Salt Lake City, Hour 1 (2017)

MARK WALBERG: It's Antiques Roadshow, with an exciting hour full of surprises from Salt Lake City, Utah.

This is the holy grail of Hot Wheels.

(chuckles) (voice breaking): Really?!

APPRAISER: Yes.

Oh, my stars!

♪ ♪ WALBERG: Brigham Young is believed to have said, "This is the place," when he first saw this valley.

Salt Lake City was founded by Young and a group of Mormon pioneers on July 24, 1847.

It remains the headquarters for people of the LDS church today.

Back at the convention center, Roadshow knew Salt Lake City would be the place to see LDS books like this one.

Take a look.

WOMAN: I really don't know a lot about it.

My father's dad's mother was religious, and she evidently had this in her stuff, so it's basically been in the basement amongst her things for quite a while.

This is a familial inscription on the front pastedown.

Yeah, evidently she wrote that there.

She inherited it from her father, and I didn't realize until we got here that it was 104 years old when she wrote it.

(laughing) A long time.

Yeah.

Well, this is the so-called Bellows Falls hymnal of the LDS church.

It's one of the earliest hymnals that the church produced.

It was 1844.

The very first LDS hymnal was printed in 1835, and it was done by Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of Mormonism's wife.

So this follows in the tradition.

This is one of the earliest hymnals issued by the LDS church and the earliest to use musical notation along with the words.

Awesome.

In addition to being one of the earliest hymnals of the LDS church, it's also one of the rarest ones.

Unlike LDS scripture, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, when those books got used and got a little rundown in condition and falling apart, they were sacred scriptures, no one threw those away.

But the hymnals were designed to be used in the pulpits in the churches, and when they got a little ratty and tatty, you threw them away, and you printed a new one.

Oh.

So it makes it very uncommon for them actually to still exist a century and a half or so later.

Awesome!

So you've got a very early and scarce one.

Do you have any idea of the value of the hymnal you brought to us today?

I have no clue, absolutely none.

At retail, your hymnal would sell between $40,000 to $50,000.

(gasps) (crying): Oh, my gosh!

Really!

(gasps) Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

(exhales) What do I do with it?

(laughs) Keep it very, very safely.

Like in a safety deposit box, or... (sighing): Oh, my word.

I had no idea.

Who do you hand it down to?

(both laughing) Good question.

The 1835 hymnal is a $100,000 book.

WOMAN: I inherited it from my grandmother.

I don't really know a lot about it, but she had a father who has on a merchant ship that went to the Orient.

So the story's always been that it came to the family through him.

But I really don't know very much.

Of Asian origins.

That's what I'm thinking.

It certainly looks that way, and it's one of the things I wanted to talk about because it is actually an American piece.

Oh, okay.

But it looks Asian, it's not by accident.

Because we think about American Art Nouveau, and American Art Nouveau tends to blend together different influences, different design elements.

Certainly European Art Nouveau is a factor, but Asian art was incorporated into American Art Nouveau.

And this piece was surprisingly influenced by an earlier piece by an Asian artist, who I thought did your piece when I first saw it, the man by the name of Kataro Shirayamadani.

Can you flip this over for us?

Sure.

Thank you for helping me move the piece around.

I had rotator cuff surgery.

So this has the full retinue of Rookwood marks.

The Rookwood "R.P."

in the flames, five for the date, 1905, classic Art Nouveau era for Rookwood.

But also the artist's signature.

And when I first saw it, I saw the bottom half of it, which looked like Kataro Shirayamadani's mark.

But then I just went back and got my glasses and looked again, and it's actually a rare full signature of E. Timothy Hurley's, so E.T.

Hurley.

So laid out completely it looks like the Japanese mark.

Perhaps it's intentional on his part, because I saw a piece about 25, 30 years ago at a gallery in New York City identical to this.

Same shape, same swallow decoration filling the vase, but with a brown background, not salmon pink.

Because it was a brown background, it was Victorian in feel, as opposed to yours with a salmon background, which is Art Nouveau.

It's not just a vase with birds on it.

It looks the way it does for specific reasons.

It couldn't happen any other place at any other time.

It had to happen in Cincinnati in 1905.

Ohio.

Ohio, yeah.

Oh, my gosh, because I do have family from Ohio, and I never would have placed it there.

Can you flip it upside down for me again, please?

Now if you notice, there is a wheel carved X into the bottom.

Right.

That means it's a seconded piece.

Rookwood was very particular about their work, and so if there was any flaw-- whether an artistic flaw, or a technical flaw-- they put an X on the bottom and sell it for half price.

I can't find anything wrong with this piece.

I've been over it several times.

There's a little bit of misting in the neck, here there's a little whiteness in the neck.

Maybe that's it, I'm not sure why they X'ed the piece.

Because it looks to me flawless as Rookwood often is.

But the X, even though it does not necessarily relate to a damage, affects the price.

Because it's X'ed, I would say an auction estimate of somewhere between $2,000 to $3,000.

Really?

Maybe $2,500 to $3,500 at auction.

Oh, my goodness.

Without the X, it's double that-- it's a $4,000 to $6,000 piece.

(laughing): Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, so it's so... Oh, my goodness.

It does have a fair amount of impact in terms of pricing, but it has no impact on the beauty.

It's a gorgeous piece.

I just love it, and knowing it was from my family meant a lot to me, too, but now it's even more, knowing the history of it.

Amazing.

We tried to train him, but he just won't do a thing.

That's so cute.

Yeah.

So he's going to go to metalworks and sculpture.

APPRAISER: The foundation is wool instead of cotton.

WOMAN: Uh-huh.

And when they started really doing these in a mass production sort of way, they needed to make more and so they switched from wool to cotton.

Oh, okay.

Really clean, this would have been a $9,000 or $10,000 horn.

Yes.

As you suspected.

But with this amount of wear here, even with nice clean engraving, $6,500 is a realistic retail value.

Okay.

This is great.

MAN: Man, I brought in an Omega watch that was awarded to my grandfather.

Quite the Omega watch guy.

His name was Ab Jenkins.

He was a world-renowned race car driver, builder, and also mayor of Salt Lake City for four years.

He's one of the most famous guys, iconic in racing.

And I noticed you brought in a picture of one of his race cars.

This is the Mormon Meteor 3, which was probably the most famous.

And this Omega watch is a chronograph watch.

It was manufactured in 1950.

It's in stainless steel.

It was presented to him, and it's got his name.

"Champion of champions, holder of more world records "than any person in the history of sports, Omega Watch Company."

Well, the watch itself is an Omega chronograph watch.

It's a nice watch.

And they're generally... collectors in auction pay around $2,500 to $3,500.

But the engraving, the history of this watch is really wonderful.

And there are a lot of Omega collectors that love racing.

Because most chronograph watches were made for timing different types of racing events.

Right.

And I think easily today at auction, the watch would bring between $15,000 to $20,000.

Oh.

All right, if you say so.

(chuckles) So we have Hollywood photos here.

Tell me about this one up here.

That's Morrow, my stepfather.

That's in the early '50s at Arthur Murray.

He was such a good dancer that Arthur Murray actually wanted him to be an instructor.

That's one of his talents back in the day.

And what about the rest of these?

Well, Morrow was in the Navy from 1939 to 1945.

And in 1940, he went to Washington, and in '41, he went to the Sound Motion Picture Studio to learn motion picture.

And in '42, he went to Hollywood and got all these autographs from these movie stars.

So you're not sure what he was doing and how he encountered all these people.

Nope.

He never talked about the service.

We only learned a lot of this stuff from my mother after he passed.

Right, so no one's quite sure how he was lucky enough to meet some of Hollywood's hottest ladies at the time.

(laughing): No, no.

Clearly he was a pretty lucky man, because we're showing three here.

There's a total of 18, so we have 15 more signatures in the book here, signed photos.

What we have here is Judy Garland, Veronica Lake, Carmen Miranda.

They're fantastic photos because they're from the '40s and they're vintage.

Right.

Many of these women lived very long lives.

So when they signed much later in their career, they're not worth quite as much as they are when they're nice early shots like this.

And we know when he got them because you know he went to Hollywood in '42.

Right.

So one thing I know is that one of the places you might find a lot of these ladies in 1942 in Hollywood was at the Hollywood Canteen.

So in October of 1942, Bette Davis was very instrumental, Jule Styne, one of the guys from MCA, they got together and they decided to start a club for servicemen.

From what they say, the Canteen ran from October of 1942.

So if you were to find out when he went in '42, it's probably some time right around then.

And it closed on Thanksgiving Day 1945.

And they estimate that they served over three million servicemen during that time.

Your ticket for entry was your uniform.

Oh really, okay.

Once you walked through the door you paid nothing.

Over 3,000 Hollywood stars, directors, entertainers put on music.

A lot of these top Hollywood ladies would dance with the servicemen, that was a big highlight.

They were the service people, they would come wait on you.

So you were being taken care of.

Hollywood was thanking the servicemen that were fighting the war.

And while we don't know for sure because there's no way for us to know, I think it's probably really likely that's where he got all of these.

I actually ran every name that we have in the book here through the list.

And every one of these people was on the list of people who volunteered at the Canteen.

Wow.

We also know that he was a good dancer, as you pointed out.

Right.

So chances are he may have even danced with some of these people.

So then we look at the value of these pictures, and for the ones we have right in front of us, a Judy Garland from this era, because she's quite young here, is worth anywhere between $600 to $800.

Veronica Lake, $300 to $500.

That's a great Carmen Miranda shot, exactly how you want to see her with the whole fruit headdress, $300 to $500.

And if we add up everything else you have here in the book, a lot of other great people-- Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, the list goes on and on.

It's around for total at auction between $4,000 to $6,000.

Oh, wow, that's pretty good to know.

Thank you very much.

This was actually a wedding gift that was given to us, so I know nothing about it basically, except that the man who owned it was a business partner of my husband in Japan.

The story goes that my husband, in 1960, went to his home and saw this, marveled at it, and when we got married two years later, it arrived as a wedding gift.

And another friend of ours, a businessman from Japan, said the tradition was that if you really admire something in a person's home, they have to give it to you.

I've heard that to be true.

Have you heard that?

Yes, I have.

I thought it was just a folklore thing or something.

My, so yeah.

And the two came in this... As a piece, yes.

And this as an ensemble.

Yes.

What have you thought about this vase, or has it been suggested to you that there was some great age or significance to the design?

Well, it was said that it was 400 years old.

But I don't...

I mean I have nothing.

And why wouldn't they give me papers on it if it was?

To look at the patination of this bronze, to see this very rich and red color throughout, one would think it could be antique to such a degree that... quite that old.

It's Japanese, that much is true, not a surprise there.

It's made in the archaic Chinese style, though, interestingly.

So it's a Chinese-style vase.

It's not quite 400 years old.

This dates to around 1900.

Turn-of-the-century vase.

The stand was made not long before the vase itself, perhaps at the same time.

I wanted to talk about the relationship, though, between this vase and the stand that... that it's on.

If I can put this aside and...

The stand itself, which has this wonderful root wood kind of configuration, all of which is carved.

This is an illusion of a... of a natural... Oh, no!

...root kind of structure.

To turn it to the side, you can see this is a full section of a... some variety of rosewood tree.

And if we had the time, and of course we don't, we could literally count the rings to kind of find out a little more about this tree.

Oh, I see, yeah.

Now, this is what's very interesting.

The stand is Chinese.

Oh, for pity sakes.

What you have is a pairing of a Chinese stand made very much in a Japanese style, or at least appealing to a Japanese aesthetic, and a Japanese vase...

In the Chinese... That's made very much in the Chinese style.

This is a variety of rosewood grown on the island of Hainan, perhaps, or somewhere in southern China.

This is not of the restricted variety.

We see a lot of furniture and we sell a lot that is made of this material.

I think the vase, were it come up to auction, would be between $800 to $1,200.

Nice.

The stand, by itself, if it were to come up to auction, would be between $2,000 and $4,000.

Really?

Lovely.

I think the stand... Whoa.

...is the real treasure.

No kidding, how wonderful.

(chuckling): That's great.

Thank you for coming to Roadshow.

Thank you so much, Richard, this is great.

I believe it's a... airplane propeller that's been repurposed into a floor lamp.

It was given to me by my dad, who, when he started to have grandkids, was worried about... it's a very heavy lamp.

He was worried about it falling and smashing a grandkid.

So it was given to me.

And that's about all I know about it.

Do you know where he got it?

It was either at a flea market or an antique shop in either Tulsa or Muskogee, Oklahoma.

You remember what he paid for it?

He said he didn't pay more than $50 for it, so.

(laughs) All right, well, let's dig into a little bit about it.

What it is, is a great piece of modern design.

It's just stunning.

Looks even better lit up here.

So it is an airplane propeller.

And the first thing I said is let's go over to my militaria guys and get a feel for where do we think... and what kind of bird did this thing come off of?

Yeah.

Because you're right, it's massive.

It's incredibly heavy.

You know, this thing sits here at about 46 inches tall to the base.

15 inches, each one of these shades.

So as we worked with our militaria guys, we looked at the size of the base, the length of the propeller.

And this piece is more than likely from a World War I bomber.

Whoa.

You see the trench art coming out of World War I, we see boxes made out of propellers.

Never seen a floor lamp.

And that's what is driving us all to it.

So we believe that this was probably taken off of an aircraft, coming out of service in the 1920s.

And then sometime in the 1950s, with very much what was going on in the Mid-Century Modern movement, this was converted into a lamp.

Okay.

Now, you could imply that it was made earlier and the design aesthetic of the propeller was ahead of its time.

I think in this case the way it's cut, the way it's put together, it was more than likely assembled in the 1950s.

We're never going to know.

Right.

Now, when you get into propellers, they're all marked on the hub.

Which would have been great if we could have had that, but unfortunately we don't have it.

I scoured around the edge, couldn't find anything.

So we know the best thing we can go with is a very large World War I aircraft.

Given the two segments, I think the Mid-Century Modern design buyer is actually going to pay more today than the militaria collector.

I think a conservative auction estimate would be between $2,000 and $3,000.

(chuckles) Wow.

That's ama... that...

I said it, that is amazing.

I was not expecting that.

It's by a guy named Raffy Le Persan.

And I haven't been able to find a whole lot about him.

I think some of the most interesting parts of it are... Yeah.

where they left the bark, and they did this little... almost looks like a chicken or an eagle or something.

It's cool.

APPRAISER: This is Van Briggle pottery made in Colorado Springs.

And I can tell by the bottom, this is called a dirty bottom.

You see how dirty it looks?

Yeah, I thought the color was odd.

Right-- we know that it's probably 1920s or from 1930s because of the color of the bottom and the fact that there's no date.

It would retail around $150, $250, something like that.

WOMAN: It's made with washers and screws and bolts, and it looks more like an engineering piece than a jewelry piece to me.

It was my mother's, and we don't know if she purchased it before she came from Europe in 1940, or if a friend of hers, who traveled extensively, brought it to her.

This is a piece of German jewelry.

We can date it specifically to 1931.

It's made by a company called Jakob Bengel.

He opened the company in the 1870s.

He was a locksmith and started a company to make watch chains.

And now they're in the jewelry business.

And by the early '20s, they're being influenced by the Bauhaus school.

The German Bauhaus is a movement that's combining Arts and Crafts and Art Deco.

It's a structural design.

This is machine age.

The material it's made out of is chrome-plated brass.

And it drops two pendants of glass that are to look like lapis lazuli, and it's enameled.

It's a pretty elaborate example of a brick link form.

This piece, if it were to come to auction, would probably take an estimate of $900 to $1,200.

We'll have to learn to appreciate it more.

Thank you!

WOMAN: It's been passed down from my great-grandmother, who I believe purchased it, and to my grandmother, to my mother, and then my mother gave it to me before she passed away.

It's in wonderful condition.

Do you know who made it?

Down here, I finally saw the etching, and it's René Lalique.

Okay, and where was he from?

Well, it says right here, "France."

Okay.

Well, this is a very popular clock that was first introduced in around 1926.

It's called "Deux Figurines," which means two figures.

And it is the quintessential Art Deco clock.

Okay.

It was very popular in the United States, and they sold quite a few of them here.

This one is made out of clear and frosted glass.

The glass is molded.

And the frosted design of the two ladies and the festoon of flowers that surround the clock was made by acid etching the surface of the clear glass.

The two figures are dressed in classical drapery, sort of Grecian costume.

And this is a very Neoclassical look that you would see during the Art Deco period-- both in France, or even in the United States.

It does illuminate.

The base actually has lightbulbs in the base.

When this is plugged in, both the clock and the lights come on at the same time.

You have a little switch over there.

That switch has been replaced.

It probably had a thicker knob at one time.

But this particular clock, I would say based on the bottom of it, or the platform, that this was not made in the '20s, but probably closer to 1935.

The earlier bases were made out of gilt metal, and they had a little decoration on them.

And the later bases were chrome, which is what you see here.

These hands, there was a question of whether or not they had been replaced.

Oh.

But what we realized is that if you see examples of this clock, oftentimes the hands vary from one to the next.

The hands were made by a company called Ato, A-T-O.

And they supplied the hands for Lalique, and so this could have just been a later version of the hands.

Oh, okay.

In terms of value, because there is some replacement here, but it is in very nice condition, I would put a value in a retail shop of $15,000 to $20,000.

Oh.

(laughing): Very nice.

That's great.

It initially belonged to Commodore Thomas Macdonough, who was a prominent naval officer in American history.

When he was 16 he received a warrant from John Adams, the president at the time, to join the Navy.

Shortly thereafter, he ended up serving on the U.S.S.

Constellation, which went over to the first Barbary Wars over in the Mediterranean in Tripoli, which is now modern-day Libya.

There, he was transferred to the U.S.S.

Philadelphia, and shortly thereafter the U.S.S.

Philadelphia ran aground and was captured by the Tripolitians.

The crew was repatriated, Thomas Macdonough was reassigned to a smaller boat, the U.S.S.

Enterprise.

And about a year later, after being over there, the decision was made to try to recapture the U.S.S.

Philadelphia from the Tripolitians or to destroy it-- sink it or burn it-- so that it couldn't be used against us.

So since Thomas Macdonough had served as a crew member on the Philadelphia, he was selected to lead a party, since he knew the layout of the deck and everything.

They invaded the ship, were able to get fire set that burned it down to the water line.

Shortly thereafter he was promoted to a first lieutenant.

As was the tradition in the Navy, and I think still is to this day, they bestow some sort of a thing like a sword or a gun or a rifle of something like that to the officer at the promotion.

That's when he would have probably received this.

And then they returned back to the United States, and then subsequently went back over a number of different times.

And he served very well until he was about 42 years old and passed away.

When he passed away, his possessions went to one of his brothers.

When that brother passed away to another brother, and so on and so forth until it finally ended up with a great-nephew, whose father was friends with my grandfather.

My grandfather then gave it to my father, and then my father gave it to me.

So who do you think gave it to him?

Whoever would have been the officer that would have made their promotion in the field.

So we don't know if it was his commanding officer, Stephen Decatur, or not.

No, we don't.

Because Decatur, of course, had gotten a gold sword presented by the United States Congress for his activities in burning the Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia, yeah.

During the first Tripolitan War in 1804.

Would it surprise you to know that the gun is Turkish?

Not at all, no.

Many of the features like this very tall elevation sight at the back, and also this very thick butt, and the way it sort of tapers here and comes down here are very characteristic of Turkish guns.

Is this jade, by chance?

Do you know what these stone inlays are?

I think it's bone.

Bone?

And that has been dyed green.

Oh, okay.

There's numerous marks on the gun, as you know, here on the top of the barrel.

One on the Miquelet lock.

And one here in the brass decoration.

It's called a Miquelet lock because the lock mechanism is actually on the external portion.

And this was a very common feature amongst Ottoman guns.

Really?

From the 17th through the 19th centuries.

Have you given any thought to value?

I really have not, and I would even hate to speculate.

One of the key desirable features of this gun, again, is this thick butt, which would indicate to me that the gun is probably 17th century.

Wow.

So it was actually antique when it was probably given to...

When it was given to him, it was already an antique.

...Commodore Macdonough, yeah.

Because it was well over 100 years old.

It does have some condition issues.

There's losses to the brass, losses to the wood.

But the market for this type of Islamic material is very strong.

At auction I would estimate that it would make around $7,000 to $10,000.

Oh, my Lord.

I absolutely had no idea, that's amazing.

It's a beautiful piece, and quite early.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

WOMAN: This ring came to me by way of my mother-in-law's death.

APPRAISER: Okay.

And my husband received it in a velvet drawstring bag with a few other things.

And we saw my mother-in-law wear it often, so we never saw it off to look at the back.

Really look at it.

To see if we knew anything about it.

Okay.

I wear it occasionally.

Okay.

And one time I had it to a jeweler just by chance because I was having my wedding bands replaced and repaired.

Okay.

And he pushed it away and said it's costume.

Okay.

And so I...

I know nothing about it.

And do you know where your mother-in-law got the ring?

We have no idea.

I'm glad that you wear it.

Thank you.

It's a lovely ring.

And what's great about it is that strong green color, and do you know what that stone is?

I assume it's an emerald.

Right, and you're correct in assuming that.

And what you want in a gemstone is that vibrant color.

You want to see green from across the room when you wear it.

And you have that here.

What's great about it, beyond that, and interesting as well, is that it's actually foil-backed, pretty much.

This is a platinum backing, and that acts as a foil that really accentuates the light that comes through the green.

So that makes it an even stronger and more vibrant color.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

The ring dates to the early 20th century.

And we know that because surrounding the emerald are about 2.5 carats of antique-cut stones.

Oh, my.

The emerald itself is just under 20 carats.

You're kidding me.

Right.

Because most emeralds are heavily included, and this emerald is included.

Even though it has that great strong green color, whoever cut this stone made the decision to not facet it.

And it's been cut into a cabochon.

The inclusions in the stone would have probably prohibited it from being a faceted stone, or an emerald cut, like we normally see.

Interesting.

It might be worth your while to look into finding out origin in this case.

I believe that it's probably from Colombia.

Oh.

And you want your emeralds to be from Colombia.

They're synonymous with that grass green color, that vibrant green... That is.

...that you see here.

Beyond that, in terms of where it's made, it's unmarked.

But I assume that it could either be American, or maybe even English.

Many times emeralds are treated.

They're likely normally oiled to enhance color.

I would assume that this maybe has minor traditional oiling.

But again, all of that would... we'd have to find that out from... from a certification... Did you say 20 carat?

Just under 20 carats.

My stars.

Yeah, so it's quite a... quite a stone.

If this were to come into auction, I would give it a conservative estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 to $8,000.

Oh, my stars!

Oh!

And I expect it could maybe do more.

Oh, that's just amazing.

Good.

Costume, right?

Yeah, not so much.

That's just amazing, thank you.

You're welcome.

Maybe I could hang it as a necklace... Well, that could be your necklace, and this could be your hat.

There you go.

(laughing) I don't think it's...

Interesting, interesting.

So two... so two separate pieces?

I think so.

Maybe something to close.

I don't think it's the same.

Price would be about $300 to $500.

It's the Hafner set from the '20s and '30s.

Cast iron, clockwork locomotive.

Lithograph tin, freight cars.

It's one of the first times I've seen it in a freight set.

$250, $300, $400 at auction.

All right.

Thank you for bringing it in.

Thank you.

WOMAN: It is a tablecloth signed by Willie Mays.

I was at a banquet in 1996 and was lucky enough to be seated next to him.

He had been asked by a lot of people for his signature, and I did not ask him for it.

Right.

So he said, "Do you know anything about baseball?"

And I said, "I know about you, but not much about baseball."

And he said, "Well, let me tell you about my life."

And he took out a Sharpie and just started writing.

On the tablecloth.

On the tablecloth.

This was the Marine Corps dinner, 1996.

Right.

He wrote down $100 a seat, which was the cost of attending.

Okay.

He wrote down "Say Hey Kid," his nickname.

Yup.

His number, this is his signature.

It was just a stream of consciousness.

He just was talking and writing as he went along.

So Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, one of the greatest baseball players of all time.

And you see "S.F."

is San Francisco.

Yes.

He started with the New York Giants, and then they moved to San Francisco, and then he finished his career back in New York with the Mets in 1973, which I believe is what this means.

And he started of course in 1951, had a phenomenal career.

Celebrity doodles are very popular, and Willie Mays is one of the most desirable signatures of ball players.

You've got something that's obviously one of a kind.

I'm not... he might have done this at other events, but I've never seen one.

So I would think you'd have to insure this for at least $1,000 to $1,500.

Great.

WOMAN: Well, I brought this cane in that belonged to my husband's uncle that he carved in the early '30s.

APPRAISER: And where was he from?

He was from eastern Oregon, John Day country.

And what did he do for a living?

Well, in later life he worked for a highway department, but at the time he carved this cane he was a sheep herder.

Oh, was he?

Okay, which was popular in Oregon in the 1930s.

Yeah.

1930s we have the Depression going on, and this is a wonderful cane.

It's almost a transitional piece between the 19th and the 20th century.

And it's wonderful that we actually know the maker of the cane.

These things become almost a personal totem of the person's life and what he was doing at that moment in his life.

Now, this is very special because we have a letter here from Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and can you tell us a little about that?

When we first got the cane, we didn't know that the documents existed.

Later on after he died, a cousin of his wife's gave us these documents, and that's the first we knew that he was kind of famous for the cane.

It was exciting to discover it had been in the Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Odditorium-- O-D-D-itorium-- in the Chicago World's Fair in 1934.

Wow, so this was already being shared with the country at the Chicago World's Fair.

Yeah.

And it had received an award for doing such.

It's wonderful, it's carved out of a single piece of wood.

It's hard to pin down the exact wood, but it's a hard wood.

So we think it might even be mahogany.

We're not really sure.

That's what he called it, was mountain mahogany.

Now let's take a look over here at the top.

We see this wonderful salamander.

We could actually see on the cane the signature of the artist.

Right.

And his name was?

Walter Malade.

And it's dated 1933.

At the very top of the cane, what we see is the symbol of the elk.

So he was a member of the Elks.

When we start to go down the cane, we see a carving of Buffalo Bill.

And I don't know if he knew Buffalo Bill.

Do you have any recollection of that, or any family history?

I have no idea.

We don't.

And it may just be that he saw Buffalo Bill in a Wild West show, and was taken by all the similarities between him and his life.

So we see all these great hunting scenes going on here.

And going down the cane, one of the most beautiful things is this fishing rod with a little fly at the end of it and this salmon coming down the cane.

And we even see the diamond, and we have the club, and we have the spade.

So more than likely, in some spare time he was playing cards with his fellow Elks at the lodge.

I would imagine.

I feel very comfortable insuring this in $5,000 range for insurance purposes.

Okay.

That's awesome.

My husband's great-aunt was a saloon owner in Montana in the early part of the 1900s, you know, 20th century.

During the 1920s, she met O.C.

Seltzer.

He was one of the patrons there, and they became good friends.

The family legend is that she even cut his hair.

She was close enough friends with him for that.

At some point in their friendship, he gave her this and actually another painting that he had done himself, and then I think he went on to New York.

She eventually ended up in Las Vegas, married there, and that's where I met her.

And these have been hanging in the family home, my in-laws', for all of that time.

You mentioned that O.C.... Olaf Carl Seltzer.

Yes.

Yes, and do you know much about him?

Not until I became curious about these.

I always thought this one was so beautiful, and I read a little about him online and understood that he was in Montana at the same time.

So it seemed to fit our history.

I understood that he also met Charles Russell, is it, was another... That's correct.

...another artist, and that they met in a saloon.

So I was curious at that point, I wonder if it's the saloon where Aunt Beverly worked and owned.

I wonder if she got any Charles Russells, too.

That would be nice to know.

Wouldn't that be fun, that'd be a fun discovery.

Because Charles Russell and Remington, I suppose, are the two-- probably the most sought after artists in Western art.

Oh, is that right, yes, yes.

But you're absolutely right, Seltzer looked on Russell very much as a mentor, and he was very much a willing acolyte.

Okay.

And even helped him out with commissions in New York during his life.

Yes.

And Russell was a big influence-- both on him personally, and in terms of the kind of art that he was producing.

You're quite right, he did move out to Great Falls, Montana, in 1897 with his mother.

His father had died.

He was originally from Copenhagen, in Denmark.

Oh, yes.

He started painting early on, around about 12, I think.

But when he moved out to Montana, he was working on the railroad, and then I think it was around about '44 or so that the railroad laid him off and he spent all his time painting after that.

Oh, is that right, okay.

So these were earlier than that.

Yeah.

Okay.

He was a tremendously prolific artist.

Okay.

And in fact, I believe there's in excess of 2,500 paintings by him around.

Really?

He has popped up in the Roadshow before.

I remember once saying, one of the pieces I was appraising, I said, "Well, of course "if it was a Native American Indian, it would be worth a bit more."

Yes.

And here we have a Native American Indian.

Okay, yes.

And I spoke to our friends in the tribal arts table, and they told me that it's a Northern Plains, a North Plains Indian.

Oh, beautiful.

And they weren't sure, they thought possibly Nez Perce or Blackfoot, but we're not exactly clear on that.

Sure, okay, okay.

So that helps the value of it, too.

It is a very striking figure here in the composition.

And a medium, which he used frequently, which was oil on board.

It's got all the elements that someone collecting Western art would want in a Seltzer.

And so at auction, I would feel pretty comfortable putting an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000 on it.

(gasps) (laughing): Okay.

That's fabulous.

That's wonderful.

He had a lot of haircuts, didn't he?

Yeah, he did.

I...

I...

I hope that's all he got.

Now...

I'm just hoping, I'm like oh...

But she... she was such a fun character.

WOMAN: I inherited it.

It was given to me by my mother, which came down from her mother, and so it was my great-grandmother's quilt.

APPRAISER: Do you know how your great-grandmother acquired the quilt?

She and her husband were missionaries assigned to serve in Hawaii, and they had already served one mission, and then they came home to Salt Lake, and then they went back and served a second mission.

And at the end of their second mission, the Hawaiian sisters so loved and appreciated Libbie, that they made this quilt and gave it to her as a token of their appreciation.

So what we see here is this would be your great-grandmother's name on the quilt.

Yes, yes.

And do you know the significance of any of the other things that we're seeing on the quilt?

There's some reference to Hawaiian royalty.

Mm-hmm.

With the crowns.

And we see the flag of the United States and Hawaiian flag.

Right.

So the coming together of those two cultures.

Right.

And do you know what the initials mean on the bottom of the quilt?

Yes, M.H.

stands for "Mission Hawaii."

And it's dated 1894.

Yes.

So that would have been the Church of the Latter-day Saints mission in Hawaii.

Yeah, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Correct.

In Hawaii.

It's very interesting that there's a tie-in here, because Hawaiian quilts, you don't think of going to Hawaii and sleeping under a quilt because it's so warm there.

And the first New England missionaries, when they went to Hawaii, taught the women how to make quilts.

And Hawaiian quilts have become exceedingly desirable in the quilt-collecting world, and in museums because there's not a lot of them, they're on a white background or a pastel background, but a bold graphic design.

And I think with the eagle in the center of yours, we see that there's really amazing graphic design.

It's got a lot of symbolism in the design of the quilt.

It's a really, really lovely piece.

And it's still in such good condition.

You do have a little bit of darkening in a few areas here, and a little bit over here.

But that's something that a professional quilt restorer could easily clean for you.

But you would definitely want to have it done by a professional.

The retail value on a quilt like this would be about between $9,000 and $10,000.

Goodness, that is amazing.

And I had no idea.

APPRAISER: So you dug it?

WOMAN: We found it in a riverbed.

That's cool.

At a local show, I think it might bring $500 to $700, maybe even $1,000.

It's great that it's local, obviously wrestling.

I don't know how popular it is here in Salt Lake City.

Huge.

Is it?

Yeah.

Because of the condition, its value is almost entirely as a curiosity.

It's got a Birmingham mark, and it's got a maker's mark, "G.M.P.," and there's a couple other hallmarks.

And then right over here, it says "sterling silver."

Probably around $100.

Oh, wonderful.

All right?

Thank you very much.

WOMAN: My husband's grandparents bought it.

They went on a trip to New Mexico and Arizona, somewhere in the late 1930s, early 1940s.

And then we got it when my mother-in-law passed away a couple years ago.

This is really an interesting piece.

This is a rug that would date 1930s, 1940s.

It is from the Ganado area of the Navajo reservation.

And the condition is really good.

Now, Navajo rugs hate children... (chuckles) ...they hate high heels, they hate the sun, and they hate pets.

This thing has basically been unscathed.

The edge is in great shape, and really most importantly, this red-- which is an aniline red dye-- is very sensitive to the sun, and normally it's very faded.

This looks great.

This is a perfect size, so there'd be a really big market for this.

It's a cool piece, $6,000 to $8,000.

Ooh, wow.

That would be in a design showroom or in a really good gallery.

Great, thank you.

That's... wow.

MAN: My grandmother and her family, which was my father as a teenager, moved to Arizona in 1925.

APPRAISER: Okay.

She had, previous to that, been a fabric designer, which was her professional training.

And all of her previous works was lost in transit of some kind, a trunk was lost.

So she started over.

When she arrived in Phoenix in 1925, drawing with colored pencil, the Arizona cactus.

Okay.

And later, expanded into wildflowers in eastern Arizona when they bought a cabin in that area.

And how long did she work in Arizona?

Well, she died in 1951, so that was a 26-year career of drawing these flowers.

Do you remember her?

Oh, very much.

As a child I grew up spending summers at this cabin in eastern Arizona.

And she took me on walks in the woods and pointed things out, and we gathered raspberries.

And all of these lovely things that a child would remember about their grandmother.

Sure.

I remember looking for flowers with my parents that she had not drawn.

And it finally got to where we could not find any flowers that she had not drawn.

Okay, and what was her... give me her full name.

Her name was Cora Estelle Cameron Mosher.

When I saw this collection, which includes 141 total watercolors or colored pencil sketches, I was a little taken aback.

I was surprised at the meticulous attention to detail that she devoted to these works.

And I assume that after she arrived in 1925, she probably worked pretty aggressively on these, all the way leading up to her death.

I think so.

They sort of harken back to an earlier period of botanical study in the early 19th century, even the 18th century, where many artists would take detailed studies of certain regions of plants or fungi.

And in this case, there are several studies of cactus.

And there weren't many artists working during that period of time, but that intense passion and that attention to detail.

Yes.

I noticed in these books that several of them are identified with their scientific name and her name.

So can you tell me a little bit about how that happened?

This collection existed in a suitcase since she died.

And they never saw the light of day.

But one day my mother had now moved to Utah, decided to take the collection down to the Monte Bean Museum at BYU.

When she opened the books and showed them to the horticulturists, they were so blown away by the quality and the amazing detail that she had put into these drawings that they called all kinds of people around.

And they were able not only to recognize the flowers, but to give them scientific names.

I did a little research just to make absolutely certain, and there does not exist another collection of Arizona region botanical studies that is this comprehensive.

Wow.

She clearly devoted a great deal of time and attention to detail to it.

There are these collections that occasionally surface on the market today.

But oftentimes they're published.

And so we have perhaps a group of published engravings to compare them to.

Or published lithography to compare them to.

In this case, I understand they were not published.

No.

And so they're all original works.

At auction today, given that there are 141 studies, as a collection, I would fully expect a range of $7,000 to $10,000 today.

Wow.

(laughing) Had you ever thought that would be the case with her work?

Well, no.

(laughs) MAN: This is a 1969 Hot Wheels Beach Bomb prototype.

I received this from my father, who was a foreman at Mattel Corporation in California at about that same time.

And he told me that this was a prototype that would fall off the track because it was top-heavy.

And he told me to put it away, it may be valuable someday.

So I put it in a trunk, and that's where it's been for the last almost 50 years.

Okay, and you also today brought-- which was great for the provenance-- you brought a business card of your father's.

Yes.

He gave this to me.

I always kept it in the same place as the Hot Wheels.

And now did you ever test it yourself?

No, I didn't, it was probably the one time in my life where I actually minded my parents.

Okay.

So it went into a box in a trunk and stayed there until just very recently.

And did he bring a lot of Hot Wheels home?

Actually, I had the set of every Hot Wheels that was made in the year 1969, but I did play with all of those.

Okay.

Did he ever tell you the story about the testing and how they found out that it was top-heavy?

Yes, he did.

It was fascinating.

It's probably why I put it away.

Okay, and that involved the Super-Charger?

Yes.

Okay, tell me about that.

So the Super-Charger is a little building that sits on top of a track with wheels that have foam in them that spin around and shoot the car out.

And these, in the initial stage, in the original design tended to tip over because they were top-heavy.

Exactly.

So they had to go back to the drawing board, redesign it.

Their answer was side-loading boards for the cars, and those were actually produced.

It's very limited what we know about this prototype, but it is the 1969 Hot Wheels Beach Bomb Rear Loader prototype.

Only out issued as a prototype.

It was mass-produced in a small batch, but then only in testing environments with kids.

Explains how you were probably able to get one to come home too.

They did find out that it did not work.

They went back to the drawing board and had to redesign it to what you talked about where it had the surfboards on the sides.

Do you know anything about how many of these are out there?

I have read that there are 40 known in the world of varying conditions.

Well, we've done a lot of research on this.

I have also spoken to one of the expert Hot Wheel collectors in the country today.

And what we know about this actually is that there's 40 different variations of the prototypes from this line.

All various colors.

However, the most popular one being the pink rear loader.

If you've seen pictures of that one before.

Yes.

That's the most popular one.

The red one, however, seems to be in a little more limited quantities.

Other indication that it's a prototype, because this was reproduced.

What we know from inspecting this and from your provenance, this is an original prototype.

But the prototypes also came with the clear windows, which the redesign did not.

Right.

Inspecting it all around too, it appears to be in near mint condition.

And everybody was excited to hear about it that it surfaced today.

We use the term holy grail loosely in collecting.

It... sometimes at shows it'll just fly out of somebody's mouth.

In this case, this is the holy grail of Hot Wheels.

(chuckles) That's nice to hear.

When I say holy grail for Hot Wheels, just the rear loader prototype.

Right.

Of course came in different colors, is considered without question, the holy grail of Hot Wheels.

Right.

Now, you've done some reading, I'm sure.

What have you found for values?

They've been kind of all over the board, but anywhere from $40,000 to $125,000 is what I've read.

Okay.

Well, looking at this one, we're looking at the rarity of the color, we're looking at how good a condition it's in being near mint condition, and how few of them surface in the hobby for sale.

The card only adds to the provenance, and that's something that's really important to go with it as part of its value.

It would probably affect it, I would say, between 10% to 20% without the card.

I see.

Because that provenance is so important because they did reproduce these.

We'd put a value on this one at auction for between $100,000 to $150,000.

That's nice to hear.

Thank you.

That's great.

(chuckles) For a little car.

(laughing): Yes.

WALBERG: You're watching Antiques Roadshow from Salt Lake City.

Remember, you can see us any time online at pbs.org/antiques.

Don't go away, the Feedback Booth is coming up, right after this.

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

I found out that my dishes are very old, they're about 100 years old, but they are worth about two dollars each.

And I found out my books are worth $500 each.

Whoo-hoo!

Yes!

I found out today that my photo my uncle took of the White House in flames is a ten-dollar photo in a $300 frame.

We brought our violins to the Antiques Roadshow today.

This was $2,000.

$1,500.

This we'd have to pay someone to take it from us.

Got a $200 reproduction of one of the most famous posters in the world, 50 Foot Woman-- Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

1970s reproduction's worth about $200.

Iron Maiden poster, 1988, taken from a wall in Liverpool, worth $1,500.

We're wearing $800 Iron Maiden t-shirts, we've got $3,000 worth of Iron Maiden here.

My dad told me this carpet was a flying carpet when I was a kid.

But it wasn't really true, it's a Persian carpet worth about $700.

I have Yellowstone pictures, and they will be a lot... worth a lot more if everybody else throws theirs away.

And this is a euphonium, and it is actually from the Park City Mining band.

And it is worth its weight in brass, as well as it will make a great flower planter.

(laughing) WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.