much more valuable painting than what you might see at a garage sale.

It's a volcano scene.

You can see a volcanic eruption here.

It's done by an artist by the name of Grace Woodward.

Her whole career really doesn't amount to much at all, but she did happen to study with Whistler and went to Europe.

She was born around 1858.

But what she did do was she went to Hawaii around the turn of the century.

And we see this painting here, an eruption of a volcano, and you see it's signed down here "Grace Woodward, 2-26-09."

Now, that's very important.

Now, on the back of it, it says... there's a partial inscription on a label that says "ilauea... Is...

Hawaii."

And what that is is probably "Kilauea, Island of Hawaii."

And what this is is a very rare painting.

Even though it is dark and not very attractive, it's a rare, dated eruption of Kilauea.

What's more important, she probably observed it.

This is done on a panel, an artist board which she would have taken in the field.

And it's also done very close, so she probably went up there to see this in the moonlight and actually painted that from life.

A very rare thing that doesn't come up all that often.

Now, if this were to be sold in the mainland, you might only get maybe a few hundred dollars for it.

But because it's a rare, early painting of a noted eruption of Kilauea in Hawaii, I would expect this painting to get almost $4,000 or $5,000.

Is that right?

WOMAN: My grandpa dug it up in Oscoda, Michigan, in 1927.

We kind of think it was from the missionaries to the Indians there in Michigan.

That's almost correct.

It's what we call trade silver, or in the style of something we call trade silver.

And when you first showed this to me, I wasn't entirely sure this was real because maybe even 95% of this material is something made in the last 30 or 40 years.

Trade silver is something that was made originally in Britain and France and traded to the Indians through the fur trade and then later on in the colonies, mostly in Canada, it was manufactured for trade purposes.

Usually, when you see something this big-- and this is gargantuan-- you're just very suspicious.

However, I am 100% certain this one is real.

And I also am pretty certain who made it.

I think it was made by somebody in Montreal.

He was actually born in London, England, moved.

His name was Robert Cruikshank.

And he moved to Philadelphia in the 1760s and then on into Canada and Montreal in the 1770s.

He was sort of the Rembrandt or Picasso of trade silver.

And there's a reason why I can't confirm that.

If this is indeed Robert Cruikshank, he would actually have a touch mark or his signature on the back of it.

It wouldn't be worn off it?

Probably not, it should still be there or a faint marking of it.

However, when I went to turn this over, I couldn't do that.

It's glued down.

Unfortunately, whoever you had do this for you glued this down, and that is a bad, bad thing to do.

What we like to tell people is learn everything you can about an object before you have anybody do anything to it because this is actually quite a valuable object.

Oh, my.

I estimate that this is worth between $12,000 and $18,000.

Oh, my goodness.

And if we can at some point get this off and have a look at it, we can confirm.

If we can confirm it's Cruikshank, it's even a little more.

That might be worth taking the frame apart.

"The Nanigans" started in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio.

It was a concept of a gentleman by the name of Pete Lee.

He was affiliated with W.J.W.

Store Broadcasting Company, and he managed to get Coca-Cola to sponsor us.

"The Cokettes" were a segment within the Nanigans-- basically, the backup groups.

We sang vocals and we did comedy.

We got to go all over the world through Coca-Cola.

Now, where'd you take "Nanigans" from?

Well, in the studios, we were always cutting up, and he was trying to contain us.

He says, "So now I've got the name-- from 'shenanigans,' we'll call you 'The Nanigans'."

And we toured all through Europe and through Asia, performing for both youth hostels and for NCO clubs, officers' clubs.

We have four albums, we did two movies.

When you were in Korea though, this was not simple stuff.

When they sent us to Korea, of course, it was a new experience for us, and I remember going into the NCO club to perform, and then they had monsoon season, and when we came out, the GIs had to carry us-- which was exciting-- because the mud was so very thick.

We traveled in what they called "duce-and-a-halfs."

We were allowed one dress, and the rest of the time, we had to wear combat boots and fatigues.

Well, so let me tell you a little bit about what you've brought us in terms of a collector's point of view.

First of all, Coca-Cola is one of the biggest advertisers in the world, and in World War II alone, they put in 64 bottling plants in Europe.

Robert Woodruff, their president, stated that every GI that was over there in World War II would be able to buy a bottle of Coke for five cents wherever he was, whatever the cost to the company.

It was a twofold purpose: it was patriotic, and at the second time, they could keep their branding.

Because how could they resist a group like the Nanigans wearing those great Coca-Cola hats?

I've rarely seen these Nanigans sweaters, I've never seen the hat, I've never seen the pin.

If you were looking at all of this as a group, you know, strictly from a collecting point of view, I would guess that a collector would probably pay somewhere between $1,500 and $2,500 for all of it.

I think I would prefer, probably, to donate them to a museum or somewhere where everybody can view them after I'm gone.

And your memories are priceless, right?

Priceless.

WOMAN: My Great-Great-Aunt Kate came over as a girl from Ireland and went into domestic service and ended up as housekeeper to a wealthy banking family in New York.

When the lady of the house ended up, unfortunately, being institutionalized, Mr. Sullivan closed up everything, asked his housekeeper, "Please, Miss Kennedy, take anything you would like."

So Great-Aunt Kate took this chest of drawers and a few other pieces.

She left it to my grandmother, who left it to me, and I am named after Great-Great-Aunt Kate.

I think she must have gravitated towards this piece for a certain reason, and maybe that was because it was made by a Scottish craftsman, John Shearer.

This chest of drawers made by John Shearer in Shenandoah Valley in Virginia probably around 1805.

Okay, so that's the Loudoun County.

Well, Loudoun County was right near there.

He made it for a Miss Sarah... this Melhollin by a British Tar.

A British tar in the early 19th century would have been a shipmate, somebody on the ship.

Yeah.

Shearer had Scottish roots, John Shearer.

All of these motifs on this piece scholars absolutely love to study because John Shearer the cabinetmaker was really a loyalist.

He was a Tory.

He really believed in the early 19th century still that the king, King George, should still be king.

So here, we have "Britania Rules" with an ocean in between-- "Britania Rules."

These motifs are from his Scottish heritage-- these inlaid anchors.

And hence, we have the ocean, the British tar.

It's an absolutely wonderful, wonderful, typical John Shearer inscription.

So this is made in the early 19th century and relates to about 24 or 25... roughly two dozen pieces by John Shearer.

Okay, so the date is not the date it was made.

No, the date is actually probably the date that he came over here.

He came from Edinburgh, Scotland, around 1770, 1775, so that may be possibly the date he came over.

I love this candle slide.

Did you know that was a candle slide?

We always wondered what it was for.

That's what that is, and if we take out this drawer... Actually, let's take out two drawers and look at it.

We can see that this was actually made up of some old parts.

This piece, Kit, has literally... he used old boards from another piece.

It's made of poplar.

It's typical Shearer construction with this oak here and the wonderful, wonderful dovetails.

Beautiful dovetails, yeah.

First of all, let me just say that the front feet are replaced.

They're new feet.

You can see how sharp they are.

The back feet are original, but because the front feet are replaced-- they're very new looking-- that's going to affect the value.

Sure.

Even with the replaced feet, this piece, because of its rarity, I would offer to a museum as a dealer, for instance, in the range of upwards of about $45,000.

Wow.

Does that surprise you?

Um, yeah.

(laughs) Are you going to treat it any differently?

I'm going to cover the top so it doesn't get scratched anymore.

It was my grandfather's train.

It was given to him on his fourth birthday-- January, 24, 1897-- from his father.

APPRAISER: And where did they live?

They lived in Chicago.

This is a Maerklin train, and Maerklin is the company that produced it.

And what's great is that we have the box top-- actually, we have the whole box, which I thought that you had the whole box and insert is great.

But this is the logo of the Maerklin company.

Now the Maerklin company, they were actually a family.

They started in Germany.

They were masters of manufacturing toys, especially windup toys in the latter part of the 1800s.

Now, this probably, because he lived in Chicago, being a port town, this was probably imported or exported from Germany to America.

And this is a fine example of a piece from the late 1800s, which is a wonderful find.

On the front of the engine, you can see the Maerklin logo again, which they took great pride in marking all of their trains, boats, cars-- they made a number of vehicles, transportation vehicles, especially.

And I like to say that toys are a direct reflection of what was going on in the time period when they were produced.

So the trains were of vast importance at that time, so historically, it really makes sense that they would make these toys very decorative.

Also, underneath, this is a clockwork mechanism that makes the train move.

And we're going to wind this up, and we have the original key, which I love, that goes with this.

And we'll wind this up just to show that, yes, this does work.

And you can see the mechanism working.

The other thing about the Maerklin trains is that you want to look out for repaint, and what's great is that this is all in original condition.

You can see it's been played with-- there is some play wear-- however, that gives a little patina.

It's the passenger set, and it's what's called "O-gauge," and that's measured by the distance of the wheels and how they fit on the track.

If it were standard gauge, that would have a higher value, but this is a smaller gauge, it's O-gauge, but still quite a wonderful find for a Maerklin collector, and I would estimate this would bring at auction around $4,000 to $6,000.

Wow.

Oh, that's wonderful, I didn't expect that!

(laughing) So not bad for a windup train, huh?

No, not bad at all.

My husband bought it for me for a gift for getting the taxes done, and that was about 18 years ago.

It's from Dresden, Germany.

The ones that originally had it had lived in Germany and brought it over, and I don't know exactly when it was made, but I believe before the turn of the century.

Dresden is a city in Germany near Meissen, and there was actually Meissen porcelain, but Dresden, there were many, many manufacturers of porcelain.

But people think of it as almost like a poor cousin to the Meissen manufacturers.

This piece probably incorporates everything you could want in a piece of Dresden porcelain.

It's signed.

You have the Dresden mark first, and then you have an "RK," back to back, for "Richard Klempf," who was actually the manufacturer of the piece.

Then, as we look at the vase itself, we have the most beautiful painting of a woman.

The Germans really aren't known for being that involved in the Art Nouveau movement, and yet this is a beautiful Art Nouveau expression.

It is also, as you look, artist-signed by the painter of the piece, and as you go around, you have a beautiful raised gilt motif that is very, very indicative of the Art Nouveau period and beautiful borders, top and bottom, and the handles make a lovely touch.

You have a piece that really shows you the best of the German porcelain.

Now, you think your husband paid a few hundred dollars for the piece.

A lot of the German porcelain has not gone up a lot, you know, in the time frame-- it's not in vogue-- but a piece of this quality in today's market would sell in the store for probably about $3,000 or $3,500.

Really?

MAN: I acquired it at an estate sale in Tucson, Arizona, about a year ago.

It was the estate of the grandson of the man who actually took these photos.

He was an extensive world traveler, and it was reported to me that these were taken in the 1870s.

If we remove the cover and go to the first photograph here, what we see is the name "Thomson" in the lower left corner.

What you have are a number of original photographs made by the British photographer John Thomson on his trails, or travels, to China.

John Thomson's images are very scarce.

He had a very refined pictorial sensibility.

The size of the photograph was actually dictated by the size of the negative.

Travelers wouldn't bring their own cameras, but rely on the photographs that were done as part of the great tradition of travel photography on the part of, largely, photographers like John Thomson.

So what's extraordinary about your images is their size.

The camera that he brought contained glass-plate negatives.

These negatives needed to be coated on site with a collodion chemistry, inserted into the camera and then exposed, removed from the camera, and printed.

What I enjoy about Thomson's work is the fact that he not only did topography, but he also managed to photograph the local citizens in rather spontaneous views.

These prints are called albumen photographs.

They're the most common photographic process in the 19th century.

In addition to the pictures of China, we have images of Japan as well.

Because John Thomson's work is so scarce, these pictures would obviously benefit from conservation treatment, but even in the condition they are in, I would say that we're looking at an album in the $15,000 to $20,000 price range.

Wow!

Surprised.

Yes, I am.

APPRAISER: These are real garnets, and it's set in sterling silver with a vermeil back.

WOMAN: Approximately 35 years ago, my grandmother started me off on collecting combs.

She bought me one with the stipulation that I would wear it.

(chuckling): Oh, okay.

And I wore it for a while and then started collecting combs.

How many do you think you have?

Over 100.

This is a comb box.

And it's not a hair comb, but it's a comb, so I thought it was appropriate.

Oh, it's very appropriate.

If nothing else, it has the name "comb" on it.

Now, when you were collecting these pieces did you think they were made of any particular metal, or do any of these stand out for you?

I thought this one was tortoise.

This one I was led to believe was from the Napoleon-Josephine era.

I see.

This one is garnets, and it was the most expensive one that I have.

For one thing, the ones you think are tortoise, like this one, for example, it's not tortoise.

Celluloid was produced in about 1865, and this is celluloid made to imitate tortoiseshell.

And these are real garnets, and it's set in sterling silver with a vermeil back.

That's called vermeil.

It's gold over the sterling.

This one is exceptionally nice.

This one here looks like ivory.

It's also celluloid, and this is what we call brass and glass.

I would say this is more from the 1900s.

These are rhinestones in here.

Most of your combs were probably made in France, turn of the century.

The women of that era loved their hair.

They were revered for the tresses.

You would brush your hair 100 strokes every evening.

They even went so far as to save their hair in hair receivers on their dresser.

And I've looked at your case.

This was made about 1870, refinished walnut.

The value on the combs...

The highest value ones would be the larger ones with lots and lots of stones, and especially when they have colored stones to them, and of particular interest would be the garnet one.

I would say a conservative estimate, including the case, at about $5,000 to $6,000.

You're kidding.

Well, I guess in bulk, it pays.

Oh, it definitely does.

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