North Carolina Museum of Art, Hour 2

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" has shown up with our experts as North Carolinians show off their treasures.

We do see trophies come up for Miss America, but firsts are always the best.

Get out!

(laughs) I don't even know what to say!

♪ ♪ PEÑA: With 30 sculptures of Auguste Rodin in its collection, the North Carolina Museum of Art is one of the greatest centers of works by Rodin in the United States.

Often referred to as the first modern sculptor, the French artist's revolutionary creations were a departure from the sculptors who preceded him with the expressive power of his iconic pieces, such as "The Thinker," "The Cathedral," "The Kiss," and many others that continue to captivate and inspire over a century after they were modeled.

♪ ♪ What treasures have inspired "Roadshow" at the North Carolina Museum of Art today?

Take a look.

APPRAISER: It's not ancient, I'm afraid.

Okay.

I would love it to be ancient, believe me.

(chuckles) That's a... we were hoping...

I would probably have to return it if it were.

GUEST: I brought "Amazing Fantasy #15," the first appearance of Spider-Man in a comic book by Marvel.

When I was 12 years old, 1962, we would go to town to get groceries on Saturdays and stop at a hot dog stand.

And if I had been behaving myself, I would get a chance to pick out a comic or two.

I was into Disney characters and anything that make you laugh.

I was not a superhero comic person until Spider-Man came along, and that... that one I just picked up, and it got into the, uh, collection and has been there ever since.

APPRAISER: I am getting goosebumps.

That experience of buying this comic right off the newsstand.

Yeah.

And what was it like flipping those pages for the first time and reading the story of Spider-Man?

Well, because it was so odd that a kid gets bitten by a radioactive spider and has these superpowers, you know, and, and you think, "Oh, wouldn't that be fun to do, swing from building to building?"

And it was just really fun to read about h, his exploits.

It was released August 1962.

It's right at the beginning of the heart of the Silver Age of Marvel Comics.

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, literally god legends of Marvel Comics, came up with this character.

They wanted it to be relatable.

They wanted it to be a young boy, teen.

He was raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

He always experienced money problems.

He was picked on, he was never the cool kid in school.

And they wanted it to be a character that readers like yourself could grow with the character.

He's Spider-Man, but he was a boy.

He's Peter Parker, right?

Mm.

He's a high school teen.

Mm-hmm.

Coming out of the late Golden Age, the big trend in comic books was romance, westerns and a lot of science fiction.

So when this book came along, it was mind-blowing.

This title of "Amazing Fantasy" was exclusive to just the last issue in this series.

The title run started out as "Amazing Adventures," issues one through six.

And then from issues seven to 14, it became "Amazing Adult Fantasy."

And then, finally, for issue 15, they dropped the "Adult" in it.

It just became "Amazing Fantasy."

And it was the first departure for that title coming from a science fiction-type thriller story into going into superheroes.

In 1962, Martin Goodman, the publisher, was very hesitant to let Steve Ditko and Stan Lee come out with this character, but it ended up being ultimately one of the greatest-selling comics in Marvel history.

And this book is how we get "Amazing Spider-Man" issue one in March 1963.

Now, artwork-wise, we do have Steve Ditko inside on both the pencils and the inks.

And when it came to the cover, Steve Ditko was intended to be the cover artist on this piece.

But Stan Lee was like, "Steve, no way."

But I got to give it to Jack Kirby."

So Jack Kirby penciled the cover on this, but Steve Dicko did do the inking on it.

Coming from the hot dog stand, you did a good job.

No ketchup or mustard stains on it.

(chuckles) How did you keep it for so long?

Well, you had to take care of your stuff.

I did the same thing with my toys.

If you break it, it's gone, you know.

It's no... you don't replace it just, like, 'cause you want another one.

So my parents taught me to just take care of your stuff.

There's no exact number, but it's believed that over a quarter million, 250,000 copies, approximately, of this book were printed.

This wasn't intended to be kept.

These were meant to be-- you buy this month's issue, you read it, oh, toss it out.

Next month, I'm going to get a new comic.

Have you ever had it looked at in the past?

At a small comic shop.

Fellow looked at it, and he said, if I was to sell it, I wouldn't take less than $1,000.

That's what he told me.

Oh, wouldn't take less than $1,000?

Yeah, yeah.

Condition-wise, this book is pretty terrible.

Numerically speaking, it's what we'd say, it's a 1.8 to a 2.0, on the grade of ten being the theoretical highest grade you could possibly achieve.

It's ripped, it's missing pieces.

It has cream-to-off-white pages.

But the big factor here, though, that's good, is the cover.

While it is missing a piece out of the upper corner, it is still fully attached at both staples.

For a Silver Age of comics, Marvel Comics, it does not get better than "Amazing Fantasy #15."

Today's market prices have been a little volatile.

We experienced a big boom through, uh, the COVID pandemic, where prices really went through the roof.

Now, we've had some market readjustment, but even so, in this condition, conservatively, at auction today, this would be, uh, $18,000 to $22,000.

Get out!

Oh!

Do I have a buyer in the house?

(laughs) Thank you so much.

Yeah.

What a surprise.

What a surprise.

That... the highest graded copy within the past couple of years sold at auction for $3.6 million.

(whistles) It's an old radio, I'm not exactly sure on the date.

I want to say '40s or '50s.

Uh, know it's never been touched, no one's ever done anything to it, so I thought it was pretty rad.

It was a gift to me from a dear friend.

This is my father, this is his... these are his clothes.

And, uh, during World War II, my dad was in Burma.

APPRAISER: Have you always displayed this on a mannequin in your house?

Or is that just to scare children?

No, no!

(laughs) We did this especially for the "Antiques Roadshow."

Bulk of the value here would be in the hat, Uh-huh but just the items themselves, not counting the mannequin, you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about $150 to $200 worth of material.

Okay.

GUEST: My friend Dane and I were at a vintage shop in Raleigh in August of last year, and looking through some of the artwork there, and as she was thumbing through, I saw this piece.

And I am an art teacher, and my colleague had done a lesson on Minnie Evans every year with her students.

So I recognized the style right away, it's very distinct.

But I thought, surely this can't be a Minnie Evans just sitting here in this bin in this shop.

So I thought, well, we're going to take a chance that it is.

(chuckles) And, uh, we took it up to purchase.

Let's talk a little bit about Minnie Evans and who she was.

Yes.

An African American artist that lived near Wilmington, North Carolina.

Mm-hmm.

One day, she decided that she should paint these things.

She seemed... She sort of had visions, I think she described it.

Yeah, well, yeah.

And there's no doubt that this is one of her works.

Anytime an artist starts going up in value, you're going to see fakes.

Sure, yeah.

But I've probably seen, I don't know, 50 of these.

And in my mind, it's absolutely right.

It is some kind of artist paper that probably was on a pad.

She had a very distinctive way of workin' with crayons and, and also graphite.

If you look at the work that's out there, a lot of 'em would have, like, a face in the center, and then Yes.

some of the larger ones maybe have, like, four more faces.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And then she would fill in with those abstracts of fruit and flowers, and no two are alike.

And to me, the cool thing about this is this is an eye dazzler, because when you look at it, Yeah.

you, you see different things every time you look at it.

Yes.

And to me, that's what good folk art is.

Great folk art draws you in from across the room.

And this is fairly early.

It's signed lower right there, 1959.

She started doing this a long time before that, but her most productive period must have been in the '60s.

She lived to the mid-'80s.

I've seen bigger ones.

I've seen ones not as colorful.

(laughs) If you went to a nice gallery, and if this were archivally framed, which might add several hundred dollars to the cost of it, they'd probably ask $8,000 to $10,000 for it.

Oh, wow, that is... And... ...a good investment.

(both laugh) That...

I...

I... that is surprising to me.

I didn't realize it was worth that much.

What did you pay?

$39.

(laughs) $39.

In the last ten or 15 years, her work has at least doubled, and I don't see it going down anytime soon.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: Ancient Egyptians believed that after death, a spiritual body undertook a challenging journey to reach the afterlife.

This model of a papyrus reed boat was created sometime between 1985 and 1605 BCE.

It was meant to represent the watercraft and staff the deceased would need to navigate the Nile and access the afterworld.

GUEST: My grandfather, who worked for the Norfolk and Western railroad for years, was a major collector of antiques as well as Native American art.

He's had this piece ever since I can remember.

So when he passed away, I wound up with this piece and have had it for, well, probably at least 20 years.

APPRAISER: How long do you think your granddad had it?

He probably had it at least 60 years or better.

This was made in New Mexico, right along the northern Rio Grande river.

The tribal attribution is either Cochiti or Santo Domingo Pueblo.

This is a water pitcher.

The figure is a bird, kind of with pop-eyes and a big beak.

And Native people associate themselves with the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom.

And so this bird, in a certain sense, would be an emissary to the upper world.

In the upper world, where we have clouds, we have rain, so there's sort of a form and function here.

You have a water pitcher in the shape of a bird, which is unusual.

The bird brings our prayers, our imprecations up to the heavens.

They're flying amongst these geometric devices which represent clouds.

And you'll notice they're pointing down.

All of these streaks with these little white dashes in them represent raindrops.

And then the harbinger of rain, of course, is lightning.

There's a lightning bolt coming from the upper world down to earth.

There's something really fascinating going on along the bottom.

These are deer.

The procreation of, of animal life, of human life, it all depends upon agriculture.

Sure.

So, so the deer are waiting for the grass to grow.

But every one of these deer are looking skyward.

I just think that's such a fantastic element to this pot.

Ah.

I had not noticed that, but you're right.

And then this last little character with that whimsical, wagging tail, that may well be a dog.

Dogs are exceedingly important in tribal culture.

Dogs are known as, as the first companion of man.

It's all incorporated into this complex of rainfall, agriculture, life.

These are all sacred images.

So that's very, very important to the tribe.

I don't believe that this was made for Native use.

I believe it was made as a trade item.

But the imagery is ancient, goes back a thousand years in the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona.

Traditional Native American pottery tended to be purely for function.

The only Pueblo pottery that was made in a figural way or, or with a, a sculptural embellishment might have been for ceremonial functions, w-which this is not.

This is made to appeal to a non-Native buyer.

Any idea when that cottage industry might have started?

Second half of the 19th century, Ah.

and I would say in New Mexico, 1850 to 1870.

I think I would date this 1870 to 1890.

And Pueblo life in New Mexico in the last quarter of the 19th century was... hadn't changed too much.

There weren't automobiles running around the Pueblo.

These people were living in very much the same fashion as their ancestors did a thousand years earlier, and, and they maintained this way of life-- it was sacred.

The handle shows a tremendous amount of wear, so it was actually utilized as a water vessel.

This is, uh, ceramic, obviously, it's handmade.

The clay is a naturally harvested clay.

Probably within a hundred yards of where the lady lived, she would have had her own little clay pit.

There's a lot of craquelure all along the paint, and that would be a, an indication of its age.

I would say, on a retail basis, this would be worth approximately $6,500.

Wow.

Wow.

Thank you, my gosh.

This was not something I was expecting for certain.

GUEST: I bought a fob several years ago at an antique store, and ever since I found it, I was curious as to the information on the person's name and death date that was in there.

I feel like it's a family piece, it should belong to the family, if I, if I knew them.

This was a watch fob.

A gentleman would be wearing a vest, pocket watch would be here.

Yes.

And maybe a pocketknife here.

And then this would have hung right there.

But this is not just a fob.

It has a little secret.

This piece is hinged.

In here is some braided hair.

Isn't that sweet?

It's sweet but, you know, it's sad.

This is a memorial fob for somebody who passed.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

I believe it says 1864, the 12 of May, Yes.

when he would have been born, and he dies way too young.

The 25 March, 1866, so I can't tell you who he is.

You're gonna...

I was hoping.

We're not that good here.

(laughs) More research needed.

Yes.

You paid how much for it?

About two.

$200.

Mm-hmm.

Because it's a memorial fob, in an auction, I think I would have it in for $800 to $1,200.

Very nice.

It was such a sweet thing in there that just grabs you.

Yeah, well, it gets you.

Yes, it does.

It gets you.

GUEST: I found them in my parents' house in a closet.

They had purchased the house from a cousin who had affiliations with people in Florida.

APPRAISER: Do you recall when you located them?

It was the end of 2019.

When I found them, I found out that they possibly could be some of the Florida Highwaymen paintings.

Well, your suspicions are really true.

These both are by an artist named Willie Daniels, and he's considered to be a second generation Florida Highwayman painter.

Okay.

The Florida Highwaymen started out with just a handful of artists that were trained by an artist named Bacchus.

The first generation of artists, they were about 26 artists.

Mm-hmm.

And even though, by the way, they're called the Florida Highwaymen, there was one woman that was a part of that original group.

Really?

Those artists were all African American.

And in the 1950s is when this all started.

And they weren't considered serious artists, they weren't allowed to be displayed in commercial or, uh, institutional galleries.

Uh-huh.

But they ended up, uh, selling them out of the trunks of their cars or along the street and knocking door to door, knocking on doors and saying, "Would you be interested in buying 'em?"

Selling them for ten, 15, 20, 30 bucks a pop.

Willie Daniels was born in 1950.

He was born in Georgia, but as a small child, his family moved to Florida.

He showed this interest in painting.

Willie Daniels was mentored by Harold Newton, who was one of the original Highwaymen.

Really?

And so those younger artists that came along later are considered the second generation-- I'm not exactly sure Oh, okay.

how many of those artists there are, Uh-huh.

but Willie Daniels was one of the more prominent members.

Okay.

As a matter of fact, Daniels was elected into the Florida Hall of Fame of Artists along with the original 26.

Really?

They are not dated, but I would say they were done sometime in the mid-1980s.

One of their pieces was featured by Michelle Obama in the White House, for example.

I didn't know that.

And so their stature has risen tremendously, and that, as a result, has popularized them.

So it's really gratifying to see how they went from obscurity and exclusion, Mm-hmm.

to recognition and a, a nice, thriving, uh, market.

I would say at auction, both of these pieces, as a pair, would sell for between Mm-hmm.

$2,000 and $4,000.

Really?

I had no idea.

Yeah.

Oh.

Mm.

Okay.

(chuckles) Oh.

Well, they're going to be hung in my house, so.

Excellent, excellent.

GUEST: My great-great-aunt was the first Miss America.

Her name was Margaret Gorman.

And she was from Washington, D.C. And she represented Washington, D.C., in the pageant.

There was a local newspaper contest that you could enter to then move on to the pageant.

And I believe her mother entered her into the contest in which she won.

So then she won her place at the pageant in Atlantic City.

As far as I know, they were looking to kind of get more tourism in Atlantic City, and that's why they kind of started the... this pageant.

She was presented the larger trophy in 1921 and then the smaller one in 1923.

APPRAISER: Well, that is your aunt over there.

Yes, that is her.

What do you remember about your aunt?

Well, one interesting fact I do remember is that a lot of people would ask her about being Miss America, the first, how she felt about it, and she was actually very humble about it.

It's extraordinary to me that she won at such a young age, that sh... only 16.

Only 16, mm-hmm.

We do see trophies come up for Miss America, but firsts are always the best.

Yes.

And what's really interesting about this is that the 1921 contest, which is considered the very first Miss America pageant, was not yet the Miss America pageant.

And on this trophy, it was from the 1923 contest.

But they've actually called out Miss America 1921.

So they presented her with something to have the title of Miss America, kind of recognizing the fact that she won in 1921, and that she was the first Miss America.

And she is absolutely regarded and recognized as the first Miss America.

This is kind of a full circle moment, Mm-hm, yeah.

that we started as a bathing beauty contest in 1921.

Yes, mm-hmm.

They just celebrated the 100th anniversary of Miss America in 2021.

Yes.

Exactly.

And at this point, there is no swimsuit competition as part of the pageant anymore.

I know!

Yeah.

So even though that's how it started, it's moved into so much more.

Mm-hmm.

And now Miss America is a figure that represents the organization and has to perform an extraordinary number of humanitarian duties.

Yes.

They help causes.

They're really activists.

And it's no longer just simply about beauty.

The 1921 trophy is actually marked.

They're both silver plate.

So their value really doesn't derive from the actual trophies themselves.

It's what they represent.

We also have some damage here.

(chuckles) It's lived a life.

Yes, yes.

Unfortunately, yes.

So this piece on the top was attached with a pierced metal design, and unfortunately those over time have snapped off.

It sits nicely here, so it still presents well.

Mm-hmm.

A lot of the 1920s trophies have come up for sale.

Oh, really?

Oh.

And when they do, this one, the 1923 naming her as the 1921 winner, would probably sell at auction in the p... $1,800 to $2,000 range.

Okay.

This one, however, when you have a first, that's pretty important.

Mm.

And despite the fact that there's some damage to it and it's lived a life, we would expect this one to be at least in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.

Oh, wow, that's pretty good.

(laughs) My husband loves to go to estate sales, Ah.

and he picks up stuff, Okay.

and that's all I know.

APPRAISER: At the bottom, it says Delft.

Delft is a city in the Netherlands.

And this is from a company called De Porceleyne Fles.

Mm-hmm.

This is from the last 30 years.

Yeah.

So it's nice, but it is a copy.

Oh, okay.

You may get 25 bucks.

That's all?

(laughs) All right.

That's all.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much.

My great-grandfather was a surgeon, and it was apparently in his office for the longest time.

APPRAISER: Never opened, right?

Never opened, no.

Says "For medicinal purposes only."

That was the only way you could sell liquor or buy liquor during Prohibition.

And this one was made in 1911, bottled in 1924.

So right during Prohibition.

Okay.

What's happened in the past couple of years is an explosion of early American-made whiskeys.

A bottle like this with the original box today is worth around $2,500 to $3,500.

Oh, cool!

Okay, great.

It's awesome.

That's very... yeah.

GUEST: I brought a poster of the original Madison Square Garden.

I believe it was built in 1879.

I got it at an auction seven years ago in Lafayette, Indiana.

I collect vintage posters, and I've never seen anything like it.

So the event, I did a little research.

It's a six-day race, and it was kind of a thing back then, which went away a few years later.

So not too many people know about it.

It's one of the things that when I saw, I thought, seems like a little too good to be true.

Randomly, I was at a convention of the Ephemera Society of America a few years ago, and the theme of the convention was sports.

And the speaker after me was talking about this thing I had never heard of before called competitive pedestrianism.

And in the 1870s and 1880s and 1890s, apparently it was such a huge craze that it, it captivated the world, both in England and in America.

And this piece is advertising one of the events in 1882 at Madison Square Garden.

So for six days, 144 hours, men-- and in different events, women-- would walk around the track basically without sleeping for six days to see how far they could go.

Over 530 miles they could do.

It was extraordinary.

Apparently, it was rife with gambling and fixes.

There are some accounts of this 1882 event, and we know that the star pedestrian was a champion, the long distance world champion named Charles Rowell.

And if you look closely at his belt, it says "Long Distance World Champion."

Rowell, who went in as the world champion, ended up dropping out of the race, and George Hazel won.

And as I mentioned, both that this was a hub of wagering and that it was phenomenally popular, people would rush the track.

And so you have men guarding the track.

Madison Square in New York City was first electrified in 1880.

I found that Madison Square Garden installed 30 electric lights.

So it's a history of technology poster also.

Mm-hmm.

Also, Madison Square Garden was heated, right?

This is February and March-- it would've been very cold.

So it's a very early example of that happening.

So this was a stone lithograph.

And around the same era, in the early 1880s, the, the technique of chromolithography really became much more prevalent.

And chromolithography was a technique by which printers could very affordably accurately recreate print images in multiple colors.

But this was prior to that.

That's why the colors here are so muted and, and not so prominent.

So the lithograph was printed by the Mayer, Merkel and Ottmann Lithograph Company in New York.

And it's hard to say how many were printed.

Usually with a lithographic stone, we could expect probably between 250 and 500, I would think, before the stone wore out.

So these would have been put up around the city.

They likely might even have been sold after the event as commemoratives, but they were not the kind of poster that would have been glued up to, you know, lampposts or put up on, onto hoardings.

Mm-hmm.

They were small enough that they would have been visible in stores or windows.

How much did you pay for it?

I paid $400.

Without the frame.

There's no record of this existing.

Not being able to find an example of this online, it's very hard to put an estimate on it.

But in talking to some of my colleagues, both at the sports table and the collectibles table and at the historical prints table, we feel that at auction, conservatively, this would sell for $2,000 to $3,000.

Oh, wow-- that's more than I thought.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: These Torah finials are fine examples of some of Hester Bateman's best work.

Bateman had no formal education, yet she became a successful silversmith when she inherited her husband's workshop after his death in 1760.

Her English workshop produced thousands of pieces, mostly domestic items like teapots and flatware, until she retired in 1790.

GUEST: I brought in a family album, autograph book.

It was passed down through my family.

My great-great-grandfather passed it down on my mother's side of the family and was given to me by my uncle.

Who collected this al... the autographs in this album?

My great-grandfather's wife's mother.

Mrs. Evans.

This is a 19th century autograph album.

Mrs. Anna Evans was the wife of George Evans, who was a member of Congress and a senator for Maine from about 1829 to 1847 or so.

What's unusual about her is that she actually traveled to D.C. with her husband.

At the time, most of the men elected to Congress went by themselves.

They only stayed for a few months.

They stayed in boarding houses, and then they went back to where, to where they lived.

They did not move permanently to D.C.

But your ancestor took his wife, and she was apparently the toast of the town.

(chuckles) And she kept this autograph book, which is really amazing.

So when you open it up, the very first page has an autographed poem by John Quincy Adams.

So the date here is 1834.

This is post-presidency for him.

After he lost reelection, he took a couple of years off, and then he ran for Congress.

So he's back in Washington as a congressman at this time, which, think about how weird that might be, to have the actual president on the floor with everybody else as a member of Congress.

What's interesting is that he said at the time, if he could have any other career besides politics, he would be a poet.

And here he's written this lovely poem...

Right.

...to Mrs. Evans.

So the first page is, is kind of a showstopper.

It's John Quincy Adams.

But it... as she goes on, you can really see how in the mix she is.

On this page is Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens, at this time, also a rock star.

(chuckles) This is 1842.

He's in the middle of his American tour, he's in Washington, and he went to Congress almost every day to kind of watch what was going on.

A few pages later, we have Davy Crockett, who at the time was serving as a member of congress for Tennessee.

And this is a really lovely inscription from him.

It's one of the longest inscriptions from him because he's sort of famously taciturn.

He says, "Mrs. Evans of Maine "requests the hunter from the west to write his name in her album."

Very sweet, very cool inscription.

There are three presidential signatures in this book.

There's a Martin Van Buren, and then at the very end, the very last page, has a clipped signature of James Madison and an inscription from Dolley Madison.

Do you know any other information about how she might have collected these signatures, or do you have any other information about this book?

So, my understanding was at, um, dinner parties that she would host at their house, at the... in D...

In Washington, D.C., and she would make them sign the books.

I think you're probably right, because when you read through them, it does seem to indicate that she, one, she's cornered them.

Right.

And two, they, they are often thanking her for her hospitality and her kindness.

That's something you might say to your, to your host at the end of a dinner.

And that explains why she would have access to so many political figures.

The way we approach an autograph book like this is we really think about it as the sum of its parts.

The John Quincy Adams, that might be $1,000 to $1,500 at auction.

The Charles Dickens might be $500 to $700.

The Dolley Madison with the James Madison, that might be another thousand to $1,500.

The Davy Crockett, which is really the star of the piece, Mm-hmm, right.

that would be... $10,000 to $15,000.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, that's the star.

Right.

So if you add that all up, $12,500 to $18,700.

Wow.

It's pretty nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

APPRAISER: Who does this belong to?

GUEST: Belongs to my mother.

She said that it was special and that it was English.

(chuckles) Well, I agree on both things.

(laughs) Did she say anything about why it's special?

She said it was two potter people that specialized in painting really ugly fish.

Well, there were brothers who worked in a part of London called Southall.

Southall is a, is a part of London that has a long tradition of making stoneware, which is what this is made of.

And they worked in the late 19th century and into the early 20th, and they were called the Martin brothers.

And, yeah, they were weird.

(chuckles) They were...

I mean, you look up "weird" and you get a picture of them.

Oh, that's great.

You can see the decoration.

It wasn't just fish.

They liked all kinds of what I would call beasties, you know.

But they're definitely weird, every one of them.

And why would you put fish, in any event, on a sugar bowl?

Which I think is what it is.

It's worth about $1,000 at auction and possibly as much as $1,400 or $1,500 at auction.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Great thing.

Amazing.

Does your mom have other weird stuff?

(chuckling): She does.

Well, look around if she has any other Martin brothers.

I will.

GUEST: This is a drawing sent to my mother-in-law by Tom Wesselmann.

This is his original drawing for his future "Still Life #61."

My mother-in-law had a lot of artist friends, which were at Pratt and Cooper Union, Okay.

where he was also associated, and they formed a friendship.

Was she an artist as well?

She was not, but she always was appreciative of the arts.

It was in my mother's bureau drawer for approximately 30 years.

And we have now retrieved it and framed it.

So, it, it, it's been in the family for quite a while.

And can you tell me a little about this letter that we have here as well?

Yes, this is also from Tom.

She had congratulated him on his son.

It says, "Dear Esther, we just had a boy, "nine pounds, two ounces.

Lane Hardy.

"We are delirious.

"Enclosed is a small gift for you.

"It's from my newest in progress giant still life.

"The ring will be nine feet high.

"Off to the country tomorrow.

"Regards, Tom.

"Took a while to get things in order here "to get this off to you.

Lane now almost two weeks old."

It's an exciting time.

Exciting time.

I would strongly encourage you to make a copy of the letter...

Okay.

But don't keep the letter itself behind the work.

Oh, okay.

That, that tends to be where silverfish and other things migrate.

Oh.

And they will eat paper.

Tom Wesselmann did a great deal of his work in New York.

Wesselmann is definitely associated with the pop art movement, Yes.

but he himself was not fond of that label.

Mm-hmm.

But these are everyday objects that he is trying to-- and some would argue succeeding-- he's making them exciting.

Mm-hmm.

This still life study is certainly a fabulous thing.

I, I do feel like we're burying the lede a little bit about Tom Wesselmann, because much of his work is... we'll call it risqué.

It is.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe all the way to naughty.

(laughter) That's frankly what he's most famous for.

But these still lives are also a, a known portion of, of his work.

This work is pencil and colored pencil on paper.

It's inscribed, signed, and dated on the bottom edge here, it says, "For Esther, Tom Wesselmann, '75."

Mm-hmm.

Tom Wesselmann died in 2004.

Right.

With the letter, the inscription, I think at auction right now, you're realistically looking at $25,000 to $35,000.

Wow, okay.

Thank, thank you.

It, it will stay in the family, but that, that's lovely to know.

If you were to insure it, I think you're looking at something like $75,000.

Oh.

Okay, we will do.

(both laugh) It's actually a piece, uh, I bought for my wife, uh, before we were married in Edinburgh, Scotland.

She had seen it in the window and thought it was cool in a little antique store.

What's that say?

Um... "Made in England.

Grindley."

It also has a picture of a ship on it.

Other than that, we don't know anything about it, so we're waiting to see any history on it.

GUEST: My dad got it, I think in the '60s.

APPRAISER: Okay.

He was in the C.I.A.

and he was stationed in Moscow and Leningrad.

The origins are pretty mysterious.

My dad always said Mm.

someone gave it to him to hold on to Okay.

and then never came back for it.

All right.

It is a flat woven, kilim-based rug from southern Persia... Oh.

From the Shiraz district.

Okay.

I would date it circa 1900.

It's got a fair amount of, of wear in it.

(chuckling): Yeah.

So is it, is it something that-- have you been using it on the floor in your home?

Yeah.

As, as long as I've been alive, it, it's been used as a rug.

In its current condition, it would still sell for something in the range of $2,500 to $3,500.

Wow.

Yeah.

If it was in better shape... Yeah.

...it probably would be twice as much.

♪ ♪ GUEST: This was found on the property that I grew up in, uh, Middle Tennessee.

My mom found it, honestly, in a trash pile, probably sometime in the mid to late '70s.

At some point, we were told that it might be Native American and potentially a game that they played.

Um, but I just want to know more.

This piece is what we call a discoidal or a chunkey stone.

It was for the chunkey game.

It is Mississippian culture, which dates to 1000 to 1500 A.D.

So they really predate European contact.

Wow.

Tennessee is a hub for these, Okay.

and they have a very distinct style of these discs.

Short-handed term, we call them discs.

So typically, a Tennessee discoidal will have what we call a dimple in the center.

Yours doesn't have the dimple.

Instead, it has a hole.

They have different styles.

They go as far from an inch to... big, big guys.

You've got a nice size one.

So this piece is the same on both sides.

It was ground.

They're using stone instruments and wood instruments to grind these down into form.

So just think of how hard that would've been to use another stone to get this as soft and smooth.

Right.

And they'd nick it out and then smooth it with a stone, and nick it out and smooth it until they got the form that they wanted.

The game was a game where they would roll the piece and threw a lance.

It was an accuracy kind of game.

Okay.

At auction, on a bad day, I would expect this to go for $3,000 to $5,000.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

(laughs) Yeah.

I really just wanted to know more about it, and that's great.

GUEST: I acquired this piece for free from an online marketplace.

A gentleman was moving, he could not take it with him.

I saw that he listed it, that it was going to the trash, and I said, "I'll be right there to get it, if you can just hang tight."

And I went and picked it up, and he helped me load it in my car, and she was mine.

Unfortunately, he didn't know a lot.

All he said was that his parents traveled a lot.

I tried to do some personal research, um, as far as deciphering what that meant.

I did get some opinions that it's alluding to some sort of emperor and a season, not necessarily a year.

I also tried to figure out what this was that she was holding, because that's really what drew me to the piece.

And I may not pronounce it right, but I found a ruyi, or ryu... Ruyi.

Ruyi.

That is a special scepter.

It's called a ruyi scepter.

Right.

And it means, basically, "as you wish."

"May your dreams come true."

The painting is kind of a thick watercolor on silk.

Mm-hmm.

And in the inscription there is a name, and that is Tang Yin.

And he was one of the four great painters...

Okay.

...of the Ming dynasty.

Tang Yin lived between 1470 and 1524.

He was a brilliant poet, and he pioneered the use of a special kind of script calligraphy that we would call cursive, which is called running script.

Oh, wow.

And he was number one in the civil service government examinations.

Wow.

In the entire country of China.

So he was a brilliant, brilliant person.

But he was kind of a bad boy.

(chuckles) He liked to have fun.

Within the inscription, you had noted something about a season.

Right.

So it also talks about something in the summer season.

Correct.

That kind of time.

Okay.

It has a date.

Oh, it has a date.

Now, the dates in Chinese, in the Chinese calendar are organized in what are we call cyclical dates.

Okay.

And it's a 60-year cycle.

But the cyclical date comes to 1871.

That would be from the Qing dynasty.

Based on stylistic evidence, I'm having a hard time with the 1871 date.

Okay.

But it says that it was faithfully copied, essentially, from a Tang Yin.

So it's not by Tang Yin.

Right.

But it's a faithful copy.

Stylistically, I would see this more from the 1920s, '30s.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So someone looked at a painting... Ah!

...from 1871 that, in turn, was looking back to a painting by Tang Yin.

Okay.

We... don't have the repertoire of all the Tang Yin paintings here in front of us to go through and see, Mm-hmm.

is there a picture of a beautiful woman... Mm-hmm.

...seated at a table that was part of his work.

If it no longer exists, then instead of having just a copy of a copy, you have a documentary work that could potentially have a fair amount of value.

Nice, aw.

An insurance value, a replacement value, for this would be, in a reasonably... in the $6,000 range.

Really?

(laughing): I don't even know what to say.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

That's amazing.

I'm very happy with that.

I mean, I knew she was beautiful.

Whether she has value or not, she has value to me.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: One of the most influential Black American artists of the last half of the 20th century, John Thomas Biggers was born in North Carolina and made Texas his home for over 50 years until his death in 2001.

This monumental painting, an untitled work from 1994, is emblematic of his overall work, which focused on the links between African and African-American cultures.

GUEST: It is a family piece that has been in our family for as long as I can remember.

It came to my parents through my grandparents.

The document is James Iredell's appointment to the first Supreme Court under George Washington, and we are all direct descendants from the judge.

And we were fortunate enough to get it because my mother is related-- on the backside, you'll see, to John Rutledge, who was also on the first court, and he gave the oath.

And since both my parents had a family connection, when it came time to decide who was going to get it, my parents were the lucky...

They won.

They won.

I have an appraisal from 1979.

Okay.

And I think at that point, it was $9,500.

We see a lot of George Washington documents.

Right.

And they generally follow a certain look-- neatly written, his signature, the presidential seal.

Seal, mm-hmm.

So we know this thing is, is right.

The president had to approve every appointment.

Correct.

So some of these are routine positions, postmasters, things like that.

But in this case, George Washington was in that remarkable position of being the only president who ever had to select the entire cast of the Supreme Court.

Hadn't thought about it that way.

So, I mean, that is amazing when you think about it.

Yeah, yeah.

That makes this thing so out of league with all of the things that we typically see.

But what you mentioned on the back, what you referred to, and I'll show you, it's a docket we call-- that, or it's a memorandum-- it's put on the back sometimes.

John Rutledge gave the oath to James Iredell.

John Rutledge was also on the court with Judge Iredell.

And John Rutledge is my mother's side of the family, and Justice Iredell is my father's side of the family.

(chuckles) So 200 years later, who'd have known that...

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

...it ends up in the... You're connected either way, You seem destined to have it.

Correct.

We're looking at a, a major appointment by... to a major position by Washington, and you're talking about two of the very first Supreme Court justice... associate justices.

So, it's... it's just an amazing thing.

So I, I would comfortably say an auction estimate would be something like $40,000 to $60,000, comfortably, at auction.

Now, you'd want to be fully insured on that, Yes.

so you're going to be talking about $80,000 to $90,000 would be like an insurance value.

Oh, okay.

It literally is irreplaceable.

That's happy news.

Good, I'm glad about that.

(chuckling): That's good.

We like happy news.

We do, very happy news.

GUEST: A family was liquidating an estate.

And this was one of the things that I really thought was very cool.

APPRAISER: Okay.

Because it was all there, complete.

These figures are easily removable, and as such, can oftentimes be missing or be replacement parts.

These are, however, are authentic, original examples, which is really nice.

The toy has been played with.

Oh!

And it has been played with a fair amount.

You can see the finish and the wear.

Oh, sure.

Around the wheels.

These were once all red.

Right here, on this hitch, it was broken in half.

Right on that crack.

GUEST 2: Huh.

GUEST 1: Yeah, that's what it looks like.

And, and this metal bar here was welded-- was welded or screwed in to give the toy a second life.

Support.

If that was not an issue, I'd expect this toy to bring between $600, $900.

With this repair, we're probably more around $400 to $600.

That sounds fair.

♪ ♪ Well, my grandfather was born in 1900, had two brothers.

I don't know when they got into the cards.

I'm not sure what years they are.

I assume they're somewhere 1910, '11, or '12.

At that time, they were only about eight to ten years old.

So obviously, you can't go buy a cigarette, I would assume.

(chuckles) And so the whole family got involved in this, and most of the family smoked and, and dipped.

They started collecting these cards for the boys.

At Christmas, what would you give somebody that has everything?

You gave him a couple cartons of cigarettes.

On his birthday, you gave him cigarettes.

Father's Days, you gave him cigarettes.

He was like a carton-a-day smoker when, when he got into his, his older years.

My dad passed away about eight years ago, and these are kept in a safety deposit box at the bank.

Not until that time did I ever see these cards.

I just heard stories about them.

These are called T3 in the catalog of cards.

They're called Turkey Red cards, and Turkey Red was the cigarette maker.

These were issued in 1910, 1911.

These cards are all five and three quarters wide by eight inches tall.

And that's why we showed this card right here of an actress, because that's the typical size of a tobacco card.

Not these.

This set is considered to be the biggest, the boldest, the best, the most beautiful cigarette card set for sports.

Ten coupons you had to send in... Wow.

...from Turkey Red cigarette packs.

I've got like 77 cards.

North Carolina is known, and in this area, Raleigh-Durham is known as Tobacco Road.

Right.

The Civil War is when really the tobacco industry started North Carolina, Okay.

with both Northern and Southern soldiers wanting tobacco.

Out of that, tobacco factories started springing up.

Enter a very famous local name that might be familiar to you, James Duke.

James Duke furthered his father's tobacco business.

In the 1880s, he actually licensed a cigarette rolling machine, and within just a decade, he had built a monopoly to rival Standard Oil, American Tobacco Company.

Right.

In 1911, the Supreme Court struck down monopolies, and American Tobacco had to bust up.

But you can't cry for James Duke, because in 1924, he endowed Trinity College with $40 million, Wow.

as well as a number of other universities.

And to thank him for this, Trinity renamed itself as Duke University.

And it's as we know it today.

And these cards were among the last that were created while American Tobacco was still a monopoly.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

So... 'Cause I think the first ones are American Tobacco, right?

Well, they... And the Turkey Reds are in the back.

Or are they both the same?

Turkey Red is part of American Tobacco.

Okay.

So you could send in ten coupons.

Now, you could pick who you wanted.

You had three choices.

Oh, wow.

It's been said that they produce probably more of the Hall of Fame cards because there are 25 Hall of Famers in here.

This set has 100 players.

Now, you have 77 cards.

And we picked out what we thought were the six greatest Hall of Famers.

We have Cy Young, leader all-time in pitching, 511 wins.

We have Sam Crawford, great outfielder, on Detroit.

We have Tris Speaker, Boston Americans, who are also known as the Boston Red Sox, won world championships with them in 1912 and 1915.

We have Nap Lajoie, one of the greatest second basemen of all time.

And the Cleveland team actually named themselves the Naps after him.

Christy Mathewson, 373 wins, third most ever.

And then, of course, the great Ty Cobb of Detroit.

Let's look at Cy Young.

Now this card would probably grade out to a one because of the mouse bites here and the pinholes.

Right.

I'd put a value on that at about $1,000.

Right.

The Sam Crawford is much nicer.

I'm not a professional grader, but that's going to grade out at maybe a three or a four.

That's going to be in the $2,000, $2,500 range.

Tris Speaker has some age spots here and probably'd grade out somewhere around a three, and that's going to be somewhere around $3,000 to $4,000.

Nap Lajoie, a three or four.

Again, somewhere in the vicinity of around $3,000.

Christy Mathewson is just very vibrant.

Probably going to grade out a four or five.

Now this could easily be $5,000 to $10,000.

Ty Cobb is by far the best card in the entire set.

Okay.

It's the most sought after, the most desired, because he's considered to be the greatest player of that era.

Still has the highest batting average to this day-- .366, the Georgia Peach.

In this condition, I think that's going to grade out somewhere between, again, a three and a four.

A minimum of $25,000 to $35,000 for the Ty Cobb.

That's amazing.

Amazing.

Now, you have a partial set, you don't have a complete set.

Right.

Complete sets are very, very rare.

I'd place an auction estimate of $75,000 to $100,000.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I would insure it for at least $150,000.

Okay.

That's awesome.

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

Since Raleigh's known as the City of Oaks, we went nuts and brought our own acorn.

Not worth much, but we had a great time.

We brought our jewelry and we brought our paintings.

The jewelry was a treasure.

We had it appraised at $3,000.

And our painting was a bust.

In 1960, my grandmother loaned someone $100 and was paid back with this sculpture.

Today I found out it's worth $5,000 to $7,000 and it's from Italy.

We were, uh, hoping to get rich and be able to retire.

(chuckles) Uh, unfortunately, that didn't come true.

Still love "Snow White" anyway, got to see Mr., uh, Lowry in one of his fantastic suits.

So we had a very fun day here at the Roadshow.

Thanks, guys.

I brought this collection of unused concert tickets from the 1980s, and turns out that almost all of them are worth way more than the original ticket price.

For example, this Kiss ticket, which sold for $11, is probably worth at least 50 bucks or more.

So...

Thank you, "Antiques Roadshow."

We have a bunch of these, um, type of... um, mementos at home, and so we're just going to pass it down in the will and tell our children... and you... if this makes it on, remember we said, "Don't sell it, pass it down."

Keep passing it down.

Hold on to it.

PEÑA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."