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00:04Happy birthday, America.
00:06It's such an incredible piece of American history.
00:08You're kidding.
00:10This piece combines a great folk design with great history.
00:13It's Antiques Roadshow, 250 years of Americana.
00:35American Ingenuity has long been a hallmark of our national character, as well as a point of pride.
00:42To celebrate the United States' 250th anniversary, Roadshow compiled some of the best pieces of Americana we've ever seen.
00:52Outstanding items that showcase the experiences.
00:55Oh my gosh.
00:56So this is of real historical significance.
01:00It's a really neat piece.
01:02Innovations.
01:02I guess it's not a secret to anyone that this is a light bulb.
01:04Yes.
01:05But it's a very special kind of light bulb.
01:07And artistic expressions that make up our storied history.
01:10In many ways, they're very symbolic, I think, of his passion for the environment and making people aware of the
01:18American landscape.
01:20July 4th, 1776 is the USA's birth date.
01:25But we're starting off with a treasure created in a city under siege.
01:29Several months before the 13 colonies declared independence.
01:34Take a look.
01:34The powder horn came through my mother's family.
01:39The stories vary.
01:40It was perhaps a wedding gift to my grandmother and grandfather, or may have come later, possibly, from an auction
01:50or a sale.
01:51Okay.
01:51But it's been in the family that we know of for about 70 years.
01:55Well, it's a really nice example of a powder horn that was made in the Boston area in 1775.
02:02It was made during the Siege of Boston.
02:05After the events of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, there was a massive influx of troops from across
02:14New England that descended on Boston.
02:17They built a series of fortifications around the town to blockade the British army in the town so that they
02:23couldn't get back out into the countryside to try to capture more supplies or disrupt military activities.
02:30One of the major fortifications in the town was Roxbury, and we actually see the term Roxbury camps.
02:38And then there's this really simple but interesting outline of a fortification.
02:44Now, on this side, we have something very interesting, an inscription that says, By Abimelech Uncas.
02:53Yes. Abimelech Uncas was a soldier who was serving in Colonel Timothy Danielson's regiment in 1775.
03:02I actually found a muster roll from October of 1775 where Abimelech Uncas appears on that roll, and he appears
03:10on the roll as being from the town of Norwich in Connecticut.
03:13Oh, my gosh.
03:14Yeah.
03:15Oh.
03:15In addition to that, I can tell you that he was Native American.
03:19He was a Mohegan, in fact.
03:21In 1777, he enlisted for three years in the 1st Connecticut Regiment.
03:26Significantly, he's mentioned as being sometimes on Indian duty or working with Indians.
03:32I can only think of a small handful of other horns that were likely decorated by Native Americans, and most
03:40of those are of a generation earlier.
03:41I think it's a really interesting, I think, important piece of American history.
03:47Have you ever had it appraised?
03:49My mother's estate was appraised about six years ago, and it was appraised for $5,000.
03:57Okay.
03:58Well, I think that in today's market, Siege of Boston powder horns are fairly popular right now.
04:04This powder horn at auction could easily sell in the $8,000 to $12,000 range, and I think it
04:11has the really good potential of bringing more because of the history, because of Abimelech's association.
04:16Oh, that's wonderful. That's amazing. My grandmother would be so pleased.
04:32Well, being a native San Diego and I worked for the local utility, and I was in a department called
04:38the Art and Display Department.
04:39We built displays for the fairs and home shows, and it was appliances and things like this here.
04:45And during the 70s, they decided to get rid of this department.
04:48And found it home with you.
04:49Yeah, right. So my old boss at that time, I asked him if I could please have that, and he
04:53said, yeah, go ahead and take it.
04:54Well, it's a nice gift of him to give to you.
04:56Oh, yeah. Now I'm realizing that today.
04:58Well, I guess it's not a secret to anyone that this is a light bulb.
05:01Yes.
05:01But it's a very special kind of light bulb, and it has a presentation plaque, which is interesting.
05:05We don't know the truth or not behind the plaque.
05:08It says it was presented by Thomas Edison to a Mr. Raymerton, and then later given to a club in
05:13the late 30s.
05:14But we know it's an Edison bulb for a number of reasons, mostly by the construction,
05:18and also because it has the original Edison patent label, which is actually applied as a paper label to the
05:24base of the bulb.
05:25It has the brass and ceramic collar at the base.
05:28It's in an incredible condition, been protected in this case.
05:31And the carbon filament, what were you to use as a filament in order to last for a long time?
05:37And we ultimately settled on the carbon filament.
05:39And the reason that things like this are so interesting and so popular is because a person like Edison is
05:44so key to the history of technology in the country and in the world.
05:49And he's such a fascinating character.
05:51The more we learn about him, the more interesting he is.
05:53So the number of collectors surrounding Edison and all his inventions and all his patents has grown dramatically.
05:59And, of course, he's most known for the light bulb, something that really changed the face of the world for
06:05everyone.
06:06Now, a light bulb like this from the late 19th century is pretty scarce, and they don't come up at
06:13auction very often.
06:14One from a little bit earlier than this recently sold in London for around $5,000.
06:20This one probably dates a little bit later than that.
06:22And I'd put it at $3,000 to $5,000 easily.
06:26If you could find out a little bit more about Mr. Raymerton, maybe he was somebody very interesting that had
06:31an interesting association with Edison.
06:32That might boost the value a little bit.
06:34But what you've got here is a fantastic piece that has great potential easily in the $3,000 to $5
06:39,000 range.
06:40And I'm really, really glad you brought it on the show.
06:42Well, I have to thank my wife for that.
06:44She's the one who told me to get out of the garage and get in the house.
06:47Get it out of the garage.
06:48Here it is.
06:50Jeez, that's really nice to know.
07:04It was a gift from my ex-husband right before he left me.
07:08He gave me a birthday present, and this was it.
07:10Best thing he ever gave me, actually.
07:12I know that it was probably purchased in Philadelphia, and it probably cost around $1,800.
07:18I received it in 2005.
07:21It's actually a color screen print by Warhol from the first Campbell Soup series that he did in 1968,
07:27which is a set of 10 different soup cans, all Campbell Soup cans.
07:32Okay.
07:33And these are based on a 1962 painted series that he had done and first exhibited at Ferris Gallery in
07:40Los Angeles.
07:41Okay.
07:41Just as he was shifting from his career as an advertising artist in New York to more of a fine
07:47artist.
07:48And Warhol got on the map and became a famous artist through his appropriation of everyday images.
07:55Right.
07:55And he said that one of the reasons he chose Campbell Soup early on is because as a kid growing
08:01up in Pittsburgh,
08:02he was fed Campbell Soup and ate Campbell Soup all the time.
08:06Makes sense.
08:06So he made a set of 10 different subjects, 10 different soups in the first Campbell Soup series, number one,
08:13in 1968.
08:14These were done in an edition of 250, each of the prints,
08:18and each of them are signed in ballpoint pen and ink and numbered with a rubber ink stamp.
08:23Right.
08:23Now, he was very well known when these were made,
08:26and the reason why he made them in the late 60s based on a painted series from the early 60s
08:31is that he could make multiple images of them.
08:33And using screen print, run off a lot, and 10 times 250, you have 2,500 prints to be sold
08:40from this series.
08:41So cashing in on his growing popularity.
08:44These were printed in New York and published through Warhol's publishing outfit called Factory Editions.
08:51Even though he was well known at the time, a lot of people viewed these as prints and sort of
08:56common images, not of great value.
08:58What did he sell them for originally?
09:01Originally a couple hundred dollars.
09:02A couple hundred dollars, yeah.
09:03Or the whole set for maybe $1,000.
09:06Yours is in great shape.
09:08Really?
09:08Yes.
09:09On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, you're at about an 8.5, maybe 9.
09:14Well, and it's been on a wall.
09:15But you've kept it out of the sunlight.
09:18Yeah, I did, I did.
09:19So what would you guess?
09:21What would you say is a value?
09:23I am clueless because, I mean, and part of it is what you were explaining, like their original paintings,
09:29and then there's this series of prints and that series of prints.
09:32So I don't know where this fits in.
09:35I'm really clueless.
09:36I never heard of divorce gifts either.
09:38I don't know.
09:38That's a new thing for me.
09:40It was a birthday gift right before he left.
09:43I think maybe we call it a guilt gift or something.
09:46I don't know.
09:47I like that one.
09:47Go with that.
09:48Yeah.
09:49In this condition, great shape, I would put a replacement value of $50,000.
09:54What?
09:56Come on.
09:58That's crazy.
09:59My goodness.
10:00I don't know.
10:01I'm speechless.
10:03I don't know what to say.
10:05The more common the soup, take tomato soup, that's a $75,000, $80,000 print because it's tomato soup.
10:10That's the iconic soup.
10:12Right.
10:18It's a nice set.
10:19It's not the first edition, but in the generation of, the condition is everything in a big way.
10:25And they're in very nice condition.
10:27I would put $100 to $150 as an auction.
10:38This came from Western Virginia.
10:42I bought it in 1968 for two bucks a piece.
10:53It's a photograph of Sportsman's Park with two teams from the Negro Baseball League playing.
10:59And Satchel Paige is on the Monarch team.
11:01My understanding is this was sitting in kind of a prominent spot in an old house.
11:06Where was that?
11:08Well, my family home that my dad purchased in 1960, which probably was built around the late 1800s.
11:15In the basement, on the old furnace, there was this photograph sitting there for many, many, many years, apparently.
11:21I didn't notice it for a really long time until the furnace broke down.
11:24I had to have it repaired.
11:25And I think we see some of that with a lot of the dust and some of the dirt.
11:29As a result of some fortuitous scheduling, Kansas City Monarchs and Satchel Paige came to town, St. Louis, Sportsman's Park,
11:36to play the Chicago American Giants.
11:39Satchel Paige wiped the floor of them, and the Monarchs.
11:42They won 11-2 that day on a beautiful 4th of July.
11:45Here's what's very interesting about that day in St. Louis history.
11:48The Jim Crow laws required that African Americans sit separately, and the right-side bleacher was reserved under the local
11:56Jim Crow rules.
11:57On this day, African Americans could sit wherever their pocketbooks would take them.
12:02Whatever they could afford, they would sit throughout the park just this day.
12:05Wow.
12:06Because Satchel Paige wanted that to be the case.
12:09Satchel Paige, prolific baseball pitcher, athlete, but he was more than that.
12:14He was a Jackie Robinson in many ways, in that he had fans of any race in Crete, which is
12:22why we see that the Jim Crow laws were put to bed for his coming into town.
12:26A Hall of Famer, he was a guy that really broke a barrier in many ways for fans of the
12:31sport.
12:32Sportsman's Park here in St. Louis, it was prominent in that it housed sporting events.
12:37Baseball was really the mainstay, closed in 1966.
12:40We've got the park captured beautifully in a pretty wide panorama, black and white.
12:46Now, of course, there are some condition issues, and again, sitting on top of the furnace, that would tend to
12:52happen.
12:52With a bit of restoration, not only would it present well, but I think what you see is a really
12:58clear, beautiful image.
13:00Have you had it valued?
13:01No.
13:02Okay.
13:03As is, it's worth about $3,000.
13:06Okay.
13:07It would probably cost between $4,000 to $600 to restore, but I think the return, what you see at
13:13auction, is a range of $5,000 to $7,000.
13:17I know you're waiting for this response.
13:18You're kidding.
13:20Oh, my gosh.
13:21No, I think it's a beautiful image, again, of a really important day in St. Louis history, in baseball history,
13:27American history.
13:28Absolutely.
13:28Absolutely.
13:28The Jim Crow laws.
13:29I mean, that was put to bed with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but on this day, it was
13:33put to bed for baseball.
13:35Exactly.
13:36Oh, my gosh.
13:38So, this is of real historical significance.
13:41Yeah, absolutely.
13:42Wonderful.
13:43Oh, my gosh.
13:43It makes me happy.
13:44Yeah.
13:45Very happy.
13:45Same here.
13:46Thank you so much.
13:47This is seriously giving me chills right now.
13:49It's a great piece.
13:50Absolutely.
14:01They belong to my great-grandmother.
14:03She worked for the Department of War and Department of Labor, and that she was a pack rat, and I
14:09mean, she just, she loved to collect things.
14:11How many of them are there?
14:13I'm guessing about 50.
14:14I pulled out a couple of very specific and interesting pieces to talk to you about.
14:18The ones on either end are a very famous figure in American World War II history.
14:22It's Rosie the Riveter, and one of the reasons why I love these posters so much is that she is
14:26such a popular character, and her image is so well-known,
14:30but you actually very seldomly see the posters.
14:33Uh-huh.
14:33Now, these are advertising the women ordnance worker program.
14:37Okay.
14:38Where women were making shells in factories while the men were away, and in fact, the one that's closest to
14:42you says,
14:43the girl he left behind is still behind him.
14:46Very, very popular and surprisingly really rare in the world of World War II posters.
14:51Okay.
14:52Now, very differently is the poster that's in the middle here.
14:55Now, this poster is by a very famous artist whose name is Ben Sean, and his name appears on the
15:00poster,
15:01and the story behind this poster is a page right out of your history class.
15:05Okay.
15:06In 1942, the Czechoslovakian resistance assassinated Heydrich, who was one of the high commandants in the Nazi army in Czechoslovakia.
15:16Okay.
15:16And in retaliation, the Germans liquidated an entire village in Czechoslovakia.
15:22They killed all of the men and deported all of the women and children to concentration camps.
15:27The town was called Lidice, and this poster is so somber and so grim of a shackled man with his
15:35head in a bag up against a brick wall,
15:38and it's meant to look sort of like a radio dispatch saying what happened.
15:42Now, another image is this image up front, and it seems like a very simple poster.
15:47It says, give it your best.
15:48It was meant to increase production in factories.
15:51Okay.
15:51The poster is not signed, but we know that it's by a very famous artist named Charles Koiner.
15:57And this poster, because of its clear and obvious patriotism, is actually also very desirable on the market.
16:05Finally, I want to show you something that I've never seen before.
16:08And this is a group of posters for something called the OPA.
16:13And the OPA is the Office of Price Administration, which existed during the war specifically to keep people profiting on
16:23gasoline, on rent.
16:25And these are a very creative, very modern series.
16:30They really, they don't seem like they're from 1945.
16:33They seem much more recent.
16:34I've never, never seen them before.
16:36And in fact, only just today when I went online to do some research, learned what the OPA was.
16:42I'd never heard of the Office of Price Administration.
16:45So I think these are very exceptional.
16:46If I had these posters at auction, I would appraise them in the following way.
16:50The two posters of Rosie the Riveter, each by Adolph Tridler, by the way, a very famous artist.
16:55I would estimate each one at $1,500 to $2,000.
16:59Okay.
17:00The Ben Sean poster, I would estimate at $800 to $1,200.
17:04The Charles Coiner, give it your best, the American flag, I would estimate at $700 to $1,000.
17:11Okay.
17:11And all of these posters for the Office of Price Administration, there's a group, I would estimate this group alone
17:17at $1,500 to $2,000.
17:20Oh, cool.
17:20Okay.
17:20So together now, we're looking at between $6,000 and $8,200.
17:25And that's just for the ones we're looking at, not for the other ones that are in the pile.
17:29Okay.
17:30How does that sound for a piece of history?
17:31That sounds great.
17:32I had no idea.
17:46I bought this 14 years ago from the original owner's sign.
17:50He kept the original bill of sale and the one where he paid it off a year later.
17:54And that was in?
17:55July 28, 1956, on the bill of sale.
17:571956, and that was right here in Mobile?
18:00Right in Mobile.
18:01Okay.
18:01Well, this is literally the 47th one made, excluding prototypes.
18:06That would actually place it in the year 1954.
18:09Any idea of the value?
18:11I paid $3,000 for it.
18:12I paid a lot of money for it.
18:1414 years ago.
18:15Well, today, a 1954 Stratocaster would be valued at auction between $50,000 and $70,000.
18:27Unbelievable.
18:27Great piece.
18:28Thanks for bringing it in today.
18:29Thank you very, very, very much.
18:30My pleasure.
18:33My grandfather was from Galveston and went to college in Connecticut, met and married my
18:39grandmother, whose family still had the royal charter on her home.
18:43When she returned to Texas, she brought ancestors with her, her great-great-great-aunt and uncle.
18:52His name was Frederick Seymour, and his wife was Prudence Minor.
18:57Her picture was done in 1799.
18:59His was done three years earlier, and they've descended in the family ever since.
19:04And where did they live, Peter?
19:06He was a sea captain and merchant in Hartford, Connecticut.
19:11She was from New London, Connecticut.
19:14And you know a little bit about the artist, and can you tell us?
19:17Well, I'd not known anything until an article in the magazine Antiques on a woman named Mary
19:23Way from New London, and I wrote a letter to the author of the article.
19:28He felt it was an easy attribution to Ms. Way.
19:32That's about as far as I can go with it.
19:34Well, this is an example of wonderful things coming in a small package.
19:40Mary Way was a very versatile American artist, specializing in portrait miniatures.
19:47And what is so marvelous about her work is she's the only American miniaturist that we
19:52know of that worked in a three-dimensional manner called dressed miniatures.
19:58She managed to create a three-dimensional effect by painting in watercolor, and then
20:04actually picking out the clothing with scraps of fabric that she would cut and fold and
20:11then touch up with paint on top of that.
20:14Neither of these are in their original frames, but the detail and the wonderfulness of Mary's
20:21technique certainly shines.
20:22In her portrait, we have this incredible ability to pick out detail.
20:29The hat, its many layers, its see-through quality.
20:35And down on the arm, her dress actually has sleeves of a very light gauze material, and
20:42you can just make out little details of flowers which are embroidered into that gauzing.
20:47This is an incredibly difficult thing to do effectively.
20:51She certainly deserves her newfound fame as one of the great women artists, as well as
20:57American miniaturists of the late 18th, early 19th century.
21:02She was born in 1769 in New London and died there in the early 19th century.
21:07They are superlative examples.
21:09And I would conservatively estimate that these would be in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.
21:15Yikes.
21:17Nice to know.
21:18Yes, I had no idea.
21:19Well, you've started off well by having them properly, professionally conserved, and I know
21:24you'll treasure them.
21:25I certainly will.
21:26Thank you so very much.
21:41Captain William A. McClellan is my second great-grandfather.
21:45He served in the Union Army in the Civil War.
21:49He started out as a second lieutenant in Company D, the 84th Indiana Volunteers.
21:55Throughout the course of the war, he elevated in rank to when he mustered out he was a captain.
22:01The quilt has come down through my family.
22:03We believe that it was actually made for the period of time when he was attending the reunions
22:12of the Grand Army of the Republic.
22:14I looked him up in the census and recognized that he was a farmer.
22:19And that struck me as interesting because most officers, when they mustered in as a lieutenant
22:26or a captain, they had some above-average education.
22:32McClellan was 25.
22:35I don't know if you knew that when he mustered in, which was relatively old.
22:39And that may be why he mustered in as a second lieutenant in a position of authority.
22:45The 84th was a Western theater group.
22:48Your feeling about the quilt that is a post-war quilt I think is probably correct.
22:53I think that you're right that it probably has something to do with the GAR or the Grand
22:59Army of the Republic, which of course is the Union Soldiers Veterans Organization that started
23:06up not long after the war ended.
23:08So it may have been made for his participation in GAR encampments.
23:13The flags make this quilt.
23:16Flags in themselves are often incorporated into quilts.
23:20But this particular example is really, really striking.
23:26Have you ever thought about, gee, I wonder what this thing could be worth?
23:30Maybe $1,000.
23:32In the right kind of auction with historical items that related to the Civil War or American
23:39history.
23:39This quilt would probably sell for $10,000 to $15,000.
23:45Now, that's to someone potentially who is an Indiana Civil War collector.
23:51It might even sell for more in an auction of Folkart and Americana to someone who is a quilt
23:59collector.
24:00I would probably feel pretty comfortable telling you an insurance value of this would be $20,000.
24:06Wow.
24:06When my mother gave it to me, it was like, wow, why did you keep this hidden all these years?
24:20Well, this is a portfolio that I purchased from Ansel Adams in 1964.
24:29Uh-huh.
24:30I went to my first museum job, and I thought this would be a great opportunity just to have
24:36a small exhibition of Ansel Adams' work.
24:40And so I wrote him, and we bought the portfolio.
24:44These are three representative images from a portfolio of 16 photographs that Adams did
24:52of the Yosemite Valley.
24:54These photographs were done over a period of almost 40 years.
25:00In 1926, Adams took his first trip to Yosemite, made some photographs at that point, and continued
25:09to go back.
25:10Now, what's important is that they're signed by Adams.
25:15They're also archivally mounted.
25:18Adams was very concerned with the proper presentation of his photographs.
25:22He developed the craft of very fine photographic printing, and these prints were done around 1960.
25:32So they're referred to as modern prints that Adams crafted from the original negatives.
25:39And as he made these later prints, he reinterpreted them.
25:44And in many ways, they're very symbolic, I think, of his passion for the environment and making
25:51people aware of the American landscape.
25:54What did you pay for these images when you acquired them?
25:58The portfolio was $100.
26:01$100?
26:03In 1964.
26:04At auction, I would estimate the 16 photographs in the portfolio at $30,000 to $50,000.
26:16A bit different from its 1964 price.
26:32It's a Norman Rockwell artist print, and it's signed.
26:37I bought it at an auction.
26:39I paid three and a quarter for it.
26:40I think the original hung in the White House for a period of time during the Obama administration.
26:46And this young lady now has grown, and she was there for the installation in the White House.
26:52So I thought it was pretty interesting.
26:58I've never seen this grouping of early NFL football memorabilia before.
27:03You're looking here at the contract that your husband's grandfather had from George Hallis,
27:09signed by George Hallis for the first year of the NFL in 1922.
27:13You look at these charms, though.
27:15These charms were from championships.
27:16But this is the Western Championship from 1923, because those two years,
27:22they came in second to the Canton Bulldogs, which were led by Jim Thorpe.
27:26So this is an amazing treasure trove of memorabilia.
27:30And if I were going to put an estimate on it at auction for the whole group, $8,000 to
27:33$12,000.
27:34Oh, my.
27:35You know, it's from Chicago, but it belongs in Canton.
27:41I went to answer an ad in a penny saver for a mattress set, and I was a starving student
27:48in college.
27:49I went to go buy the mattress set, and I saw the chair.
27:53And I just fell in love with its design, and she allowed me to sit in the chair, the owner.
27:59But she told me it's not for sale.
28:02And so I said, oh, my goodness, I love this chair.
28:05She said, I'd only sell it to the right person.
28:08I left her my name and my number.
28:10A couple weeks later, she called me, and she said, you're the person.
28:15And she said, how much could you afford?
28:18And I said, maybe $25.
28:21And she said, okay, how about $23?
28:26And so that's what I bought the chair for.
28:28And then a couple years later, I was in a bookstore,
28:31and I was looking at a book about Nelson Rockefeller's house.
28:35And there is the chair.
28:37I found this name, George Takashima.
28:39I just love this chair.
28:41I love the design.
28:43And I've used this chair.
28:45It's not something precious.
28:47It's something, a part of my life, and it's in my living room.
28:50It is very early in his career.
28:52In the late 40s, after he was interned during World War II in a Japanese camp,
28:57he was exposed to Japanese traditional woodworking techniques there.
29:02His first designs, of which this is one of the first designs,
29:06had a very strong Japanese traditional feel to it.
29:10Hundreds and even thousands of years of Japanese woodworking had really remained unchanged.
29:15And George was taking those techniques, honoring them,
29:17but then shaping that tradition gently towards modernism.
29:22And what this chair is, is it's a very elegant, sophisticated, modern version
29:26of a traditional Japanese crafted chair.
29:29By the time he died in 1990, he had been making them continuously for over 40 years.
29:34And his daughter, Mira, is continuing that tradition and making them today.
29:39So there's quite a lot of them that are out there.
29:41There are also quite a lot of people who wanted to make chairs that looked like George's.
29:47So how do we know that this is by George?
29:52I don't know.
29:53A couple of little small details.
29:55The grass seat is original.
29:56This is seagrass that's tightly woven, which is a traditional Japanese technique.
30:00It's completely put together with wood pegs.
30:03There's no metal screws or any kind of nails.
30:06This is all crafted by hand.
30:08You can see that these side rail spindles here are pegged right here on the side.
30:13That's a traditional woodworking technique.
30:15But George had a very specific way of creating those and attaching them to the rest of the structure.
30:22Also, these side rail spindles are shaped by hand.
30:26The legs, which are also hand-turned, some chairs by other makers never have those types of subtle details.
30:35So this chair is by George Nakashima.
30:37It's great.
30:38And it's known as the grass seat chair.
30:40And it's very hard to date it, except by looking at the patina.
30:43The original oiled finish is a little warm, but it has a really wonderful warm patina.
30:49And what year did you buy it?
30:511986.
30:521986.
30:52So George was still alive at that time.
30:55They were made exactly the same between the late 40s and the time you purchased it in 1986.
30:59But I would think that this chair is probably from the mid-1960s.
31:03The wood is American black walnut.
31:05These were made in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
31:07You paid $23 in 1986.
31:09What do you think it's worth today?
31:13Okay, I'm going to just go for it.
31:15I'll say $2,300.
31:18That's a pretty good guess.
31:19This chair at auction typically sells for between $2,000 and $2,500.
31:24Okay.
31:25Thank you so much.
31:26They're rarely marked.
31:27I've probably sold 100 of these chairs.
31:30Over 30 years.
31:31And I have never seen one that was marked.
31:39This piece was given to me by my dad.
31:43I was told that the great-grandma was the one that did the beadwork.
31:48Your father's great-grandmother.
31:50Yeah.
31:51This bag is really from the golden age of pictorial beadwork in the Dakota area,
31:58which is really 1890 to about 1910.
32:02It comes from the Standing Rock area.
32:05Now, what we see are these fantastic pictorial elements with the eagle and the flag.
32:12And this is diagnostic for one of the families that beat it up in there.
32:18And there were two real important families.
32:20One was Claymore and the other was Nellie Gates.
32:25This was made by the Claymore family.
32:28And they're very collectible.
32:30Now, I'm going to turn this slowly so their audience can see what fantastic elements.
32:36We have this sort of beaded rainbow element here, which is also typical of this period.
32:43And then again, on this side, we see more floral, which is just beautifully executed.
32:52And we see that it's just fully beaded.
32:56Now, we have some condition problems up here on the top.
33:01That should be fixed.
33:02And it should be cleaned, but only cleaned by a professional.
33:06Would you be depressed at all if I told you that this bag was worth $40,000 to $60,000
33:10at auction or at a good gallery?
33:13Wow.
33:14Would you smile?
33:15I guess.
33:31I brought you a series of letters that were signed by abolitionists.
33:35They were invited to the 100-year anniversary of the Free Will Baptist Church.
33:39And the letters in the back are those that could not attend the ceremony in Wears, New Hampshire.
33:45I inherited it from my father, who inherited it from an elderly gentleman he befriended.
33:49The title of this book is The Centennial Record of Free Will Baptists, 1780 to 1880.
33:58It was published in 1881, and it's a record of the convention or the celebration that the Free Will Baptist
34:03Church held in 1880
34:05to celebrate 100 years from their founding.
34:09This copy seems to belong to a gentleman named William Foss, who may have been an attendee or an organizer.
34:15He collected all of these things and put them together like a scrapbook.
34:18The Free Will Baptists are a denomination within the Baptist Church, was an important abolitionist organization.
34:26Not only did they agitate to end slavery in America, they also provided important assistance to enslaved people
34:36after they escaped from the South and moved upwards through New England.
34:41And in the back are bound in photographs.
34:45I love this photograph of the building of the Free Will Baptist Church that was built in 1819.
34:51And then, as you said, several letters from really prominent abolitionists are bound in.
34:58People who were invited to this ceremony, but for one reason or another, were not able to attend.
35:04The first one is from Frederick Douglass, who is one of the most prominent abolitionists, a former slave,
35:11who became one of the most prominent writers and speakers of the abolitionist movement.
35:15And he was invited and not able to make it.
35:18But he wrote this incredible letter in which he specifically said,
35:22When I escaped from slavery 42 years ago and sought liberty in New England,
35:28the Free Will Baptist Churches were about the only churches open as a rule for the advocacy of the cause
35:34of the slave.
35:35You were not ashamed of the Negro's cause when it was hated and despised,
35:39when he was persecuted and mobbed from city to city.
35:43It's a two-page letter.
35:44And you can see his signature down here.
35:46Right behind Frederick Douglass is a letter from Harriet Beecher Stowe,
35:51who is the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
35:54She was also invited, could not make it.
35:57She talks about having used the records of the Free Will Baptist Church
36:03to write the key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was the follow-up book.
36:07There was a lot of criticism of Uncle Tom's Cabin, that it was fictionalized and romanticized
36:12and therefore not something we should take seriously.
36:15And so she wrote another book to say,
36:17No, here is the evidence that supports the drama that I included in my book.
36:22And there's also a letter from James Garfield.
36:26His letter is not as exciting because he basically says,
36:29I can't attend, I'm too busy.
36:31But he was too busy because he was running for president.
36:34This is really a terrific memento of the abolitionist movement.
36:41The Frederick Douglass letter,
36:42even though this letter is a little bit later in his career,
36:46the fact that he mentions his escape from slavery puts this letter in a much higher tier.
36:53It's not hard to find something signed by Frederick Douglass.
36:56All of these government documents are signed by him.
36:59It is hard to find a letter in which he talks so eloquently about his struggle
37:06and about the people who helped him along the way, which this does.
37:09At auction, I would put the Frederick Douglass letter.
37:13If you just had it by itself, the Frederick Douglass letter would be $50,000 to $70,000.
37:20Right?
37:22The Harriet Beecher Stowe, also very popular, would be $3,000 to $5,000.
37:30And the rest of the materials would probably be another $2,000 to $3,000.
37:37So at auction, the entire book, I would say $55,000 to $75,000.
37:44If you wanted to insure it, you should put it at a minimum of $110,000.
37:56Deep breath.
37:57Deep breath.
38:00Thank you very much.
38:02You're welcome.
38:03A lot more than I thought.
38:05It's a big deal.
38:06It's a really big deal.
38:07It's such an incredible piece of American history.
38:10I love it.
38:16It is a Colt single-action Army revolver, also known as the Peacemaker.
38:22This gun from the serial number appears to be somewhere around the 1880s.
38:27All of these would have been extras, the engraving, the gold wash, the mother of pearl grips.
38:33It was simply listed as an Ub Iwerks drawing from Steamboat Willie.
38:38This was $40.
38:40I wasn't sure if it was authentic.
38:42I took a chance.
38:43It is certainly authentic.
38:45Steamboat Willie is one of the most iconic Disney cartoons.
38:49It was done in 1928.
38:51Mickey is playing like a xylophone on the cow's teeth.
38:56Right.
38:57Value-wise, we would put a presale estimate at auction of $2,000 to $2,500.
39:04Wow.
39:05It's a wonderful, charming drawing.
39:08Thank you for bringing it in.
39:10I appreciate it.
39:12My mother gave me these, but she got them from her mother.
39:16My great-grandmother's sister married George Orr.
39:23Wow.
39:24And so these were made by?
39:26George Orr.
39:27Did you ever meet any of his family?
39:30Did you ever go there?
39:30I met what I believe was his daughter.
39:34They lived out in the country, and I went with my mother and my aunt.
39:38And I remember like a house and a barn, maybe a barn setting.
39:44It was a rural setting.
39:45Sure.
39:45And I saw like shelves of pottery, and I went inside their house for a little while.
39:53It wasn't a new mansion, that's for sure.
39:56It was just regular people.
39:57The pottery, was there a lot of it?
39:59Did you see it?
40:00Did you have any memories of that?
40:01From what I can remember, it was like on tables, and it was on shelves.
40:05It was everywhere.
40:05It just stacked everywhere.
40:06Yes, sir.
40:07And the family just didn't think much about it.
40:09No.
40:09They did not.
40:10Isn't that interesting?
40:12Tell me about these pieces here.
40:13Well, as far as I know, I have a rabbit ear puzzle mug.
40:19Then that particular puzzle mug, it's got a strange kind of etching on the handle.
40:26And then the little house over there is an inkwell.
40:28Yes, that's correct.
40:29And then a pitcher.
40:30Okay.
40:31George Orr made lots of puzzle mugs.
40:33A puzzle mug has little holes in the handles and in the rim, but there's a hole at the bottom
40:39of the handle.
40:40And so to drink out of it, you tilt the mug, and then you have to put your fingers over
40:46certain holes.
40:47And then you can usually suck one of the holes and get the liquid out.
40:53But you have to know the puzzle, and I don't know what it is.
40:56Okay.
40:56But there is a trick to drinking at it without spilling it.
40:59So that's why it's called a puzzle mug.
41:02Okay.
41:02And then the pitcher is a little unusual for George Orr in that it's really utilitarian.
41:07Most of his stuff was decorative.
41:08What I really love about the inkwell is the shape of a house, exactly what was like in his community,
41:15with even doors and windows, the roof line.
41:19And I think it was a really interesting design that he made it like that.
41:23Now, there's a number of different marks that he used, and one of the examples of the marks is actually
41:28on the house.
41:29He just scratched in hand.
41:30He put Biloxi.
41:31He also sometimes signed by hand.
41:34So this one has his name, George Orr, which he signed in script.
41:39And the other two have the same mark, the impressed mark.
41:43There was like a little die stamp that he pressed into the clay with his name and Biloxi.
41:49Now, the date of all these pieces, they were made by George Orr between about 1895, about 1900.
41:55What year were you there?
41:5759-60.
41:58Okay.
41:58Possibly.
41:59In about 1969, a man came down from the northeast and bought most of that pottery and hauled it off.
42:08So you saw it before he hauled it all off.
42:11The mugs, you could look online and see some kind of high prices, and the prices on ore has fallen
42:16a little bit,
42:17in some cases more than others.
42:19But since those are relatively common, actually these days they only sell for normally around $500 to $750 apiece.
42:27The picture has a few little damages, which is not that unusual for ore.
42:32A lot of it does have a little damage, but it would still be worth between $1,250 and $1
42:38,750.
42:40And then the inkwell is the best piece.
42:42And that one would probably sell for at least $2,500 to $3,500.
42:49And so the collective total would be somewhere between $4,750 and $6,750.
42:56Okay.
42:57However, if it went to auction, the family connection, the provenance, might bump the price up a little bit more.
43:04I see.
43:04How much do you think all that pottery is worth now that you were looking at?
43:10That I was looking at then?
43:12Millions.
43:14You got it.
43:15Millions.
43:15We talked about it.
43:16I talked about it with some of the other appraisers.
43:18And we estimate all that pottery is now worth somewhere between $50 and $100 million.
43:26Wow.
43:28That's a lot of money.
43:29As a little girl, if you had known that?
43:46My mother said this was a scarf worn at George Washington's inauguration.
43:53He did not wear it.
43:55The men got these and the women got the earrings.
43:57You have some distinguished ancestry, I should put it, right?
44:01I do.
44:01Entirely possible that you would have some family member that went to that ball, right?
44:06Yes.
44:06Like you don't know exactly which one.
44:08No.
44:08Okay.
44:08We are looking at this now framed and folded, a silk banner that probably was seven feet long,
44:15if you extend it.
44:16And it's all folded under itself right here.
44:20It's really long.
44:20I did not realize that.
44:21When this showed up, I was so excited.
44:24Because, first of all, I love American folk art.
44:26Uh-huh.
44:27I also love American history.
44:29Right.
44:29This piece combines a great folk design with great history.
44:34So, as you know, President Washington was inaugurated on April 30th, 1789.
44:39A week later, they held a big ball down near Wall Street in New York for the president.
44:45We have this American eagle, painted eagle on the silk.
44:49And it's a classic stance with the laurel branch and one claw symbolizing the piece, and the
44:55other claw and the arrows symbolizing strength.
44:58And the eagle's banner here says E Pluribus, written out in gold.
45:04There are 13 stars above that in yellow with blue outline.
45:07And up here, it looks like an abstract design.
45:09Somebody else actually pointed out.
45:11I can't take credit.
45:12This is G, and this is a W.
45:15Oh, my heart.
45:16For George Washington.
45:17That's fabulous.
45:18Isn't that great?
45:18You never hear that.
45:19No, it is better than fabulous.
45:20It's better than fabulous because the G, if you look sideways.
45:23I see the G.
45:24And then the W for George Washington.
45:27They're probably silver little spangles with glass beads.
45:31Right.
45:31Each one is carefully sewn over the star for GW and the 13th.
45:36That is so exciting.
45:37Isn't that neat?
45:38Oh, yeah.
45:38And above it, the French, like a fleur-de-lis.
45:41Now, a week after the major ball, Count de Moustier had another ball, the French count.
45:48De Moustier.
45:48For Washington.
45:49De Moustier.
45:50Now, we don't know.
45:51We certainly can't prove it because these relics are so rare.
45:55And to my knowledge, no other of these banners exist.
45:58But it's very possible that a banner like this would have been at that ball a week later.
46:03And I've checked with several experts here.
46:05The silk, the fine silk is of the period.
46:08The spangles.
46:09It's all right.
46:10I've got good news and bad news.
46:12Which one do you want first?
46:13I think I'll take the good news today.
46:15You want the good news first?
46:16I think that's a good way to do it.
46:17The value on a bad day would be $3,000 to $6,000.
46:22And this is the kind of object that, in the right situation, could bring $10,000, $15,000 at an
46:28auction setting.
46:29Now, I'm going to give you the bad news.
46:30These are costume jewelry from after 1900.
46:33So they aren't mother-like to me.
46:37They didn't make clips like this, this ear clip, until after 1900.
46:42Oh, that's interesting.
46:43And also, the metal's not gold and it's not even enamel.
46:46So they're nice, decorative ear clips.
46:48So these weren't made for the...
46:49So I can wear them without feeling like I'm all right.
46:52You can wear them without worrying about losing them as much.
46:55But this, you want to really preserve as you've always done.
46:58I'm excited, really, Lee.
47:00I just love it.
47:14Well, I more or less inherited it when my grandfather passed away in 1964.
47:20It was purchased directly from Tiffany.
47:23Actually, my grandfather purchased four lamps on February 11, 1915.
47:29Which lamp is this lamp?
47:31The one valued at $90 at the time.
47:33And the cost.
47:34$90.
47:35And so that was the dining room lamp?
47:37That was the dining room lamp.
47:38I also noticed that you brought a photograph of it hanging in the dining room.
47:42What year would you say this was?
47:43That is 1967, and that was Christmas Day.
47:48And that's my mother, my father, and a cousin of mine.
47:51Oh, that's great.
47:52Well, I want to tell you, Tom, that this lamp is the stuff that Tiffany dreams are made of.
47:58It has everything going for it.
48:01It's had two owners, your grandfather and then you.
48:05Yes.
48:05And it came directly from Tiffany Studios.
48:08It has the original patina.
48:11It has something also very special, which is the original hardware.
48:16Oh.
48:16Many times when people removed hanging Tiffany shades from homes, they took the shade and
48:22they left the hardware behind.
48:24And probably 90% of the hanging shades out there today do not have their original hardware,
48:30but you have that.
48:31And that actually adds value to the lamp.
48:33Oh.
48:33This is called a turtleback glass lamp.
48:36I've heard that term.
48:37They're green turtlebacks, red turtlebacks, and yellow turtlebacks.
48:41This is probably one of the nicest green turtleback lamps I've ever seen.
48:46And it is signed, but I'm not even going to show you the signature, mainly because this
48:51lamp is a signature in itself.
48:53It's just 100% right.
48:55Do you have any idea what it's worth?
48:57I was told about 25 years ago that it was somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000 at that time.
49:06Okay.
49:06If this were for sale in a retail shop, I could see it selling easily for $150,000.
49:13You're kidding.
49:14No, I'm not.
49:16All I can do is say thank you.
49:19I appreciate it.
49:21Thanks for bringing it.
49:22It's gorgeous.
49:32Today, I brought a cream pot forged by Paul Revere in a diary belonging to Thaddeus Harris
49:41and his portrait.
49:42And he was the son of the person who actually, of the man who owned this cream pitcher.
49:47Yes, William Harris.
49:48So, the diary is depicting the night that they left Charlestown because they got intel that
49:54the regulars were coming.
49:55When you say the regulars, that means the British Army.
49:59Yes, the British Army.
49:59So, they grabbed a bundle of important papers and some linens, some silver plate, this cream
50:10pot, and some spoons, and fled to Lexington.
50:14They didn't stay there long because the Battle of Concord in Lexington had just happened on
50:19April 19th, 1775.
50:22And so, they left Lexington and went out to Sterling Mass, where they felt that they were
50:28safer.
50:29Okay.
50:30Paul Revere, of course, is the one maker of colonial silver that any collector would really
50:35want to have.
50:36And by colonial silver, I mean silver made before America became the United States, when
50:42it was still the 13 colonies and owned by England.
50:45Mm-hmm.
50:46Paul Revere was a silversmith in Boston.
50:49His father had also been a silversmith.
50:51This picture was probably relatively new at the time that this incident occurred.
50:56It's a neoclassical in style.
50:59It's a helmet-formed picture.
51:00And it's got some very lovely engraving on the outside of it with some initials as showing
51:05who it belonged to in the family.
51:07And then the mark of Paul Revere, Jr. on the back of the foot.
51:12A similar creamer sold this year, 2025, for a little over $25,000.
51:19I think with the archival material that you have, the story of it relating to having been
51:25something that was saved from being stolen by the British Army, makes it a very interesting
51:30story and adds some value to it.
51:32I would say that if this were to come up at a public auction of American silver, the picture
51:38combined with the archival material and the miniature portrait would bring in the neighborhood
51:42of $25,000 to $30,000.
51:46And as it's property of your family and has historical importance to your family, I'm sure
51:50you're not going to sell it.
51:52So I would put an insurance value of $40,000 to $60,000 on it.
51:57Wow.
51:58It's amazing.
52:14Thanks for watching this special episode of Antiques Roadshow.
52:18Follow at Roadshow PBS on social, stream full episodes, and sign up for our newsletter at
52:24pbs.org slash antiques.
52:26See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.
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