Appraisal: Japanese Satsuma Vessels, ca. 1900

GUEST: I actually bought them from a friend of mine.

APPRAISER: And what did you pay?

GUEST: I paid $100 for them.

APPRAISER: The first thing you notice is the profusion of small decorative figures.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: Right?

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Finely painted.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: Surrounded by lots of gold.

The gold are dragons.

The painting is exquisitely detailed.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: So that is a feature of a particular type of ceramic that was made in Japan in the late 19th century, early 20th century.

A lot of it was made for export to the West.

There are different factories and makers.

Some of those are represented here.

You have some by Kinkozan.

You have some that is called Satsuma.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Actually, which is this one, says Satsuma underneath.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: You can they see these kind of wonderful little marks.

And some have individual makers.

Such as this.

And has this fabulous kind of flower design underneath.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: It's just so well finished.

I think that the value at auction for the group is about $6,000 to $8,000.

GUEST: For all of these?

Wow.

Whoa.

I feel guilty for paying so little.

(laughing) APPRAISER: These are really rare.

You would have seen them in a world fair around 1900.