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Antiques Roadshow - Season 30 (US) - Episode 05: Georgia State Railroad Museum Hour 2
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00:04Antiques Roadshow is seeing thousands of treasures at the Georgia State Railroad
00:08Museum in Savannah. It's just gorgeous. When you took it out my eyes went boom. Wow. Wow. Wow, that's great.
00:36The Georgia State Railroad Museum, now a National Historic Landmark, started as a repair shop for
00:42steam trains in the 1850s. The spot was mostly spared from General Sherman's Union troops in 1864
00:49as they marched across Georgia during the Civil War, destroying infrastructure and resources.
00:56Only to be closed in 1963 after the dominance of diesel overtook steam locomotives in the mid-1900s.
01:05The site was saved for preservation and has tens of thousands of visitors annually.
01:13What treasures have been saved and brought to Roadshow today?
01:17And at some point, maybe 50 years ago or 100 years ago, they got mixed and put the wrong cup
01:23of the wrong sauce. This right here is what I suspect to be a 200-year-old repair. Spectacular.
01:28It's all handmade. Would you try them on for us?
01:33Well, why not? Oh, you look fabulous.
01:42In 1948, my husband and I went to this little antique shop in Atlanta. We found Ralph.
01:51You call him Ralph. Why do you call him Ralph? Well, it looks a lot like a friend of ours.
01:57Does Ralph know that you call him Ralph? No. No. That's good. That's a good thing.
02:01We never told him. Okay. Well, what have you found out about it and what would you like to know?
02:06Well, in the front, it says K-I-S-E-R, Bill. And I thought it said kiss her, Bill.
02:13And then
02:14somebody else looked at it and said, no, I think that's Kaiser Bill. Yep. Kaiser Bill,
02:20misspelled here is K-I-S-E-R, Bill, would have referred to Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor,
02:28during and just after World War I. America actually entered World War I in 1917. And so Kaiser Bill would
02:36not have been very popular with Americans. We can narrow down the date of the manufacture of this jug
02:42to 1917 to 1918. We know from the handwriting, from the way that that inscription was done,
02:50we know whose handwriting it was. I believe that it was made in Atlanta by a guy named Davis Pennington
02:56Brown. And Davis Pennington Brown is from a family of famous potters that all went to Arden, North
03:04Carolina. But during 1915, 1920, Davis Pennington Brown, the most famous of the Brown brothers,
03:11the potters in Georgia, was doing jugs like this. This is actually white clay. It's covered with this
03:18coat of Albany slip, which is this brown clay that they wash all over it. And then salt is
03:23shoveled into the kiln and it vitrifies and coats everything and gives it that orange peel kind
03:29of look to the surface. A lot of things about this jug confirm it as Davis Pennington Brown,
03:36and among them the C-shape of the ears, the fact that the teeth are made of clay instead of
03:43porcelain,
03:44like he used in Arden, North Carolina later on, and that the handwriting is really in his own hand.
03:50So all those things support an attribution to Davis Pennington Brown. It's just a classic example.
03:58It's a larger size than most of them. Also, the condition is amazing. How much did you pay for it?
04:04$25. Pay $25. I feel that in a retail setting, this could easily be priced at $6,000.
04:15Uh-huh. Well, I guess that was better than interest on $25. I'd say, yeah. I'm not sure what $25
04:25was worth back in 1948, but that's not bad.
04:31It's my grandfather's violin. He used to play the violin when he would come for Christmas. We would
04:36have a Christmas concert for all of our relatives. He never knew how to play the violin very well,
04:40but we would play together. He was a soldier in World War II. It's my belief he brought it home.
04:46I think it's German. I tried to get it appraised 15 years ago. There was an online site where you
04:52could
04:52take pictures of it. I think I remember the appraisal being around $500. I'm seeing a maker who was inspired
04:57by Stradivari. We see a lot of those, but this one really, he tried to emulate the accuracy of Antonio
05:05Stradivari. Things like the overall shape, the back being a one-piece back with this very distinct flame
05:13in the maple, the ribs also having that flame. So the label says K.A. Guter. Mark Neukirchen, 1921.
05:23Kurt Arnold Guter. He grew up in Mark Neukirchen, one of the big centers of violin making in Germany,
05:29and he studied with all the greats of that period. The value, as is, taking into account that there is
05:36a
05:36crack here that needs to be repaired, and one here, would be about $8,000.
05:41Kurt Arnold Guter. Wow, yes. And then if you got that repaired, it would be worth more,
05:46perhaps as much as $10,000 to $12,000. Amazing. It is, isn't it? That's more than $500.
05:51Oh, yeah, absolutely amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
06:02This is my mother's ring. She got it from my father, probably in the late 60s or early 70s. Our
06:10neighbor was a jeweler in a small town in New Jersey. My father just walked downtown one day
06:16and came back with this for my mother. It wasn't her birthday. It wasn't a holiday. And it's always
06:24been a puzzle. So why do you think he bought it for her? I think he felt guilty about something
06:30in his
06:30past. I think he was making amends. What would you like to know about the ring? Well, I don't know.
06:38Is it real? Because it's a large stone. It is real. It is a real sapphire. Good to know. And
06:45it's a
06:46really beautifully cut old cushion cut stone. It's mounted in platinum and it's framed by old single
06:52cut diamonds. I think the ring was made probably in the 1940s. Wow. And it's very pretty. There are
07:00no hallmarks that would tell us who made it or where it's from. However, based on the style,
07:06I would suspect that it was probably made by a high-end jewelry maker in New York City. In order
07:12to
07:12determine where it was mined, we would have to send it out to a laboratory. But that cut and color,
07:21it's very typical of sapphires that we see that have been mined out of Ceylon or modern-day Sri Lanka.
07:29I would be comfortable saying that it's a Ceylon or Sri Lankan sapphire. It's very clean. When you look
07:36at it under magnification, you really don't see any inclusions. And I did a weight by formula and
07:43it's coming out to be about seven and a half carats. Wow. That's a nice size. That's exciting.
07:49Now, what was your mother like? Did she wear it? She did when she went out to dinner. She was
07:55never
07:55a showy woman. My father was not extravagant with gifts. So this is really a big surprise.
08:02Any idea what he might have paid for it? No idea. But this was a good friend and a
08:09neighbor. And maybe he called my father and said, Ed, get down here. I've got the ring for you to
08:15give
08:15your wife. Long-suffering wife. He was a straight-up guy. I think he just knew that he was sometimes
08:24difficult. As you might know with sapphires, they are very often heat-treated in order to enhance that
08:29color. So you would have to send it to a laboratory in order to determine that, which for a couple
08:36of
08:36hundred dollars, I would recommend doing because then you would know for sure. If it's heat-treated,
08:42you'd be in the $5,000 to $10,000 range. Okay. If it is not heat-treated, we'd be in
08:49the $15,000
08:50to $20,000 range at auction. That is excellent.
09:03In the first half of the 20th century, one of the fastest trains in the South was operated by the
09:09Central of Georgia Railway. The Nancy Hanks route was a route for passengers between Savannah and
09:17Atlanta with a stop in Macon. We have one car in our collection from the Nancy Hanks. It's the blue
09:22and gray car behind me. Nancy Hanks, the train, was named for an undefeated racehorse. That racehorse
09:30was named for the mother of President Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. The earlier Nancy Hanks ran
09:37in 1892 and 1893. Nancy Hanks II operated between 1947 and 1971.
09:48This clock has been in my house since I was very little. My mother was at her friend Connie's house
09:54and noticed it on her shelf and just told her that she liked it. And Connie told her to take
09:58it home,
09:59that she could have it. And she put it on the shelf at home and it was there for the
10:05next 50 years.
10:05Wow. That's a very nice present. What you have is a Tiffany Studios clock. It's in the bookmark
10:14pattern. It has printer's marks from the 15th and 16th century. And they're on the top here.
10:22And there are a couple of things that are unusual about it. First of all, it's been coal painted and
10:29sometimes the clock would come just with the gold finish. And once in a while, it would come this way
10:36with this beautiful painting. And it really makes the piece pop. The other thing that I love about this,
10:45it has its original key that is nestled inside the door. And this also has the printer's marks on it.
10:53And that's fantastic. I looked it up. I wanted to see what this cost initially,
11:00which was probably in the teens. It cost $70. That was a tremendous amount of money for a clock.
11:09It was part of a whole desk set and you could buy up to 21 pieces. But to me, the
11:14clock was the
11:15creme de la creme. It's just gorgeous. It's really when you took it out, my eyes went boom. I was
11:21very
11:22excited. In a retail shop today, this would cost between $6,000 and $8,000. Oh my God,
11:31it's much more than I thought it would be. That's huge.
11:37It's a great present. Amazing.
11:47I brought my William de Kooning sketch that was personalized and given to my father in 1966.
11:53How did your father know de Kooning? I'm not exactly sure. My father passed in 1995. William
12:00de Kooning was in Hampton Bays, New York on Long Island. And my father was on Long Island as well.
12:06My father was an artist and he met many artists. And he must have been very friendly with him because
12:13he called him Jimmy. My father's name was James. Only friends called him Jimmy.
12:17William de Kooning is one of the most important American artists of the 20th century. The style
12:23that he's most known for and the artistic movement that he's most known for is abstract expressionism.
12:27It really is what it sounds like. There's abstraction, kind of a move away from realism and
12:32how they should look and more into the expression of it. The movement of something, the thoughts of
12:38something, the subconscious ideas of it. In 1963, de Kooning moved to the Hamptons to Springs, New York.
12:46And what was interesting about that is that there were a lot of other artists living very close by,
12:50including Pollock and his wife Krasner. So it was a kind of place where the artists would congregate.
12:56At that point, especially, he was always drawing in a way that was free-flowing. It's an exemplary work
13:02by him because it does show his love for form, but in the style of abstraction. This is graphite on
13:08paper. It is signed and dated lower right, which is in 1966. And it says, to Jimmy and good luck
13:16to you,
13:17Bill de Kooning. It's later in his career. He really became famous for his abstract expressionist
13:22works in the 50s and 60s. What do you think it might be worth? I would love for it to
13:26be in the
13:27thousands, but I'm going to say $200 to $300. Real de Kooning drawings are exceedingly rare. A lot of
13:34the major foundations for some of these bigger abstract expressionist artists and a lot of artists
13:38in general now do not authenticate works. What you often have is a situation where it's hard to prove
13:43something is authentic. What can overcome that is provenance. And that's what you have. And that's
13:48what's great, that this was given to your father directly by the artist. I would put a conservative
13:53auction estimate of $8,000 to $12,000 on it. Thank you, Dad. It was his birthday yesterday. He would
14:02have been 80 years old. I got this as a Christmas present when I was about six years old. I
14:13have the
14:13outfits. Some are complete, some are not. Some of the shoes got lost. Or my dad stepped on them and
14:19he
14:19threw them out. But this is what I've got. This is one of a pair. That's Martha. We think they
14:29were
14:29painted back in 1845. Got them from my parents. They bought them in Boston. I do have the other one,
14:35but it was a little cumbersome to bring it today. So we just brought Martha today. Is she the prettier
14:39one of the two? Not really. Not at all. Francis was actually a little more attractive.
14:47I was a chart manager at Cashbox magazine, one of the music trade magazines from 1977 to 1984.
14:56And one of the perks of the job is oftentimes the record companies would bring stuff like this
15:01for me to see and enjoy. It's a pretty good position to be in. People want to be your friend
15:06when you're the one coming up with the charts. Exactly. So you brought in today, obviously,
15:10this record store window promo poster for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' second album.
15:16You're going to get it. 1978. And it's not just that poster. It's signed, which is really great.
15:23And they're huge signatures. It's not just signed by Tom Petty. We have Stan Lynch, Mike Campbell,
15:28Ron Blair and Ben Montench. So we have like the full five founding members here. That's it. And Tom's
15:33signature is really big in the middle. And he's dated it. So this is about a month after the record
15:37came out in June of 78. And I love that he signed it to Cashbox. Right. One quick question. How
15:42did
15:42you guys determine what the charts were? Did they send you sales information or? It was kind of fly
15:48by the seat of your pants back in those days. This was pre-computer era pretty much when I was
15:53there.
15:53So a lot of telephone calls to record stores and radio stations. And we kind of mashed it all together
15:59and came up with the charts every week. What's so great about this poster, in addition to the fact
16:03that it's big, it's a little rare because it's not paper and it was made to put on a window.
16:07Obviously, this is why it's transparent. And so you have the adhesive strips up here,
16:13which you'd stick up and you can put them up to the glass. And most of the ones that were
16:16made
16:17probably were used in the stores and didn't survive so well because if you had this in the sun for
16:21a few
16:21months, I'm sure they faded out. They tore. People took them. Yours is in pretty great condition,
16:27but even more so than that, obviously yours is signed. Do you remember this from cruising up
16:31the charts? Oh yeah, for sure. Made it to number 23 or thereabouts. At auction, I would expect it
16:39to fetch somewhere in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. Wow. More than I thought. That's great. Now that
16:46you've had your appraisal, I got to tell you not to come around here no more. Well, damn the torpedoes.
16:51Yeah. We could go all day because I'm an American girl, so. There you go.
16:57After I graduated from college, 1985, I was in a small antique gallery in Pescocheon, Mississippi,
17:03and I saw four of these paintings. They each were $20, but I only had $20 in cash on it,
17:09so I only could buy one of them. And this is the one I bought. And what about the other
17:13two,
17:13the tray and the cards? Years later, my wife and I were just looking
17:17online to see if there was anything else by Dale Nichols. And we came across these items.
17:22It makes for a nice group. These are both illustrated works on products,
17:27this being an offset lithograph on a tray. And we have that deck of cards with scenes by Nichols.
17:33Both the box of cards and the tray mass produced and would be circa 1940s or 50s.
17:39Okay. Dale Nichols was born in 1904
17:42in Davis City, Nebraska, and made his way to Chicago for his studies. And in the 1930s and 40s,
17:52emerged as one of the prominent American regionalists. Nichols was an illustrator and a fine artist,
18:00but along his career path, he was always doing commercial work. He's best known for this kind of
18:06subjects. Now, while this is a small painting, it has all of the bells and whistles that a collector
18:13of Nichols work would want. It's a winter scene. We have a little figure. It looks like he's sort of
18:17turning the corner at a house or a barn. And it's clearly a rural subject. He's got his dog there.
18:23It's a little gem. It's an oil on Masonite board, which was a more inexpensive medium. A lot of
18:30illustrators used Masonite. It is signed, although he had a really distinct teeny tiny way of signing
18:36his works. And it's dated 1949. It has one little issue. It has some flaking, but all in all, it's
18:45in
18:45a nice state of preservation. So to value the tray and the decks of cards together would be worth about
18:53$20 today. Okay. The painting itself, an auction value, would be in the $6,000 to $8,000 range.
19:01Whoa. Wow. Not bad for $20, I guess. Not at all. Yeah. Really cool. Thank you for bringing it in.
19:08Thank you. Did you read all of these and flip through them?
19:15Hi, everybody. These have been used. Right. So part of the value characteristics
19:20of these, we really look at, have they been graded? First of all, collectors want comic books that
19:27are graded. Once they're not graded, then we downgrade whatever the value is. Then you look
19:34at the condition and you can see that you have all this discoloration. You're probably looking in that
19:39$20 to $100 for some of these, some of them better than others. Memories are worth something,
19:46so we keep them. This is a Babe D. Zaharias signed tennis ball. How did you get this?
19:57This is something my dad gave me. In 1949, when he was 16 years old, he went to Madison Square
20:04Garden,
20:05and Babe was there with some sports thing, and she was chipping these balls out into the audience with
20:12her golf clubs. My dad just reached his hand up and he grabbed the ball. That's how I ended up
20:17with it.
20:17So it wasn't signed? She had them signed and then was just sending them out into the audience.
20:21So what have you learned about Babe? Um, well, I know that she got the name Babe from Babe Ruth
20:27because her real name was Mildred. That's right. So I'd go with Babe, too. In 1932,
20:33she went to the Olympics. She won two gold medals, one for javelin, one for hurdles,
20:37and then she got a silver medal as well. And she did, she did golf. She did tennis. She was
20:44a seamstress
20:45that sewed her own tennis uniform sometimes. Babe Dietrichsen Zaharias is the greatest all-around
20:53female athlete in history. She got her start playing AAU basketball. She was a ringer for her office team.
21:00She played baseball. And then, of course, she ran track and field, went to the Olympics,
21:05won the two gold medals, won a silver medal, and set four world records in 1932. And then,
21:12just for the heck of it, a few years later in 35, when she was 24, she decided she was
21:16going to take
21:17up golf. Yeah. And what happens, she becomes the leading female golfer in the world. She wins 10
21:24major women's tournaments. She's one of the founders of the LPGA. You said she was a seamstress.
21:31Yeah. She also played the harmonica. She was- I heard, yes, yes, that she was a harmonica player,
21:37too. And she spun some tall tales, too. She's the one who put out the babe story. Really,
21:42what happened is her mom called her bebe, and that turned into babe. I know it's priceless to you,
21:47but have you ever had this value? My dad did, I think about 20 years ago,
21:52maybe. He had it valued at somewhere between 500 and 750 bucks, something like that.
21:57Well, have you seen the growth in women's sports over the last few years?
22:01Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
22:02The memorabilia market has also gone up. I would place an auction estimate of $1,500 to $2,500.
22:08Oh, cool. Oh, that is awesome. My dad will be very happy. That's neat. That is really, really cool.
22:20The museum is part of the old Frogtown neighborhood, named after the abundance of
22:25amphibians that emerged after it rained. The Frogtown neighborhood housed most of the employees at the
22:32railroad. Most of that neighborhood was Irish immigrants and then eventually transitioned into
22:39an African-American community. Coastal Heritage Society owns two of the houses that are left of
22:45what was known as the Frogtown neighborhood.
22:51I got it when I lived in Alaska and we were looking to renovate our house. So I would go
22:57to the
22:58Salvation Army store looking for art to put on the walls. And I found this one, but it didn't match.
23:03We were doing all silver frames and this had a gold, gold, so it wouldn't match. But I really liked
23:08it,
23:08so I bought it anyway. So did you know what you were getting? No, not a clue. I figured out
23:13the name of the
23:14artist after a while. And I found another print that he had for sale on the internet and it was
23:21about $150 back in 2016. So the artist's name is you? I think it was Oshi. Hoshi. H-O-S
23:29-H-I, Hoshi.
23:30And that means star in Japanese. Joichi Hoshi is from Japan, northern part of Japan, Niigata,
23:37the north. And he studied in Musashino Art University, which is very prestigious. And he
23:44was actually in Taiwan, he was teaching. But so he started doing woodblock prints later in his life.
23:51So this is a woodblock print, but it's different from traditional woodblock prints where other
23:56specialists did the carving and printing. The artists usually do the drawing only. But these modern
24:03Japanese woodblocks, they do everything. They carve their prints, they design, they carve, and they
24:09print. On the lower right, his date is 1978. And above this, the red seal is his top mark. And
24:20the title
24:20is in Japanese on lower left. It's Autumn Light. Oh. Did he print mostly trees? Yes,
24:28his popular things are mostly trees. And he did other colors. So did you pay $100? I paid $5.99.
24:37So, yeah. Wow. I think it's really getting popular. Uh, prints are good market, Japanese prints. And I
24:44think I've seen this type of nice tree making in retail. $1,500. Wow, that's great. $1,500. Oh, that's
24:55good.
24:55Way. Woohoo.
25:04I don't know a whole lot about it. It's from my husband's family. We think maybe it's a cathedral
25:11light or lamp or candle tower possibly used for funerals. But we're looking forward to
25:19finding out some history about it. My great great uncle was the head chemist and senior vice president
25:28of the Coca-Cola Corporation in the 60s. As far as I know, it's some sort of correspondence that
25:36details the effect of the coca plant. And it's possible that it's related in some way to an early
25:42form of Coca-Cola. When he passed, he left this in his wine cellar. We've been told that it hung
25:48in
25:48his office when he was the vice president.
25:54Sometimes when people bring things in, I have to ask them to pull it out of a bag or pull
25:57it
25:57out of a box. But you're wearing what you brought. Yes. We're sort of squeezed into it.
26:03You look great. Well, we couldn't eat lunch. I'll put it down. Mine is a Delta flight attendant
26:08uniform from 1973. This was my very first uniform. The scarf was different. This is from the Olympics.
26:18Delta was the sponsor of the 1996 Olympics. And mine is an Eastern Airlines 1975
26:27uniform. Actually, the vest and the shirt are from 75. And the jacket is 1991. And the hat was 91.
26:36Awesome. I love it. And your sisters, obviously. We're twins.
26:40We're twins. Your uniform is very complete. Yes.
26:43And Delta at the time, I believe, was using Sharon Harris as a designer for that uniform.
26:49Oh, okay. Tell me a little bit about the five-star pin.
26:52This was the five-star award if you went above and beyond. And we were going from Atlanta to
26:59Charlotte, I believe. And there was a child in the gateway that had a seizure and quit breathing.
27:05So I helped the child. The captain was so nice. And he told everybody what happened. And he wrote it
27:12up.
27:12And I got the five-star award. That's awesome. So in the world of uniforms,
27:16the reason that people are interested in them is because I mentioned Sharon Harris,
27:20but there were other big designers like Edith Head. So that has generated some interest in the
27:26fashion folks. But also, there's this issue of supply and demand. So there's a demand and
27:29interest to preserve the cultural heritage. But there is a limited supply. So your ensemble is
27:34a little bit of a mixed period. You've got some 90s. You've got some 70s. For the blaze of the
27:39vest,
27:39the blouse, and the hat with all the emblems, we're probably looking at auction value of around $800 to $1
27:45,000.
27:46Really? Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness. That's fantastic. Oh, wow. And the 70s version with the slacks and
27:53the jacket and everything is more complete. And it's got the Sharon Harris Association. We're probably
27:58looking at $1,000 to $1,500. Oh, wow. You're kidding. Oh, my gosh. So it's a lovely group. Oh,
28:04this has been so much fun.
28:11These are two vases that my father-in-law gave to me. He said his mom got them in the
28:1940s in Queens,
28:21and that she was told that they were pulled from the Normandy. But that's all that I know.
28:25Okay. And what would you like to know about them today? Honestly, I just want to know anything about
28:32them because I'm a giant Antiques Roadshow fan girl, and I'm just so excited to be here.
28:36So just to know anything really at all. These were in fact designed for the SS Normandy. The SS Normandy
28:43was brought into service in 1935. And at the time, it was the fastest shipped across the Atlantic.
28:50It was fitted out on the interior by many designers, but including George Bastard and Edgar Brandt,
28:57both notable designers of the time. These are a pair of nickel-plated chrome vases. They measure
29:04approximately 13 inches tall, and there were two sizes that were fitted out in the ship. There was
29:10the smaller versions and these large 13-inch examples. At the beginning of the 1940s, the SS Normandy was
29:16actually seized by the American government to be converted into a troop ship. And at that time, it was
29:22decommissioned in New York City, and the interiors were completely pulled out. They took out all the
29:27furniture, decorative arts, lighting, and accessories. In 1942, there was a fire on the ship, and then it
29:33actually sank. There are a lot of pieces that came off the ship that still exist today. On this wonderful
29:40pair of vases, they're actually signed. First of all, in the middle, we have the monogram of the French
29:44company, which was a private public conglomerate that was the owner of the ship, which is Compagnie
29:50General Transatlantic. And then they're also signed. Lower left is George Bastard, and then lower right
29:57is Edgar Brandt. It was a great collaboration. So when we look at these two, one of them is just
30:03ever so slightly unstable. They are just bolted up through the bottom, and it's likely a thread that
30:08just tightens up just a little bit. These are really in very good shape because there were a lot of
30:14them
30:14made. And by a lot, I don't mean hundreds, but dozens of pairs. We have really good sales records
30:20for them. If I were to see these come up for auction in today's market, I would expect to see
30:26a value of $8,000 to $12,000. Wow. That's so exciting just to hear you say that. I'm like,
30:33I'm really on a Dick's Road show. That's so awesome. I'd recommend an insurance value of around $20,000.
30:41Wow. Okay. Good to know.
30:45My godmother went to South America and came back with some pottery that she gave me when I was like
30:5012. We don't know how old it is. Yeah, we're not sure how old it is. He claims it's really
30:54special,
30:54and he always wants to display it in our house. But I'm like, I don't know what this is. So
30:59I think
30:59it's old and awesome, and we'll see. And if it's not old and awesome, it gets not displayed,
31:04I think. It still gets displayed, but in my office. Going back in the office.
31:11A year and a half ago, my mom passed away. I don't know if they were hers or somebody in
31:17the family.
31:18What you brought here were two marionettes from the Howdy Doody show. It was the kid's show of all
31:23time. I remember them saying, it's Howdy Doody time. It's Howdy Doody time. A little rough on,
31:29but they have the original colorful boxes. Value-wise, I would say at auction, you're looking at around
31:36$200 to $300, which is not a bad price. For the two of them? For the two of them.
31:41They'd be sold as a pair. That's great.
31:46This is an autograph book that I discovered at an antique show in Miami about 40 years ago.
31:53It is a book filled with autographs that were mailed to a lady that started this book,
31:59a Florence Hooker from Chicago. But the autograph that caught my attention,
32:02and the reason that I bought this book, was the signature of Teddy Roosevelt. My grandfather
32:08served with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba as a rough rider. And so this signature meant a lot to me.
32:15And do you remember your grandfather growing up?
32:17I do. He limped because he was wounded in the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba.
32:23And when you purchased the album at the antique show, what did you pay for it?
32:27I paid $1,000 for it. This is a really super album, autograph album. So who's who of late 19th
32:33century, early 20th century, autographs of some of the most famous people in America at the time.
32:38You have Teddy Roosevelt. And what's really great about this Teddy Roosevelt autograph is A,
32:42when it comes to autographs, you want strength of signature. And this is as clear and crisp as you
32:47can get. Also, it's on the White House executive card. And collectors of presidential autographs
32:53love that. That adds substantial value. Included in the book, besides the Teddy Roosevelt on
32:59White House cards as well, you have Grover Cleveland. Right. You have his wife,
33:02Frances Cleveland. Right. I believe there's a Benjamin Harrison as well. You also have a
33:06McKinley not on an executive card. There's your William McKinley. Down in this corner here,
33:11we have a great signature and inscription of Susan B. Anthony. Why don't you read what it says for us?
33:17Perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political is the demand of yours truly,
33:26Susan B. Anthony. Great inscription and one that she used very often. It's also signed and dated in
33:31Rochester, New York, where her home is still there as a museum. She lived there for 40 years. It's just
33:37a phenomenal encapsulation of what she was all about, the suffrage movement and everything else.
33:42We also have a really, really cool signature of Mark Twain. There's an enormous amount of great
33:50autographs in there. One of the things that I'm not crazy about is that collectors generally want
33:54to take the signatures apart so they can frame them and mat them with photographs. In this case,
33:59I like the idea of keeping this together as an archive. It's a history of one person's enjoyment,
34:03what she did for a hobby. In terms of value, the Teddy Roosevelt autograph by itself would be more than
34:09what you paid for the whole book. It would be about $1,000 to $1,500. The Susan B. Anthony,
34:14probably in the $1,200 to $1,800 range. And these are auction estimates. A Mark Twain,
34:19good cut signature like that, also probably in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. And then you have the
34:25presidents mixed in, some of them in the $200, $300, $400 range. So by the time you're done
34:29adding all those up, a conservative auction estimate as an album would be somewhere between $5,000
34:34and $8,000. It's something I really treasure. Thank you very much.
34:45One of the Georgia State Railroad Museum's restoration projects is a segregated passenger
34:50car. This car behind me is Georgia Railroad Number 67. The car has partitions within it that
34:57separated black passengers from white passengers. This was in accordance with the Jim Crow laws,
35:03which were enforced just after the Civil War between 1865 all the way up until the Civil Rights
35:10Act of 1964. This car was built in 1911. It was a copy of a car built in 1880. By
35:171911,
35:18most passenger cars were being built primarily of steel. This car is built of all wood components.
35:24We have another segregated car in our collection that was built around 1930, but it was refit in 1950.
35:32The contrast between the construction of this car and the newer car is so stark,
35:38and it really paints a picture of how long these Jim Crow laws were enforced.
35:48My dad gave it to me. He was working in China in Hong Kong in the late 70s. He worked
35:55for
35:56Philips Consumer Electronics. Apparently, he was one of the first businessmen to be going into
36:01the area during the time. It was when China was opening up for the first time. He says that as
36:05like a farewell thank you gift. When did he give it to you? Not too long ago. They were downsizing
36:12their house. I said I liked it. He said it's yours. Good choice. Yeah. I do know that it is
36:18from 1628.
36:19There's like a very handy sign on the back that I'm guessing he put there. He told me it was
36:25from a Dutch
36:26cartographer. I hung it on my wall and I never thought about it again basically until my husband
36:31surprised me with tickets to the Antiques Rocha. Yes, it was printed in 1628, which is astonishing.
36:38It's an engraving. The coloring is original and it's watercolor. It was done by hand. There's no name
36:45on here. There's no indicator of who made it. And when I see these maps, the first thing I respond
36:54to
36:54is the moray pattern in the ocean. Hondias, who is the map maker, is famous for engraving that pattern to
37:02show waves. The wave pattern is one of my little techniques I use to tell if it's old or not.
37:09And
37:09then also the frame is open in the back so we're able to see that there's text which is in
37:14French.
37:15And that's a good way to tell that it's 17th century as well. Your father wrote a note that
37:22said Mercator Hondias and that is correct. Mercator Hondias was a partnership. Gerard Mercator
37:28started the project and couldn't finish it. So Giordicus Hondias bought the plates from the family
37:36and issued these maps to complete the project. So they call it like the dream team of the 17th
37:42century for map makers. This map was printed in Amsterdam and that was the center of production
37:48for mapping in the 17th century. There's a lot of pictorial elements to it. There's boats,
37:54there's sea monsters, there's also an image of someone on a cross. And the text below describes
38:02that in Japan in the 17th century, Christianity was outlawed. So Jesuits in Japan were executed.
38:10The other thing I do when I look at maps of China is I look for the Great Wall,
38:14which is really well illustrated here and it's very, very big. The other thing I find fascinating is that
38:21Korea is so elongated and it's shown as an island. So they're getting there with their geographical
38:27techniques, but not quite yet. There's so many rivers and lakes and mountains. It's a baroque
38:33beauty. In terms of value, do you have any idea what it's worth? I have absolutely no idea. Okay,
38:40well maybe we shouldn't tell your dad. No, I'm just kidding. I just, it's, um, so it's a multiple.
38:45Many, many thousands of this map were made. We don't know how many survive. Yours is in particularly
38:51good condition. I would put a retail value on this map of about $3,500 to $4,500.
39:00That's awesome. That's so cool. Thank you so much.
39:03I really love it. Yeah. That's great. Thank you.
39:10This is a little jewelry box that I picked up at an estate sale. It has a little dog in
39:16there. And
39:17at the time I had a little dog that looked just like that. I paid $25 for it.
39:26I brought a 50th anniversary Fender Stratocaster. There was 2,500 of them made for the 50th anniversary.
39:34And this one's 2,341 out of 2,500. It's never been played. I have all the original paperwork
39:43from the factory, everything.
39:48This is a mid-early maybe 1900s hunt board. The unique thing about it is its provenance. It was
39:54once owned by the leading character in the novel and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
39:59Jim Williams, right? Yes. Yes, exactly. I saw it online. I
40:03really liked it. And I needed an excuse to buy a Christmas present for my wife. So I thought,
40:09what better way to get what I want and what she wants as well?
40:13So I... I like the way you think. That's pretty awesome.
40:17Don't tell her that. And how long ago did you acquire it?
40:20Just this past year. Well, it's a great, great piece. I absolutely love it. And you are correct. It's
40:25a federal fancy painted yellow pine hunt board. It's made in the southern states. And I would say
40:32it was probably made between 1810 and 1850. One of the characteristics that we can tell why it's
40:39federal is this nice tapering leg. It's something that we start to see in the late 18th century and
40:46into the 19th century. And the paint decoration is so fabulous. It's just a rural interpretation of
40:54high style urban furniture. So this cabinet maker has done an amazing job. He's painted this vibrant
41:00yellow and these wonderful compass decorated pinwheels meant to simulate inlay. If you look on the side,
41:07they've got these green paint decorated bottles. The glass knobs seem to be later 19th century.
41:15And I think the piece is a little earlier. So I suspect it probably had another
41:18wooden pull on it. When I take a step around to the back, you've got the James T. Cheek,
41:24which is likely the cabinet maker because it's done in the same paint. It's got great form and function.
41:31It's wonderfully artistic. I just love the vibrant colors. And then you add the Jim Williams provenance
41:37to it, which is just fascinating. And if you're living in the Savannah area, you probably know
41:42that name because of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He was a central character. In his 35
41:48years, he was in Savannah. It's reputed that he's restored over 50 houses, quite the historic
41:55preservationist, an important figure in Savannah history, which I think really adds to the value here.
42:01Remember what you had to pay to bring this terrific Christmas gift home?
42:05I was all in about $9,000. I think you did pretty well on it. If I were to insure
42:11it,
42:11I think I'd insure it between $15,000 and $20,000. It is just a terrific piece.
42:17I'm going to have to come up with a really smart Christmas gift,
42:20which is going to put some pressure on me on the home front. So you set the bar really darn
42:25high.
42:28Why we're testing this, that usually ancient gold is usually alluvial gold. I just wanted to be
42:35sure with the gold. I'm going to test the shank. Okay. Don't wear it out, Kevin.
42:41You know what, Jules, always trying to get a little extra gold. And I'm going to test
42:45the bezel also. Okay. I'm going to hit it with 18 first. So that's the shank. That's the bezel. This
42:52is
42:5218 karat acid. So the bezel, it's holding on the 18, the shank. It's not, it's not holding. You see
43:01that discoloration right there? Yeah, sure. Probably sized with a lesser metal.
43:08It was given to my grandmother. She was a young woman and she was working in Palm Beach, Florida,
43:14and she met someone and he had been on an archeological dig and he gave it to her as a
43:20gift and told her to hold onto it, that it might be worth a lot of money one day. That
43:25was in the early
43:271930s. My parents took it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They looked at it and said that it belonged
43:34to
43:34King Thutmose III, a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, I believe. It was priceless is what we were told.
43:43And we have just never been able to have anybody tell us basically what it was worth.
43:48It's a scarab and beautifully made and from the 18th dynasty. And it is described to Thutmose III.
43:54He was an extraordinary pharaoh. He was, I think, just two years of age when his father died.
43:59And because he was so young, he then had a regent, his stepmother. And his stepmother was Hatshepsut.
44:06And she was a really famous pharaoh also. And when she declared herself a pharaoh,
44:12most of her sculptures depicted her as a man. She was only, I think, the third woman ever to be
44:17a
44:17pharaoh in ancient Egypt. It was a good reign. And it wasn't contentious because even when she was making
44:23her declarations on monuments and things, she would put herself as pharaoh and also acknowledge
44:29Thutmose III. By the age of about 18, she made him head of the army. He ruled from April 1479
44:35BC
44:36until March 1425 BC. And he transformed Egypt into a superpower. Anything with his name on it
44:42becomes a very powerful amulet. I don't believe that your ring belonged to Thutmose, but it's a very
44:48beautiful ring. It would have definitely belonged to one of the elite because it's gold. Why I think it
44:52probably wasn't a royal one because the choice of stone for the scarab, it would have been lapis
44:57or jasper for them. But this is steatite. It's sort of a bit of softer stone, but it's nice.
45:01It's rather unusual cut. It has the very high dome on it. It's wonderful swivel ring here on the back.
45:06It has the cartouche. This is the oval area where it has the name of Thutmose III in it. So
45:12that's the
45:12amulet. What we weren't absolutely sure of was the gold content. Now, normally with antiquity gold,
45:18it's alluvial found in the river. Some was found in the Nile, but most of it came from
45:22Nubia, which is in the Upper Egypt. And when it's alluvial, it's generally pretty pure. We tested it
45:29and it was high carat on most of it, but one part tested low, like 14 carat. Then we looked
45:35at it
45:35very carefully and it's been sized. And so that's the little bit which was 14 carat. Everything else
45:41is fine. I'd be very comfortable with a retail value of 12,000 to 15,000. Oh, really? Yes.
45:47Okay. That's pretty awesome. I would insure this for 20,000. Oh, all right. It's a beautiful ring.
45:55And the color of that ancient gold is extraordinary. It's lovely. Oh, thank you.
45:59I had a friend who called me one day and asked if I would go and help this gentleman who
46:06had acquired a
46:06storage unit and he had, uh, some Navajo rugs in it. And she knew that I collected Navajo rugs. So
46:13I went by there looking through his, all his stuff that he got out of this unit. These dolls were
46:18in
46:18there and I had no idea what they were. I knew they weren't Hopi. So I kept going back to
46:23look at them
46:24and I was there for a couple hours. And he said, instead of paying me, he would give these to
46:28me for
46:28looking at all his stuff. And I said, sure. That's a swell gift. Yeah, it was.
46:33Um, these are folk art carvings representing Yebeche dancers, which are part of a nine-day healing
46:41ceremony held by the Navajo. And they're made by Clitzo Dedman, a Diné artist who was born in the late
46:481800s. He died in 1953. And looking at the style of these, I would say he carved them around 1950.
46:55They're extraordinary pieces of Navajo folk art. And he's very, very highly collected and held in high
47:06esteem. If they were to go to an auction setting as a set of four, my expectation would be that
47:13they
47:13would sell for between $2,600 and $3,500. Nice.
47:27It's a large brass antique telescope. I got it from my dad and he acquired it from a gentleman up
47:34in
47:35Vermont who had it in like a barn sale, garage sale. My dad paid about $250 for it. It is
47:41a telescope,
47:42all brass construction. It's made by a company called Alvin Clark and Sons. They were established
47:47in the mid-19th century in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. And they were the go-to guys for
47:54big telescopes. So some of the biggest telescopes in the world up until about 1900 were made by this
48:02firm up to be almost 40 inches in diameter at numerous observatories throughout the United
48:06States. It measures an impressive almost five feet long. And the tube itself is about four and a half
48:12inches in diameter. The optics do appear to be in good condition, which is a huge thing with antique
48:17telescopes. I'm thinking it's probably in the 1870 to 1880 range. So kind of in their prime. If it came
48:23up to auction today, I think it would conservatively bring three to $5,000. Wow. That's fantastic.
48:31That's really awesome.
48:37This painting was owned by my great aunt and uncle. My great aunt died in 1958. It was given to
48:44my mother
48:45and passed on to our family. We've had it about four or five years. Jesse Arms Botky, the artist of
48:52your
48:52painting, was born in Chicago in the late 19th century and was well trained and well traveled. She was a
49:00painter. She was a muralist. She was a designer and she was kind of ahead of her time in so
49:05many other
49:06ways. They talk about her being very outspoken and marching in the suffragette parades. Given the
49:13quality and style of it, I think it was probably painted at the height of her career, which would be
49:171930 to 1950. She was represented by some of the finest galleries in the United States.
49:24So I suspect that it was an expensive painting, even when it was acquired. The painting is oil on
49:30board. It's painted very thinly. She loved especially white peacocks. She displayed this bird in just such
49:37a wonderful way where you could see through the feathers. The alley going into the background is
49:43really quite exceptional and with the sculptures directing your eye into the painting. I believe
49:50that this alley is a pastiche of great houses. There's a little Versailles in there. There's a
49:57little crane estate in there. I don't see it as being attributable to a specific location. I really think,
50:04and I've spoken with my colleagues, it's one of the best we've seen in a long time. The combination of
50:09the
50:09bird, the architecture, the palette is just beautiful. At auction, I would estimate it between $60,000
50:16and $80,000. Wow. Wow. Today would have been my mother's 99th birthday. Oh my gosh. So it's... Oh,
50:29she's watching.
50:35Thank you. Insurance valuation would be $150,000. This makes my day. My year.
50:47And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth. We came with our 1865 newspaper announcing Lincoln's
50:55assassination. We came with our grandmother's teacup from Occupy Japan. We came with Grandpa's
51:01Loblaws truck. It's steel. And the appraisers liked the best the box that he concocted in order to carry
51:08the Loblaws truck with the duct tape, the pool noodle, and the clothesline string. I've got a copy of
51:14Amelia Earhart's book signed by Amelia Earhart. And good news and bad news. The good news is it's worth a
51:21fair amount of money. The bad news is it belongs to our son and not me. And we found out
51:26this locomotive
51:26bell is worth four to six hundred dollars. And weighs about a hundred pounds. Cheers to Antiques Roadshow.
51:36This is a Civil War flag that I was under the impression was a reunion flag and it was actually
51:43used as collateral for a loan to a family friend. Well, we found out today that the flag is a
51:50fake.
51:51And we will be calling that family friend shortly after this. We came today because we thought our
51:57baseball would get us on TV, but we didn't make the cut. But my pins from the Olympic ceremonies were
52:03worth about fifty to seventy-five dollars. And we had a great time at Antiques Roadshow today. I brought
52:08my cello and it's not worth much, but I still had a good time. We're here to celebrate. I just
52:14beat cancer
52:14and then I won the tickets to Antiques Roadshow. We're super happy to be here. Thanks guys.
52:18Thanks for watching. See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.
52:30My father went to the Students Art League in New York City. I don't know how their paths crossed,
52:36but obviously they did somewhere along the line. This is the way that ads were illustrated. It's
52:42the way that even news articles at the beginning of the 20th century were illustrated. The illustrations
52:46are very collectible. So you have three different artists here. This is Gilbert Bundy. He was especially
52:52busy in the 1930s, 40s, and then early 50s. It's a great drawing. It's got a lot of energy and
52:59fun.
52:59You're probably looking at about $300 to $500 for auction purposes. This is Jaro Febri. This would be a little
53:06bit later, 1950s. A little bit more simplistic in terms of its execution. Probably $200 to $300 for it.
53:15And then the Paget. Happily, this is very conveniently dated for us, so we know it's 1941. This is probably
53:20going to be about $300 to $350. That's a wonderful collection. Thank you for your help.
53:35Ken Burns' miniseries on baseball on PBS in 1994. One of the chapters of the miniseries was on Negro
53:43League Baseball. He came to Kansas City for a publicity campaign, and he got together all the living
53:49Negro League Baseball players. And they signed autographs, and they had the shirts and things.
53:57Now, except for Ken Burns' autograph on here, everyone else has passed.
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