Vintage San Antonio, Hour 1

♪ ♪ I love stoneware.

You know, my twin brother and I collected it when we were 12 years old.

(chuckling): Oh, my goodness.

It stays in the house.

I want to show how the mechanism works.

Whee!

(laughs) ♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: In 2007, "Roadshow" visited San Antonio, where our experts were delighted with the treasures brought in, both big...

Things, uh, got a little out of hand, so I went and rented a U-Haul trailer.

(chuckling): Oh, dear.

PEÑA: ...and small.

They're carved walnut shells.

PEÑA: Have the value of these and other cherished items held up or hit a new low?

Find out in "Vintage San Antonio," hour one.

In 1944, Meeker, Oklahoma, hometown of Carl Hubbell, decided to have a baseball team, and we didn't have any money, enough money to buy a uniform, so, uh, the doctor there, Dr., the only doctor in town, got in touch with Carl in New York, and he sent us a dozen uniforms, you know, the Giants' practice uniform.

And we used those for three years.

And Carl Hubbell, the great, uh, New York Giants pitcher, Hall of Fame pitcher...

The left-handed, best of all time, the screwball master.

The screwball man, right.

And we have an actual picture of him here.

That's Carl Hubbell.

Mm-hmm.

So he's the gentleman who procured these for your team, his hometown.

Yes, sir.

Very cool.

And you received this particular jersey with this nametag right here, "Lombardi."

And that's Ernie Lombardi, the catcher, the Hall of Famer, as well.

"The Schnozz."

"The Schnozz," right.

The big catcher.

He was a big guy.

He was kind of a lumbering line drive hitter, a great hitter.

He didn't run very fast, but, but boy, he could hit and hit hard.

That's right.

And, uh, he made a great career for himself, and, uh, eventually made it all the way to Cooperstown.

Yeah, he was slower than cold molasses.

He had to... (laughing) (laughing): He had to hit it, hit the fence to get to first base, yeah.

That's right.

He actually joined the Giants in 1943, and Carl Hubbell's last year... Was '43.

...was '43.

So we can guesstimate that this jersey is 1943, Ernie Lombardi's first season with the Giants.

Here we have a, a baseball card with Ernie wearing a very similar uniform.

Heck, it might be the same one.

It could be.

Possibly.

It, it shows the zipper.

Very similar.

Yeah, yup, it's, it's very similar.

And here you are wearing the jersey right here.

(laughing): That's it.

This jersey, considering its age, is in pretty remarkable condition.

And the colors really pop and the stitching is amazing.

I mean, we're really impressed by the way this has survived all these years.

There's some condition issues, but all in all, I mean, for a flannel jersey from this time period, it's really nice.

It's a rare jersey.

It's certainly a desirable jersey, 'cause it's the New York Giants, very collectible.

It's a Hall of Famer, Ernie Lombardi.

At auction, I'd be very comfortable estimating this jersey at $10,000 to $15,000.

So... (laughing) It's a, it's a heck of a piece.

(laughing): You're kidding me.

Yeah, it's a great uniform just to get.

Good gosh.

MAN: I found these in a flea market in Beijing.

APPRAISER: And you got some other things there, too, didn't you?

Yes, that's right.

And I told you about those.

(chuckling): Yes, uh, you sure did.

Didn't, didn't turn out too well with those pieces.

No, they didn't, but we enjoyed them.

Quite frankly, I was a little dismissive when you showed me the things until I saw these, because this is one of the few examples where I've ever seen something coming out of China these days where it was actually old.

Oh, great.

Yeah, they're late 19th-century.

Maybe as late as the 1920s.

Mm-hmm.

They're carved walnut shells.

They're magnificently carved.

Beautiful, swirling dragons all over them.

The other thing that's even tougher with that is to get the polish on them.

Because basically, you're using techniques that you would use in stone carving, because it's just, it's too difficult a material to work with.

Is the nut actually still inside?

They removed it from one side.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, they've removed it.

So they've been separated and put... No, no, they just cut a slot in one side and then worked it out.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Amazing-- so they're hollow, then.

Yup, yup.

Wow.

How much did you pay for them?

I think I paid about $40 for them.

That's really surprising, because it seems that when anything is real in Beijing, the price is just sky-high and bears little resemblance to reality.

But when it comes to these, I think you got a real bargain.

Great.

Well, I'd imagine these would sell at auction for probably $1,000 apiece.

Oh, my!

(laughs) Yeah.

I had no idea.

$1,000 apiece?

Yup.

Now, I got this vase from my mother when we built our home.

Okay.

She gave it to me, but before then, I can remember it as long as I've lived that it was on my grandmother's front porch.

My grandmother gave it to my mother when she built her home.

So Mother passed that on to us, and it's been on my front porch for at least 18 years.

And then one day, a friend who has a little antique shop came by, and before she got in the front door, she turned and looked, and she said, "Why is that on your front porch?"

And I said, "Because that's where it belongs."

It had umbrellas in it, it had canes in it.

All the old folks kept it on their front porch.

And she said, "You bring that in.

That is a Teco."

And I did not know, had never heard of Teco pottery.

And she said, "I'm sure it's a Teco.

Let me see if it's signed or what."

So we carefully turned it over, and it was Teco.

So I did bring it in the house and kept umbrellas in it, and canes, and so forth.

And I am curious if I need to put it back on the porch.

Put it back on the porch.

(laughs) Okay, I think we can solve that question.

All right.

You don't know where your grandmother got it.

No.

My family is from Maryland.

Okay.

And I'm pretty sure she bought it in Baltimore.

Well, it is Teco.

Made around Chicago, but sold at a lot of different places.

Particularly interesting to collectors are large pieces like this.

We know that Frank Lloyd Wright used a lot of Teco in, in some of his installations.

Teco being a, a uniformly green piece.

What's nice about this is the size, and the strap handles, which are applied.

Typically, Teco is molded.

These are hand-applied handles.

And the piece is in nice condition with the exception of some chips around the base.

Yes.

That doesn't help.

But when you get Teco as big as this, those don't matter as much.

Roughly what had you thought it to be worth?

This friend said that she thought it could be from $6,000 to $8,000.

Okay, well, I think at auction... Uh-huh.

...a vase like this would sell between $15,000 and $20,000.

(laughing): Oh, my goodness.

It stays in the house.

(laughs) It's gonna stay in the house?

It's gonna stay in the house.

I think that's an excellent idea.

(laughs) Oh, my g... How much?

Between $15,000 and $20,000.

$15,000 and $20,000.

At auction, mm-hmm.

MAN: They're, uh, some family antiques.

I'm the third generation to have them.

I had a couple of aunts that lived in Beverly Hills that, uh, once they passed on, their antiques came to my family.

And any idea where they bought them or how they acquired them?

No, no, I sure don't.

No, no.

Well, what you have is a wonderful pair of Tiffany Studios candlesticks.

This particular model we call the Cobra Sticks, because this part here sort of looks like a cobra.

Yes, sir.

And they're probably from about 1910.

They're part of the Art Nouveau period.

Okay.

Uh, they're very clearly marked on the bottom here-- "Tiffany Studios."

And then there's a little number here, a four-digit model number.

Uh, Tiffany, of course, was well-known for, eh, stained glass lamps and the glasswork.

But a very large part of their business was metalwork-- candlesticks and desk sets.

Okay.

And the pair you have are very nice.

Uh, they have this gold finish.

Uh, unfortunately, the condition is a little rough.

You see this color here... Sure.

...when, in fact, it should look like this.

Okay.

And this surface really is gone here.

So there's not really much that you can do with it.

You can clean it with a, like, a damp cloth and then you could put a little paste wax on it.

Clear paste wax.

Okay.

But you, there's nothing you can do to get back this, uh... Sure.

...gold finish.

Sure, okay.

Um, again, very, very nice quality.

It's nice that you have the pair.

People always like pairs of candlesticks.

A pair like this in this condition would sell probably for about $4,000.

Okay.

In better condition, they'd probably about, be about $6,000.

Okay.

Okay?

Super.

My husband inherited it from, uh, his father.

Um, his father got it from a very good friend of his that lived in Albuquerque that was a dentist.

We're not sure if Raymond Jonson was a patient of his and they traded out services, or if he actually bought the painting.

What I've always been fascinated by is that his abstraction was so early.

In the late '30s, he founded the Transcendental Painting Group in New Mexico.

I would value this piece at between $30,000 and $50,000.

Wow.

Okay.

That's great.

(laughs) That's a, uh, catalogue of, uh, theatrical, uh, posters that was given me, uh, by a friend when I was about 15 years old.

APPRAISER: And it is filled with hundreds of really wonderful illustrations.

This is a great example of a circus poster.

And you get here a poster, for instance, for "Little Red Riding Hood."

I would think at conservative value, even though the condition isn't that great, but because of the striking images and the wonderful printing, this book would probably be estimated at auction at about $6,000 to $8,000.

Wow.

APPRAISER: It's extremely rare.

I consulted with a couple of colleagues.

None of us have ever seen anything like it.

WOMAN: This was given to my great-grandmother by some young ladies that she taught Sunday School to.

And it was either upon their graduation or her retirement.

She referred to them as her nine obstacles to getting to Heaven.

And they gave it to her, and it says, um, "From your nine obstacles."

(chuckles) It's a biscuit or cracker jar.

It is signed here on the bottom with a crown and a C and an M. So that's for Crown Milano.

It was made by the Mt.

Washington Glass Company in Massachusetts in the 1890s, more than likely.

Okay.

They started, the company started in Boston in the 1830s, moved to New Bedford in 1870, and then merged with Pairpoint in, I believe, 1894.

But... That's older than I would have thought, yeah.

It's a beautiful little jar.

And this is silver-plated.

Now, there are a couple of issues here.

This would all have to be cleaned up, the silver plating.

Here on the inside is what it would have looked like originally.

And then there are some little blemishes, or it might be just sort of drops of paint or something like that.

That would have to be cleaned up.

In perfect condition, though, in a shop, retail, this would be about $4,500.

Wow!

So it's a beautiful little jar, and I'm, I'm glad you brought it in.

Gee, for something that's just been collecting dust, that's not bad.

(both laugh) WOMAN: I inherited these from my family when my father passed away in 1980.

He had played with a set of these as a child in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I know there's at least a steamroller in this set.

And I know there's one other toy.

I, I'm just not positive which one it is.

But these are the ones you ended up with.

These are the ones I, I ended up with, yes.

I understood they're made out of steel.

Mm-hmm.

And they actually sat on these and rode them, and they're very durable.

The Buddy "L" toys were the Cadillac and Rolls-Royce of the toy world.

It's a fascinating story, because Mr. Lundahl was making fenders for cars... Mm-hmm.

...and car parts.

And then he was watching his son's toys being destroyed by normal play.

So he said, "The heck with that," and he started making toys out of the same-gauge steel that the cars were made of.

Oh, for Heaven's sakes.

And it started around 1919, and the heyday was in the Roaring '20s, when people could afford to indulge their children with these very expensive toys.

These are really the grandfather of the Tonka Toys you see today.

Mm-hmm.

And of course, one of the problems with them is, they are heavy, and a lot of times, the kid wouldn't bring them in out of the sandbox, and a lot of them just ended up in the rust heap.

They were also generally well played with.

It's nice to see them in fairly decent condition.

Which one of these would you think was the better, more valuable of the two?

I would say this guy was.

Mm-hmm.

There's a lot of play value with this truck, but this is a fairly common one because it was very popular with kids of the day.

This is five times rarer.

Really?!

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh!

And as much play value as there is here, this is one of the Grail pieces of the Buddy "L" collectors.

For Heaven's sakes.

Uh, because it, it is... Shows how much I know.

(both laugh) It's a relatively late piece in the Buddy "L" line of the late '20s.

And these, uh, side-mount tires actually steer the, the wheels.

The prices I quote are what I think they would bring at auction.

Okay.

This one has been well played with.

It does still have its original decals, the original ladders.

It could stand being professionally cleaned up, but still, it's probably about, in this condition, around an $800 to $1,200 toy.

So that's not too shabby.

Oh, no.

This, on the other hand, is a very acceptable example.

It's not a great, great example.

What's nice is, it has all the original decals.

Of course, we know it's Buddy "L," 'cause it's right there.

It's Buddy "L" there.

They're, all these are decals, the original decorations.

It's had some rough use.

An average example of these sells in the $5,000 to $6,000 range.

This one is a little below average, probably in the $3,000 to $4,000 range.

I'm, I'm astounded.

(laughs) That's amazing.

I bought this, uh, from a, a antique dealer about ten years ago in Houston.

I know it's a Rufino Tamayo, and after I bought it, Tamayo died and I really never had it appraised, and don't know much more than I knew when I bought it.

Okay, you know it's a, it's a color lithograph by Rufino Tamayo.

Yes, sir.

Who was born in 1899, and he died in 1991.

He's an artist who came to fame, like his contemporaries Diego Rivera and José Orozco, as a painter-- more specifically as a muralist.

He did these murals in the 1930s in Mexico City, and then he moved on to New York and Paris.

And it wasn't until the end of his career in the '70s and'80s that he produced his body of prints, which is more than 100 prints, including color lithographs and etchings.

And this is pretty typical for a Tamayo print this size, very large.

We would say in the business, "It has a lot of wall presence."

Yes, sir.

Now, you see this from afar, just like his murals.

Mm-hmm.

He was very much into replicating that look.

Mm-hmm.

And it is signed in the lower right here.

Mm-hmm.

"Rufino Tamayo."

And numbered in the lower left, X over X, or ten of ten.

Now, how much did you pay for it?

Paid, uh, $2,500 for it.

It looks to me as, it's in great shape.

You definitely want to keep this out of the sunlight, because the colors are fugitive... Mm-hmm.

...and they'll fade quickly if exposed to light.

And it looks like you've been taking good care of it to me.

Yes, sir, I tried to.

Uh, the colors seem very strong here.

Nothing incorrect with the paper.

You bought it framed, or was it unframed when you... Bought it framed.

You bought it framed.

Just like you see it here, right.

Okay.

Explain to me how that got in there.

Well, you know, I real... That's, that's, uh, one of life's mysteries.

It looks like the top of a beer can.

I don't think I had too much beer the day I bought it, but I don't know.

And it just showed up there one day?

It just showed up there... (laughs) ...and I just, I didn't want to take it apart to get it out.

Tamayo's market has shot up fairly strongly in the last five years.

There's been a resurgence in collecting his work and an interest, in general, with Mexican muralist prints.

At auction, I'd put a value at around $4,000 to $6,000.

Yes, sir.

Now, a retail price would be roughly double that, or about $8,000 to $10,000.

Okay.

This is what I would expect to happen to a well-known artist.

Over the ten years you've had it, you, you've more than doubled your value, and that's what, frankly, what good art should do.

Yes, sir.

I understand you have more than one Tamayo.

Do they all have the beer caps in them?

They're not there yet.

Well, I got this from a friend of mine about ten years ago.

He's retired out of the insurance business, and got a second job as a de-acquisitioner for a museum.

I bought it about ten years ago from him.

The story is that it should be around 1890s, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later.

Well, let me tell you what it's supposed to be.

This is supposed to be a Songye mask.

Now, normally what we hear is Kifwebe mask, but actually, the word "kifwebe" means "mask."

So what people are saying is, it's a mask mask.

Mask mask.

So we'll just call it a Songye mask.

This is a female mask.

And we know it's a female because of the absence of a high ridge.

The high ridges are male masks.

The male masks are used in ceremonies to create social order.

The female masks are for ceremonies that are related to reproduction.

When we look at a Songye mask, 99% of the time, if I look at it and I say fake, I'm right.

Because that's how many reproductions there are.

Mm-hmm.

I want you to notice the beautiful incising on it.

It's elegantly done-- it's really great.

The first thing I want to show is the beautiful profile.

And in the back, you can see these holes.

And if you look at them very, very carefully, you'll see that the holes are pulled out.

And that's where the raffia would have been and the suspension pieces to hold the mask on.

That's exactly what you want to see.

You also want to see in here the wear patterns.

'Cause when you put a head inside a mask, cheeks and foreheads and noses and chins all make a mark.

If it's totally consistent inside, that's not what you want to see.

As you can see, on both sides, there is wear from the cheek.

On this side, there's wear from the cheek.

And then in here from the forehead and the nose.

That's highly desirable.

Now, another thing that's a concern when you're talking about value is condition.

You have some small breaks.

In the case of this mask, this is very minor, and I don't think that it matters at all.

You actually have a real Songye mask.

It is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which used to be Zaire.

It's from the central part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I think that your dating, I want to be a little more conservative.

I want to say that it's 20th century.

But the thing is absolutely right.

It's been danced ceremonially.

In a gallery, I think the value is $4,000 to $6,000.

Wow.

Now, this is such a subjective market, it would not surprise me a bit to see, in an auction situation or in a gallery, say, in New York, to see the price be $10,000 to $12,000.

Wow.

I think it's a terrific mask.

I'm stunned that I actually have a real Songye mask in the "Roadshow," and I couldn't be happier that you brought it in.

Well, thank you.

WOMAN: My husband's aunt left us different items of her furniture, and, and jewelry, and porcelain china.

This was actually, we found it in a little shadow box table... APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

...that was given to us.

Well, let me tell you a little bit about this piece.

You know that it's a lorgnette.

This particular lorgnette is probably one of the prettiest that I've seen.

It's French.

And the reason that we know it's French is that there are hallmarks right here on the hinge and on the back.

In this particular instance, there's a crab.

And this was a very, very popular jewel through the turn of the century and even later.

The metal is platinum and, of course, diamonds and rubies.

The craftsmanship on this is superb.

This was made by a master house, but it was typical in the time not to have the names.

Cartier would have names on their pieces.

Tiffany would.

But many, many very fine houses didn't put their names on.

So we have no idea who made this amazing piece.

Each row is rose-cut diamonds lined up next to a row of milgrains, which is very tight, tiny little platinum balls.

And it's accented by calibré-cut rubies.

But I want to show how the mechanism works.

Whee!

(chuckles) There we go, it opens up.

Here's the front.

Here's the back.

And, indeed, this is how it would have been used.

(chuckles) The detail of the workmanship is as good on the back as it is on the front, which is the sign of a really fine jewel.

Do you have, uh, an idea of what this might be worth?

I have absolutely no idea.

Well, if I told you that it was worth $10,000 if you went into a store... Oh, my gosh.

...and you wanted to buy this, it would cost you every bit of $10,000.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

I had no idea.

MAN: It's a Gallé vase that I purchased in New Orleans about eight years ago from a antiques dealer there.

APPRAISER: Do you see this, uh, writing on there?

Mm-hmm.

And what does that say?

It looks like "TP."

"T.I.P.?"

"T.I.P.," okay.

That is a number-one sign of a reproduction fake.

I'll use the term "fake."

Okay.

When you look at the glass and you see the thickness around the rim?

Mm-hmm.

That's sort of a clue.

What tells you finally that it, that it isn't real?

You, of course.

(both laugh) Well, thank you.

TIP-- think TIP.

Get a TIP.

Think TIP.

Yes.

Manley Nash was originally from Kentucky, and he moved around quite a bit, and he did spend some time in Oklahoma.

And he did opera sets, and then he moved around to California.

And actually, his claim to fame is painting the burning of Atlanta in the movie "Gone With the, the Wind."

But probably, in his travels, he would have gone to New Mexico.

It's inscribed "Taos" on the back.

It makes sense to me that this is probably done, uh, around 1930 or in the 1930s.

Well, this is the military record of a, uh, fella who was the sheriff of New London County, name of Frank Hawkins.

He was the father-in-law of the gentleman that my father bought a house from in 1941.

This was left in the attic.

We've had it since then.

Well, what it is is a commemorative service wall hanging.

Yeah.

What's special about it is that it's hand-done.

A lot of these, you could send off in the back of a magazine after the Civil War, and they'd send you the blank one, and you could fill the information in.

Uh-huh.

This one is custom-done.

Up here it says "Designed for Sheriff Frank Hawkins."

Not just... Well, do you suppose he had it done, or his family?

Or how was that...

It's hard to say.

When I looked him up, I found that he died in 1893.

It could have been done after he died, but probably it was something that hung on his wall... Mm-hmm.

...because he was proud of his service.

Sure.

The normal ones, that are printed with the information filled in on them... Mm-hmm.

...would usually sell for a couple hundred dollars.

Mm-hmm.

This one, because it has that flair, it's probably more in the $800 to $1,200 range.

Okay.

It's a beautiful piece of history.

MAN: As a grade-schooler, my father had given it to me.

It was originally my great-grandfather's pocket watch.

Okay.

And it's been in the family... since he bought it.

I'm not sure when that was, although it was probably before 1900.

When my father first gave it to me, I used it as my timepiece in grade school, and fell playing football, and busted the crystal on it.

The crystal was replaced, and after that, it's been in a safe ever since.

Well, uh, probably wiser than playing football with it.

(laughs) Um, it's signed on the dial "Spaulding and Co." Now, it wasn't ever actually made by Spaulding and Co.

They were just the retailers of it.

This watch was made by Patek Philippe circa 1900.

They're a very famous... Really?

...Swiss watch manufacturer.

Okay.

Now, when you go back to the 1900 era, a lot of their more important pieces that were sold were signed simply on the dial by retailers: uh, Spaulding, Bailey Banks and Biddle, Tiffany and Co.... Mm-hmm.

Um, all were very high, very large retailers of Patek Philippe.

What makes this one slightly more interesting, as well, it's designed with what's called a, a minute repeater.

Mm-hmm.

The minute repeater works by sliding a slide on the side of the case.

Now, you can push that slide, and it will chime the time to the nearest minute.

If you are out at night and you want to know the time, you could simply push the slide and listen to it, rather than having to, to light a light to see what the dial actually said.

Incredibly useful.

Uh, they were some of the better pocket watches and some of the more desirable made.

It has what's called a split-second chronograph.

A chronograph, it's a time recorder.

It's a stopwatch, effectively.

It was largely used for timing racehorses, et cetera.

Right.

And it goes one step further.

It's actually a split-second chronograph.

So, you can see on the dial, it has two hands, one here and one here.

These are used so you can independently time, say, the first and second place in a horse race.

You don't normally find multiple complications in Patek Philippe watches.

Patek Philippe, in general, they are some of the best in the world.

To find them with a minute repeater is, is very desirable.

Or to find them with a split-second is very desirable.

To have the combination of the two, and also in, particularly, this is, it's quite a small size case.

Mm-hmm.

You don't tend to see very many of them.

For an auction value, I expect you'd probably fetch in the region of around $20,000 for it.

My goodness.

I wouldn't play football with it again.

No, I don't think so.

(both laugh) I, uh, inherited it from my, uh, parents.

They were career military officers.

My mother was a Pearl Harbor nurse, and my dad and my mom were in the first forces that went in Japan after the war, and they got married over there, and they needed stuff for their place to live.

And they used to go out in the country and barter cigarettes and coffee.

We've got all kinds of, uh, tables and tapestries and silks and paintings and lamps.

That's great, so tell me about this particular vase.

My mom always liked it.

She had it in the corner for a long time.

She had Japanese silk flowers, uh, taped in it.

There's, uh, some tape marks around the top.

And all I know about it is, she always told me it was valuable, and she said, "This was the original box for the vase and, uh, don't ever separate them."

It's a signed piece, so I think they must have gotten it from the person who did it.

This particular piece is all entirely hand-painted, without decals or transfers.

It's painted with a European scene.

Right.

So there's a thatched hut cottage, a lake with a sailboat on it.

There's great mountains, there's a stone bridge.

It's clearly a European scene, even though it's from Japan.

There is a signature on the front, which apparently would be that of the artist, and they signed it in English.

On the bottom, it's marked, and it's an unusual mark used by the Noritake company.

Now, Noritake has been around since the late 19th century.

Right.

But it's made things all throughout the 20th century, and it's still a huge company today.

It is an unusual mark.

It includes the word "Nippon" in it, and typically, Nippon would mean that it was made before World War I. Uh-huh.

But however, this piece was made later.

Okay.

This piece probably dates from the 1930s.

Now, this is a really unusual form for Noritake.

Traditionally, when people think of Noritake, especially in this time period, they think of rather inexpensive things, small items, large sets of dinnerware, which were very affordable.

And although they did some hand-painted decoration, or quite a bit of it, it wasn't usually this complex.

This particular piece is really interesting in that you've got a box for it.

Right.

I've never seen a No, a Noritake piece with a wooden box.

Most Noritake vases would not be all that valuable.

They might start at five or ten dollars...

Right.

...and go up to several hundred dollars.

In a few cases, a little bit more than that.

I talked about this vase with several other appraisers here at the Roadshow, including the people at the Asian arts table, and they have seen only one other, but not one with a box.

If this were sold, our belief is, a retail price from a specialist dealer to a specialist collector of Noritake, that this vase would probably bring, by itself, between $3,000 and $5,000.

But after talking about it, we realized that a lot of the most serious collectors of Noritake are actually Japanese, frequently in Japan.

Right.

And so really, uh, we re-evaluated that, and we think with the box, this would probably sell for between $5,000 and $7,000.

Oh, that's great.

I got it over in, uh, Kerrville, Texas.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, about 12 or 14 years ago, a friend of mine and I got a brochure in the mail of a moving sale.

Mm-hmm.

I found this there and a number of other things.

In fact, we just came down in a little pickup and thought we'd pick up a few things and go home.

Things, uh, uh, got a little out of hand, so I went and rented a U-Haul trailer.

Oh, dear.

(chuckles) And, uh, we bought some beautiful paintings and some small pieces of furniture and this and that.

And what did you pay for the plant stand?

Uh, I paid $400 for it.

$400?

It was almost bl...

In fact, it was black.

The lady had a cat, and the cat had broken many of the things in the house.

Yeah.

Hence, this has a broken tile.

Yeah.

I hope I didn't ruin it by polishing it a little bit.

Even though you did some polishing... Mm-hmm.

...you didn't do irreparable damage.

Yeah, too much?

No, you didn't.

Yeah.

(chuckles) This brass work was produced, really, most of it in Connecticut.

And this probably done by the Bradley and Hubbard Factory, or Parker Brothers was another firm that, uh, that worked and created these what I call Aesthetic Movement objects.

And it looks alive to me, starting from the very bottom... Mm-hmm.

...of this, uh, piece, with these paw feet, and moving up to, uh, bird wing legs.

Mm-hmm.

You can see there's a snake that's coiled...

Right.

...around the shaft.

And the base also has this wonderful combination of brass, as you mentioned, uh, but also pottery.

And it's all painted with wonderful pictures of nature, uh, on it.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause, of course, that's what we think of when we see, uh, think about the Aesthetic Movement.

So there are butterflies and flowers and trees, and it's just wonderfully rendered in this pottery shaft.

The top, as well...

It's got a little bit missing on it.

Yeah.

Here, you can see the scarab that is missing on the side.

And also, the pottery, uh, tile itself, it's almost as though it were a Barbizon painting.

Mm.

A French painting from the late 19th century, which is when, uh, this piece was made, probably around 1880.

I would get this... Reproduced?

Yes, gingerly, and with someone very good, a metalsmith, to reproduce in brass.

And you would place that in and, and really bring the whole together again.

Mm-hmm.

And you could probably also find someone to restore the pottery top.

Mm.

Any idea of its value, or... Oh, I have no idea.

I just hope it's worth more than $400.

(laughs) I think we're safe.

I think we're safe.

Yeah?

I would say for auction, in this condition, not restored, I would put an estimate of $6,000 to $8,000 on it.

Oh, my goodness, well...

I don't know how attached I am to this stand now.

(laughs) Do a little work on it.

Uh-huh.

Maybe we're looking at, you know, a $10,000, uh, object.

Goodness, gracious.

I love stoneware.

You know, my twin brother and I collected it when we were 12 years old.

Awesome.

So anytime I see salt-glazed stoneware, I get excited.

But, but these have a special history.

What's the family part of it?

Years ago, Albert Gallatin, which was the secretary of the Treasury...

Yes.

...at the time, uh, met these Germans.

Was it the, in the early 19th century?

Yes.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

And my great-great- grandfather was Adolf Eberhardt.

Uh, yes.

And he was one of the Germans there.

They founded the New Geneva Crock Factory.

And the reason it was called New Geneva was because Albert Gallatin was from Geneva, Switzerland.

Yes.

He named the town, and he subsidized them, and they named the pottery New Geneva.

New Geneva.

In this area, Western Pennsylvania, they hadn't really found any clay.

Yes.

Most of the great white clay was found up in the north coast, South Amboy in New Jersey.

So they hadn't found a clay source.

And then, in the early 19th century, all of a sudden, down in the river, near New Geneva, they found this incredible clay source.

Yes.

So this became a real center for, for stoneware production.

Yes, it did.

And there were many potters that worked, right?

Yes, there were.

There was the glass factory, right?

The glass factory, also.

And didn't they also start using some of the glass factories to make pottery, as well?

Yes.

On the front, you see the 12.

It's a salt-glazed stoneware jar, 12-gallon.

They made them, believe it or not, in New Geneva as big as 30 and 40 gallons.

This is the largest one I've ever seen.

And these were turned on a wheel.

Can you imagine turning something like this on a wheel?

And decorated it in blue.

They put the, the stoneware in the kiln.

They shoveled salt in there when it hit about 2,200 degrees.

And that salt vitrified and it coated the piece.

Do you see this orange peel effect?

Yes.

That's the salt glaze that's covering the piece.

And that made this piece impermeable to all sorts of things: acids, turpentine.

This stuff was strong stuff.

But before they fired it in the kiln, they often decorated it, and in the 1870s, they started using stencils.

You'd wrap it around, apply the cobalt blue.

It's something that has a great appeal, okay?

Yes.

It's really neat that you have these two other pieces.

This little piece, which was made probably across the river, probably in the 1870s or '80s, this was a really popular, in Greensboro and in New Geneva... Uh-huh.

They were really popular, a little brushed-on, hand-done effect.

This little jar... Hamilton and Jones, Greensboro, Pennsylvania.

Yes.

Very close by, across the river.

They're using the same clay source.

The wonderful thing here is that you brought in this image of the pottery.

You have Hamilton Robbins Pottery, right in New Geneva.

So here they are working.

Yes.

And they could make upwards of, like, 200, 300 pots a day.

It's ironic that there was glass made there and there was pottery made in the same area, because you know what put the potters out of business?

The glass.

You got it.

For insurance purposes, these would be valued at upwards of $5,000, as a wonderful group that, uh, has stayed in your family.

Okay?

Oh, dear.

So it's nice to know that.

Yes.

Now, if this stencil had an eagle here, this would probably be about $8,000 or $9,000.

Really?

If it had a free-hand decoration, it would probably be $20,000-plus.

My great-aunt, when it was given to me, she told me about how to take care of it.

She told me this was the original box.

Because the pearls are all on with thread... Mm-hmm.

...and Houston is so very humid, to keep it in, with baby powder, on, in the box.

You don't have to worry about the thread because it is not thread.

It's white horsehair.

This jewelry was very popular from the Georgian time on up to about 1850s.

This is what's called a, a portable street barrel organ.

It is made in Germany.

It is a little bigger than most of the street barrel organs.

It has 40 keys... Yeah.

...playing from the barrel, three barrels.

In the front, it has three rows of pipes and the pipe aperture in the façade.

(tune playing) WOMAN: Well, a few months ago, I went to a thrift store near my house to try to find something for my bar, 'cause I wanted something that was pretty that I could see from my living room.

And you paid?

$1.99.

(exhales): That's good-- you've got some pretty groovy walls there.

(chuckles) This was made in Germany by the firm of Johann von Schwarz just around 1900.

Wow.

They're made in cuenca, so these, these little raised walls keep the glaze colors apart.

When there's a hand shown, or a face, those parts are hand-painted.

Oh.

It has a nice, big size.

It does have the tray mount.

It's in beautiful condition.

So somebody who had it for their bar... (laughs) ...didn't use it, thankfully, because it could have been very worn.

Sometimes you see them and they have so many scratches on them, and that really affects the value.

At auction, this would probably be somewhere between $2,000 and $2,500.

Wow!

(laughs) Oh, gosh, that's great.

I can't believe it.

I brought in a grandmother or a grandfather clock.

I don't know which it is, but it's been in my family for many generations.

I know about the clock from the provenance of the clock and the fact that the date that it was made is engraved on the front of the face.

Great.

And it has a wonderful provenance with it.

Inside the case here, I see that it's all written out.

It seems like it's really well-documented.

And the last paragraph was kind of neat.

This was written by my great-grandmother Pauline, and it says, "The clock is standing in my house.

"The 136 years have passed since it was made.

"Many who knew and loved the clock... (voice trembling): "...have passed out of life.

"But the precious old clock "still sings the same song-- tick, tick.

Men may come and go, but it ticks on."

Oh, that's wonderful.

What you have here is a grandfather clock, and it has all this beautiful tigering in it.

And it's just absolutely gorgeous.

There are a few condition issues with the clock.

For instance, it's missing a bracket base down at the bottom.

It would probably have a foot or a simple cutout bracket base.

Never did have fretwork here at the top.

Perfectly original.

But what's kind of peculiar about this clock is that this case is really deep from front to back.

And generally when you find a case that's this deep, it's a case that would house a wooden works movement, meaning the gears and the plates are cut of wood, and not brass.

It's a beautiful sheet brass dial that's been silvered.

And it's made by this clockmaker named William Stillman.

And it says "Bristol in Connecticut," and it has January 1791, which is right for the case in terms of its age.

And it's just a beautiful Connecticut dial.

This dial is probably original to this case.

But what's in, interesting about this is, when I turn this movement around and show you, you have this seat board right here, and then it's built up here with another one.

Typically, you would only have one seat board, and not two.

This has a brass movement.

And if you look at the dial, you'll see these extra holes here, and those should go to something.

But in the back of the dial, they don't go to anything.

No.

So I feel like this was originally a wooden works movement.

And wooden works movements generally only ran for 30 hours, or one day.

And so what probably somebody did was put in a brass movement at some point, and altered it so it would run for eight days, be a more functional item.

It was done a long time ago.

I would say over 100 years ago.

It was really an improvement then to a clock like this.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

And even with these restorations, in a showroom, this clock would sell in the range of $5,000 to $7,000.

If it had its original movement, I think we're probably talking about a $15,000 clock.

Thank you very much for bringing it in.

And thank you so much for giving me the history.

So, John, you've been looking at this painting for a long time, you said.

All my life, yes, sir.

Yeah, uh, where was it hanging?

It was hanging in my mom's living room.

She got it from her aunt, and it was given to her aunt from Robert Wood-- he was one of her tenants.

The story I understand is that he couldn't make rent, and so he offered a painting as payment for that.

And then from there, my aunt offered it to my mom 'cause no one else in her family really liked it, and my mom loved it.

Okay, and so the painting, as you mentioned, is, Robert Wood was the artist, right?

Yes, sir.

Did, did your mom tell you any, anything about him at all?

All she said is that he lived with my aunt for a brief period of time in the early 1900s.

It was probably '20s or '30s, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah.

That seems to fit, timewise.

Robert Wood is an interesting artist.

A long-lived artist, he lived... Born in 1889, lived to 1979, about 90 years, and lived just about everywhere.

(laughs) He lived in Texas, he lived in California, he lived in Colorado, he lived in Woodstock, New York.

But he was in San Antonio from 1923 to about 1941.

He was divorced in '25 and might have been the time that he was living at your aunt's.

Sure.

And, and it's very f, common that a lot of artists pay in kind with, with paintings.

Wood painted a lot of different scenes.

He painted California, he painted the, the Tetons, he painted the, the Colorado Rockies, but he also painted Texas.

It wouldn't be a complete "Roadshow" from, from Texas without a bluebonnet painting.

Sure.

Well, the state flower.

The state flower.

The Texans love their bluebonnets.

Yes, sir.

Um... Definitely.

Now, did you have this painting reframed at all?

My mom did in the '70s.

She did, yeah.

It has a very '70s look to it.

Right.

Probably might want to think about putting a different frame on it sometime.

Maybe more of a 1920s frame or '30s frame.

Okay.

Now, one of the things about Wood is, he's so prolific, that really has depressed his market.

He's, did far too many paintings.

They aren't rare enough.

And the other thing about him, he was so deft at doing, he was very quick.

In my business, we say he's a little slick.

Right.

I mean, he's almost like a commercial artist.

So, his prices have never really gone up as much as you might hope for his works.

And generally, for most average Woods, you're looking at $3,000 to $5,000 at an auction estimate.

But when you get the bluebonnets, it's a different story entirely.

It's only of interest here in Texas, but they go crazy for these paintings.

If this were to, to come up, I would have to put an auction estimate on this of $15,000 to $25,000, and probably expect to get more than that at auction.

Oh, wow.

My family lived in Germany in the late '50s and early '60s.

And my father was kind of famous in our family for going around and finding things, and, uh, one day he came home with this.

This is, uh, the equivalent of a 1890s jukebox.

Yes, sir.

Originally, the, the works were cylinder players, but when they came up with a disc player, then it became a much bigger sound.

And the neat thing about this one, too, is that it was coin-operated.

According to this, I guess it was the German equivalent of a nickel.

This is made of walnut, very popular wood in the late 19th century.

I love that gilt brass or bronze symbol on the front of there.

And it looks like it has the old cloth.

When you open it up... ...it has an original ad.

Yes, sir.

For Polyphon-- that was in there when, when your family got it?

Yes, sir.

This is the golden age of lithography.

And they would have sent this to the retailer to hang up in the store to advertise.

That alone is probably worth $1,000.

Wow.

They made these in a lot of different styles, bigger cases, smaller cases.

And the death knell of these came from this magical phrase, "Mary had a little lamb."

Oh, Thomas Edison?

Thomas Edison.

(laughs) The first recorded words.

And they kept up with Edison for a while.

They came up with the technology to do automatic changing on the disc.

Mm-hmm.

And actually, Regina came up with the Reginaphone, which would play phonograph records.

So what do you think it's worth?

I've looked online at different shops.

I've, I've seen similar.

I've never seen one exactly like it.

I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000 to $12,000.

You're probably high there.

Okay.

There maybe will be some people, retail, that might ask that much.

But at auction, my feeling would be that its value's around $6,000.

Oh, all right.

Of course, you add $6,000 for that, $1,000 for the advertising poster...

Right.

We're pretty close to eight.

Yeah.

(chuckles) I think we need to crank it up and see what it sounds like, don't you?

Great.

"Santa Lucia."

("Santa Lucia" playing) My husband was flying out of the Pacific, uh, right at the start of the Korean War, and he flew into Tokyo, found it in an antique shop, and bought it.

(chuckles) On installment.

Every time he went in, he carried seven cartons of cigarettes... (both chuckle) ...to the man in, in the antique shop.

And that went on until he was about to be transferred back to the States, and he paid off the balance in cash.

I don't know how much it was.

(laughing) What year was that?

That was 1950.

I understand that you were at the Antiques Roadshow before.

When was this?

It was in Atlanta, about 1997.

I saw Mr. Lark Mason, Jr., and he was doubtful about the horse, so he advised me then to have it authenticated.

He pointed me in the right direction.

I took the horse to Chattanooga.

A lady there drilled holes in him, and I sent it to England, and they sent me back the fact that he's real.

(chuckles) Thermoluminescence tests are really, really important to get for pieces of this type.

This is a test that Oxford Authentications does in England.

Basically, they take a core sample from the belly and two or three other places...

Right underneath here.

Right un, usually underneath the, the head of the piece, and then they irradiate those samples with light and calculate when the piece was last fired.

Mm, okay.

So for Tang Dynasty examples, these tests are pretty foolproof.

Mm-hmm.

So it's really a boon for a collector to have a test of this type done for these pieces.

Well, I'm so glad.

These Tang Dynasty horses are really quite rare, for its massive size, and also the fact that it's a three-color glazed example.

The ownership of these steeds was a matter of great prestige during this period, and so models of these were buried when the nobleperson actually died.

If you had come to us in 1999 with this authenticity certificate, we would have told you that the insurance value would be about $100,000.

In 2007, the market's gone down a bit.

It'd be about $80,000 at insurance now, okay?

Wow.

Wow, that's still very good.

This is, it's great, isn't it?

(laughing) PEÑA: And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

And we've had this little vase as a wedding present, and we've been married 37 years now, and we figured anything this ugly had to be really, really valuable.

Well, it's worth about ten bucks.

And we brought a Chinese tea set, or actually, it's a Japanese tea set, that our grandfather left our mother.

And...

It's a mass-produced souvenir, so... (both laugh) Thanks, Grandpa.

One of the things I brought was this Kodak Brownie 2 camera, won by my grandmother in 1931 for taking a picture of my mother, who I brought as my other antique.

(whirring) (screeches) Ta-da!

And I get to live with it.

And this is my mom's punch bowl.

And we found out it's worth $500.

We had a great time, and it was a great way to spend my 32nd birthday.

Thank you, "Antiques Roadshow."

Happy birthday.

And we had brought these items.

If the clock was blue or pink, it would have been worth a lot.

As it is, it's only about, about $500 worth.

And here we have this, uh, lovely lady, and if she'd been painted by somebody famous, we'd be rich.

Brought a chessboard, and I traded a fish tank for it.

It's worth the same price.

(both laugh) PEÑA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."