Appraisal: Chinese Hardwood Display Cabinet, ca. 1890

GUEST: It was brought into, uh, the United States from China.

It's hand-carved, ebony wood.

APPRAISER: This is a display cabinet, and I believe this was created late 19th century, post-Civil War, and it was exported from China for a Western audience.

The type of wood you had mentioned first, that you thought it was ebony-- it's not ebony.

GUEST: Oh, it's not?

APPRAISER: Ebony is not a...

It is a tropical hardwood, but generically, people refer to this wood as either blackwood or hongmu.

This is better than most.

It's unusual, it's in great shape, and I'd say for retail replacement value purposes, somewhere in the range of about $15,000.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: Any other questions?

GUEST: How do you make it lighter?

(both laughing) APPRAISER: As you can attest, it's very heavy.

Very heavy!