Ca' d'Zan, Hour 3

MARK WALBERG: "Antiques Roadshow" is showing off the treasures of Florida at the Ca' d'Zan in Sarasota.

My daughter today told me she didn't think I should bring it because it was one of the ugliest things she's ever seen.

That's... that-that amazes me.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: It might look right at home in Italy but this beautiful building called Ca' d'Zan is a treasured place on the edge of Sarasota Bay.

Ca' d'Zan means "House of John," referring to circus promoter John Ringling.

But perhaps it should really be called the House of Mable after John's beloved first wife.

Mable Ringling was enamored with Europe, especially Italy.

And while Dwight James Baum was the architect, he needed to satisfy Mable's vision of the Venetian Gothic palace with John acting as a mediator between the two.

The result is the marvelous mansion that stands today, having been painstakingly restored over the past couple of decades at the cost of over $20 million.

Thousands of people have flocked to Antiques Roadshow to admire Ca' d'Zan and to show off their own treasures.

Take a look.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ APPRAISER: Could you tell us where you acquired this?

MAN: This was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1975?

About that time, at a house auction.

It was an estate... a mansion and the people apparently traveled a lot, Mm-hmm.

and it's been behind our front door for burglars ever since.

♪ ♪ WOMAN: My husband's grandmother wove the top for it.

She used to put her feet on it at night when she would knit.

APPRAISER: I recognize as I was going through from the logo here in the corner, Maison Prunier was one of the great French seafood restaurants in Paris.

Their advertisement were all really beautiful and this was something that was mass produced and probably given away to diners.

So they're decorative but they're not particularly valuable.

Gotcha.

I would say it's probably worth somewhere between about $40 and $60.

Thank you.

WOMAN: Well, I went to a garage sale at a community center, and I love pottery, and I saw these two pots, and I purchased them for 25 cents each.

When?

About a month and a half ago.

Oh, recently.

Mmm-hmm.

These are both from San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico.

Okay.

They were probably made right at the same time, which would be the late '20s, early '30s.

But the maker was not the same.

Oh.

These are two different potters.

Interesting.

And this one is signed and you can see it says "Maria and Julian."

That's Maria and Julian Martinez, and she was a prominent potter from the early 20th century until the 1970s.

Maria signed those pots "Maria and Julian" in a pretty specific time in the '20s and up to the very early '30s.

Julian died fairly young, but he's the one who did these slit decorations on here.

Okay.

This one is unsigned.

It's also really scuffed up.

Mm-hmm.

And if you look at the edge, this is very regular.

Mm-hmm.

The thickness is real even and clean.

This is real... uneven.

Mm-hmm.

And it's the difference between a master and a potter.

They're beautiful pots that really reflect that '20s Art Deco aesthetic.

The value of this type of pottery from San Ildefonso is the condition.

So if one's scuffed up, it kind of kills the marketability.

If this pot came up at auction it would be probably a grand total of $20.

Okay.

This one's worth $400 to $600.

You're kidding!

No.

So it was 25 cents well spent.

...well spent!

(laughing) Yay!

WOMAN: It belonged to a gentleman named Jack Sawyer from New Orleans that collected antique glass, and he does have an exhibit in the New Orleans Museum.

But we had gone to see him in Waveland years before Katrina.

And I admired it... Waveland, Mississippi.

Yes, Waveland, Mississippi.

And I had admired the vase and told Jack, "That's one of the prettiest things I've ever seen."

Well, Katrina hit, a lot of his pieces were lost, but this and a bunch of others were saved, and he washed them and cleaned them up.

When Jack found out that he was terminally ill, he sent this to me.

Very nice.

So that's really all I know about it.

So when you walked up to the table with it I thought immediately I knew what the pottery was.

I know you thought initially it was glass.

Yes.

It does look like that, it looks like iridescent glass from the turn of the century, but it is a piece of pottery, and my suspicions were correct, it's a piece of Zsolnay pottery, a Hungarian company.

Oh!

And this is their eosin glaze.

And it changes as you turn it to the light, but it's a golden green luster.

But what's really special about this, because the vase itself is okay as far as Zsolnay goes, but the metalwork is rather exceptional.

And so we have two full peacocks on the piece, encircling it, their tails end in the base that covers the entire bottom, and then there are glass tiles inset to look like the eyes of the peacock feathers.

Is this a metal base?

It is.

I though it was.

Again, the research I did said it was gilded pewter.

It's also marked, it's marked "Orion" and "272," which is the shape number.

And there's another one out there with the same number on the bottom.

So I did a little bit of research, it turns out this is a collaboration between a Hungarian Art Nouveau company and a German Art Nouveau company.

Oh.

Orion was located in Nuremberg, Germany.

There were only in business for three years-- 1903 to 1906.

They were bought out by a competing company in 1906.

George Schmidt was the artist who worked this piece so you have an Art Nouveau design in the German style, which is called Jugendstil, it means "the children's style," and that's the German interpretation of Art Nouveau.

Each country that practiced Art Nouveau had a different interpretation of it.

We tend to the think of the French interpretation, which is far more florid, whereas the Germans, they geometricized it, it's a little more angular in the German style.

Uh-huh.

This is a very special thing.

On today's market at auction I would value it between $7,000 and $10,000.

One almost identical to this sold at auction within the last two years for $12,000.

So my $7,000 to $10,000 is a bit on the conservative side, but I'd rather be that way, but easily worth $7,000 to $10,000.

Well, I loved Jack, but I didn't know he loved that much.

(both laughing) Oh my gosh!

Well, I can't even think now.

Oh gosh, well David, you have taken my breath away.

You absolutely have.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: The Ringlings hired Robert Webb, Jr., as the principal decorator.

You could see Webb's hand in details such as the Venetian-inspired decorative motifs in the coffered ceiling of the grand courtroom.

And in the cast-plastered dining room ceiling, ornately painted to look like woodgrain.

♪ ♪ WOMAN: Fifty years ago, shortly after we were married, my husband and I visited George Nakashima's workshop, met Mr. Nakashima, and he helped us pick out the wood and made the table.

So George Nakashima, he's born 1905, he goes into M.I.T.

and he's an architecture student.

He gets a great job, he gets to travel to Japan, and then the war happens and he is put into a Japanese internment camp, a really sad part of our history.

And then he came to New Hope and started this phenomenal furniture business.

It was all about the design for him.

He's truly an artist working in wood.

He described himself as a Japanese Shaker.

He was all about the wood, which the Shakers cared about, this wonderful figuring that you see all over the top of this walnut, and then just a superb cabinetmaker, as the Shakers were.

There's also his signature butterfly joint here, which is in an exotic wood of rosewood.

And then this wonderful iconic design with a slanted leg on one and a support on the other.

What did you pay for it?

$165.

Okay, well, today I think a piece like this has an auction estimate be in the $15,000 to $20,000 range.

Very good!

Yeah.

That's very good.

MAN: I brought a painting which I inherited about 30 years ago.

And it has remained in our family...

I think it's been in since about 1955, maybe?

It stayed unframed for many years, and when I inherited it I had it framed, and that's about all I can tell you about it.

Can you tell me how much your mother paid for the painting?

I have no earthly idea.

I think she bought it from the artist himself because there was a sticker on the back that had his home address, which is on Racine Avenue in Chicago, and I think she bought it from the artist, not from the show.

The artist is Bernard Goss.

And you're right, there's a sticker on the back, which is an exhibition label from Atlanta in 1954.

Okay.

This was in an exhibition that was actually of some note called "The Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, and Prints by Negro Artists" at Atlanta University.

This is from April 4 to May 2, 1954.

Bernard Goss, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and became a Chicago artist.

Eventually he married another very important artist, as well, Margaret Burroughs.

Margaret Burroughs established the South Side Community Center.

This was a WPA project, which was the Works Progress Administration of FDR.

And actually, Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1941, attended the opening of that center, which is still open today.

So he's an important artist for, for Chicago.

My mother, who was a psychotherapist, worked for the South Side Center.

She did?

For a number of years.

This was while she was going to school.

I imagine that's how she got to know the artist, through his wife.

That's very possible.

This painting, which was painted in 1954, is actually very important, as far as its date and as far as what it depicts.

Now, 1954 was a seminal year in the civil rights movement.

Because that was the year of Brown vs. the Board of Education.

And as we all know, Brown vs. the Board of Education basically outlawed segregation in the schools.

So when we look at the subject matter of this painting, what we have is an African-American woman playing the piano, and a white woman dancing with her.

The title of the painting, as it's titled on the back, is "Counterpoint."

You can imagine, in 1954 when we're talking about the races getting together and desegregation, this painting was very apropos.

It relates to that time period.

The way it's done is also very, very lyrical.

It reminds me of Harlem Renaissance paintings.

Yes.

It's this kind of fluidity, the way the woman is dancing, and even the way the figure in the foreground is painted, with the kind of low décolletage, the...

Her look even reminds me of Harlem Renaissance painting.

The painting is oil on Masonite.

There are a lot of institutions and a lot of collectors for African-American art.

I would put an auction estimate of $7,000 to $10,000 on it.

What's the insurance value?

The insurance value is going to be about $15,000.

Okay.

But it could-- insurance could be as high as $25,000, it depends what kind of appraisal you get.

♪ ♪ It's kind of-- this is a lightweight model.

Fred, check that out.

(laughs) Oh, my gosh!

It's five tons!

I know.

Yeah, it's pretty heavy.

These Arias, they're made in Japan.

Their guitars were way less money than an American guitar would cost, yet they're very, very playable and a good value.

Probably a $300 base, maybe $350.

MAN: It hangs in our living room.

We know that it was in the parlor of my great-grandfather.

We really don't know much about it.

WOMAN: Family legend is that it was Marie Antoinette's.

APPRAISER: The timeline doesn't work.

Okay.

These were made in the mid-1800s.

Long after poor... (clicks tongue) Yeah, okay.

And, you know....

Unfortunately, we're the grim reaper of family legend around here.

I brought a map of Providence, Rhode Island, from 1857.

Pretty big map, so I've never really seen it hung up like this before.

It comes folded up into a book.

It wasn't made to be hung up, I don't think, because of the way it's folded into the book.

What is your connection to Providence, Rhode Island?

Well, I grew up in Rhode Island, so when my parents died, there was a lot of things I cleaned out of the house, and I just put in storage, and then have been going through it little by little.

So this was one of the things that I haven't done anything with.

So what you brought is a monumental wall map of the city of Providence, Rhode Island.

And it is printed in New York in 1857.

And the size is really unusual for maps of that time.

The map is printed as a lithograph.

I would guess this is probably four or six different plates.

The paper's then mounted together, and your map is mounted on linen.

It is a way of preserving a map of this size.

So when you mount it on linen, you do cut it in smaller segments so you don't put too much stress on the folds when you fold or unfold the map.

Okay.

The map is made by Henry Francis Walling, who was a native of Rhode Island, and he was a prolific mapmaker.

You see the city of Providence, the way it was in 1857, you get the fainter bits of the map are projections of where they thought that the city would grow.

And it is fascinating that it is also surrounded by these smaller views of important buildings.

The smaller views of the important buildings of Providence are all printed separately and then mounted on the map.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

The coloring is done by hand.

Printing in color wasn't really that sophisticated at the time.

Right.

So it was easier just to have it hand-colored.

Should it be kept folded up or should it be...

Yes.

Okay.

I would leave it the way it is.

Do you have any idea of what this could be worth?

No.

Even though I grew up in Rhode Island, and I know Providence, a lot of people don't know Providence, so I'm assuming it's not worth as much as if it was Boston, or New York, or, you know, a more popular city.

I'm thinking maybe $1,000, maybe?

Mm-hmm.

But you're right about the desirability.

You know, a map of Boston or New York from the time.

But on the other hand, because of the scale, it is a rare survivor from that time.

And an auction estimate would be, at this day and age, about $3,000 to $4,000.

Oh, wow, very nice-- that's nice.

WOMAN: It's a flask that my father found in the basement of my grandparents' house when they cleaned it out.

The monkeys kind of look like they're messing around on the front of it, which is kind of fun, 'cause I think it's Victorian-era, which was probably unusual.

So we know it's Tiffany.

Uh-huh.

And of course, the bottom is marked.

It says, "6374M8079, sterling silver, 5 1/2 gills."

Five-and-a-half gills is the size, so it's roughly 650 milliliters.

This is a big flask.

The "M" is for Edward Moore of Tiffany.

The 6374 is the date mark that has this piece produced in 1881.

Okay.

If you go back to 1876 in Philadelphia, which was the Philadelphia Centennial, the Japanese were coming to America bringing their style.

Oh.

Edward Moore loved the world, he loved the Japanese culture, and he began to incorporate those elements in the pieces that Tiffany was making at the time.

And so we call it Japonesque.

You know, you go to the back and you have an inscription here from The Country Club.

The Country Club is from Brookline, Massachusetts, and it's the oldest country club in America.

The piece made from 1881, dedicated in 1884 to Thomas Thorne, the clay pigeon champion.

From Pierre Lorillard, Jr. Pierre Lorillard, Jr., sponsored the clay pigeon tournament and was from the Lorillard tobacco family.

And it really highlights what was going on at country clubs in America at the time.

They were hunting, clay pigeon shooting-- there was a lot going on that wasn't golf.

They didn't get a golf course until 1893.

Without looking at the inscription, as a Tiffany piece, I'm gonna tell you between $4,000 and $6,000.

Okay.

The inscription would add probably another $1,000.

Uh-huh.

And so you'd be at the $5,000 to $7,000 range.

But given the rarity of the monkeys, the scene, it certainly can do a lot more.

So it's a wonderful piece, and I'm glad you brought it in.

I'm glad I brought it in, too.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: Ca' d'Zan has five floors.

The fourth floor of the mansion has a rather small footprint compared to the lower three levels, being part of a two-story tower.

It contains a single guest room, and provides access up a short winding staircase to the belvedere-- and an incredible view of Sarasota Bay.

♪ ♪ WOMAN: My sister has been taking me to auctions in Pennsylvania for the past 20 years.

Sometimes I pick up unusual pieces, and this piece happens to be one of the ones that caught my eye, but I wasn't sure of, but I loved it, so I got it.

Do you wear this piece?

No, I haven't worn this piece.

I believe it's a belt buckle, and it doesn't exactly fit my style.

Do you know what it's made out of?

I believe it's made of pot metal, because it's very heavy, and then the stones, I think they're considered paste?

It is a belt buckle or a sash buckle.

It dates from between 1900, 1915.

And I believe that it's German or Austrian.

It's Art Nouveau in the German or Austrian style.

Secessionist Jugendstil, Jugendstil, which means "youth style."

It's sort of progressive, it's in-your-face, it's macabre, it's sort of goth.

The metal itself is not pot metal-- pot metal would be too porous to stand up to use as a belt buckle.

But it's what we call German metal, which is an alloy of nickel, zinc, and copper.

Okay.

The stones are, as you referred, paste or early rhinestones.

How much did you pay for this?

Less than $20.

Unsigned as it is, as old as it is, I would say that today at auction, this sash buckle would take an estimate of $400 to $500.

Wow!

That is excellent.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Ooh!

WOMAN: Well, this rug actually belonged to my husband's grandmother.

She lived in Dayton, Ohio.

And she was from a very affluent family.

When she passed away in 2003, her children divided up the antiques and belongings from her estate, and we actually received a few of the items that no one else was interested in holding on to.

This is one of the rugs that we received.

And have you been using it?

When we first got it, we put it out, but we had young children at the time, and it feels very delicate to me, and there are some condition issues, so I actually folded it up and I put it under my bed.

And last night, before I came to the Antiques Roadshow, I remembered that I had stored it there, and here it is today.

How long was it stored under your care?

Probably about seven years.

Well, you're really, first of all, really lucky that moths didn't get into it.

Oh.

That's a common problem, especially in Florida with the climate.

It's a Persian rug, it's called a Tabriz.

Okay.

And it was woven around 1910, so it's actually kind of fun, because it's not far off from what the vintage of this house is.

It's about ten years older than the house, and probably very similar to what types of rugs would have been in the house.

Tabriz rugs were made for the Western market in great abundance in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Okay.

And so it has the classic design format of the medallion center.

So you'll notice that they started the rug, and they had a fair amount of dark blue.

And you can see the blue is extending out to the edge because they're weaving on a horizontal plane.

When they run out of the blue they go to this sort of brownish color, and you'll notice that the color and the border also changes.

So they essentially ran out of the blue all the way up to here, where they must have gotten another batch of deep indigo.

Now, what country would this have been produced in?

Iran.

Okay.

But they're, classically they're known as Persian rugs.

Mm-hmm.

Because before 1935, the country was called Persia.

All the weavers were women, and a rug of this size would have been made by one or two women.

Where if it's a rug that's ten or 15 feet wide, it could have been five to seven women.

Tabriz rugs are typically very finely woven, they have a high knot density, and a result is that you have very good detail.

And some of the design elements are really nice classical design elements.

This orange color helps us date the rug.

Oh.

Because this dye was introduced in the 1880s.

It's an aniline dye, and it's one of the first synthetic dyes that was introduced.

So before the 1880s, they were using mostly natural dyes.

And the synthetic dyes were so expensive in the beginning that they used them very sparingly.

So you'll note that there, have just used little touches of the orange everywhere.

One of the hallmarks of the synthetic dyes, however, is that they don't fade at all.

So that while the other colors may have mellowed, the orange remains as bright as it every was.

Yeah.

Even though they were very finely woven and they were workshop pieces, there's an element to them that really signifies that they're handmade.

If you look at this medallion, you'll notice that from here to here is a lot shorter distance than from here to here.

Oh, I never noticed that.

And so the weavers figured out that they had done the design in such a way that they got to the middle of the medallion before they actually got to the middle of the rug.

And so they had to improvise, how can we make the design longer so that it's still in balance?

And so you have this kind of disproportionate medallion here, which is really kind of fun.

The selvedges on the side have been replaced.

Okay.

So at some point in the rug's life, the sides were distressed, had a little bit of uneven wear, and the old way of dealing with it, as opposed to restoring the sides, was to just cut the edges evenly and then sew on an applied selvedge.

Oh, okay.

So that's not original, but other than that, the condition of the rug is very good.

Any idea, ballpark, of what you think it might be worth?

I would hope, with the age of it, maybe it would be worth $1,000?

I actually think that if you were to go out and buy this rug in a retail establishment, it would cost you around $7,000.

Oh, my gosh.

In this market.

These Tabriz rugs really range anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000, depending on what attributes they have.

Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited.

My daughter today told me she didn't think I should bring it, because it was one of the ugliest things she's ever seen.

WOMAN: It's from the Civil War.

APPRAISER: Okay.

It's a relative on my father's side that fought for the North, and they got caught by the Confederate Army and put into a prisoner-of-war thing in Danville.

When he got injured, he cut this branch off from a tree and used it as a cane.

And he marked on the top when he cut the branch, and then he wrote the story down the cane because they were escaping from the prison.

They traveled at night and he would carve pictures and names and whatever he saw as they were trying to escape.

So Joseph Nelson was here in the unfortunate spot of the rebel prison number 4 in Danville, Virginia.

Yup.

Those Civil War prisons were notoriously bad places to be.

Right.

So he decides that he's going to break out of this prison, right?

And part of what he recounts on this cane is all of the guys who he broke out with, but not only that, he describes how they did it.

How they surprised the rebel guard, stripped the cartridges from their shoulders, and all of these amazing things, and they break out.

And then what do they do?

They travel "600 miles over mountains, "valleys, rivers, through the enemy counties "almost naked, barefooted, often traveling through snow, and cold, rainstorms."

By the time he records cutting this branch, he is back with his Union compatriots.

I think it's in October of 1864.

He has survived this great odyssey.

And I think he carves this as a record of that odyssey.

With all of the archival things that are now online, I can search Joseph Nelson, and I can corroborate this whole thing.

This is a great historical treasure.

You can find a lot of Civil War canes out there.

It's hard to find one that's worth $1,000.

I think this is probably a $5,000 to $7,000 cane at auction.

Hmm.

It is one of the best Civil War canes I've ever seen.

Thank you.

WOMAN: This is a poster from the old Winston NASCAR series that my sister drug around for years and years to get every single person's autograph in person.

My sister gave me a couple of posters, but she made me pay $100 for this one.

We're looking at about 20 signatures.

Dale Earnhardt's passed away.

Earnhardt's a big one.

Wright's a big one.

We've got a youthful, maybe teenage-looking Jeff Gordon.

Right, he's really young there.

So you do have some key signatures in it.

I think it's somewhere around $1,000 replacement value.

It's a nice piece.

WOMAN: I found them buried in a drawer at my mother's house, and I told her how beautiful they were, and they didn't need to be in a drawer, so she gave them to me.

APPRAISER: Do you know where she got them?

Her mother got them in the early '50s at an estate sale.

And do you know what your grandmother might have paid at that estate sale?

No clue.

Well, most silver spoons, and flatware in general, are worth little more than, if even as much as, the silver content, which for most spoons is less than $40 or $50-- even for big ones.

Now, what you have here is something of great design, and it's really the exception to that rule.

You have some silver spoons, a pair of servers, a larger server spoon, and a smaller spoon, all made by the same company.

This is the company of Georg Jensen, or "Yorg Yensen," if you want to say it in the Danish.

He was a Danish silversmith and jeweler, active in Copenhagen, and these were actually designed by him, as well as made by him.

It's a famous Jensen pattern called the blossom pattern.

This was designed in 1919.

Oh.

So it's not a modern thing, and yet there's a real modernism to it.

People like Jensen today as much as they've ever done.

And, in fact, Jensen is still a thriving company, and they still make this pattern.

Oh.

I looked at the marks on all of these pieces, and they all date to first half of the 1920s.

Which helps.

If they were modern blossom pattern, they would be worth a bit less than they are being early examples.

I think if it came to auction today, I think you're going to find that the estimates would be at least $800 and maybe as much as $1,200 for the four pieces.

Really nice.

Thank you.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: John and Mable loved to entertain.

The magnificent ballroom held many performances.

Looking up at the painted ceiling, vignettes of dancers from all over the world set the scene for entertainment.

MAN: My mother gave it to me.

She told me that my grandmother had bought it as an item in a war bonds, World War II war bonds auction at my mother's high school.

It's a Duke Ellington manuscript, in his hand.

And he's actually signed it here in the top right corner, which is great.

Duke Ellington's probably one of the kings of big-band jazz.

His band, probably most famous for "Take the A Train."

Mm-hmm.

I think he's probably one of the most beloved figures in popular jazz.

He was a big personality.

Yeah, he was a huge personality.

And I think the other thing that really secures his legacy is the fact that he had such a long and prolific career.

Mm-hmm.

These do come up.

We see Duke Ellington manuscripts come up from time to time.

He was obviously a very prolific orchestrator, composer.

When they do come up, they bring fairly consistent numbers.

What's interesting about yours is the letter.

Mm-hmm.

Which, I don't think I've ever seen another letter quite like this.

Oh, really?

And it's really awesome, because it gives us a date.

So we know it's February 10, 1944.

The secretary here is basically saying, "He's traveling right now, "so he couldn't write this letter personally, but we wanted you to have this for your auction."

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

You even had the original auction catalogue.

Yes.

That we were able to see where it was listed, so it's, the provenance on this is just extraordinary.

One of the things that really drives the price on these is, "What is the song?"

Okay.

If I was standing here talking to you about "The A Train"...

Right, oh, sure.

We might be talking about a completely different thing.

Right.

"Camp Grant Chant," not a tune that everyone really knows when you say the name.

I did a little bit of research.

That's actually, like, an also-known title for another song called "Fickle Fling."

Okay.

Which isn't, again, a tremendously well-known tune.

The tune was released on six or seven different albums.

He played it in the '40s.

And I actually had a chance to listen to it before I came out to talk to you.

Oh, great.

It is a classic, wartime, mid-'40s swing.

Oh, okay.

There's not a lot of laying out, the solos don't go on like a lot of his later stuff.

Right.

But it's just a really great camp tune.

We think possibly he may have actually gone to Camp Grant, which is a military base near Rockford, Illinois.

Okay.

He may have actually composed this as a quick little ditty to play for the troops there.

We don't know, we can't confirm it.

Right.

But then he did pick up playing it under a different title at a later time, like 1946, 1947.

The other interesting thing about this, I think, is, I found conflicting records as to who the composer was on this tune.

Oh.

Some sources list Billy Strayhorn.

Well, nearly 30 years of composing together, that he was one of the co-authors of the tune.

Okay.

Other places only list Duke Ellington.

That's not necessarily that definitive, because it is kind of well-known that there was a little bit of give-and-take as to what Strayhorn got credit for, working with Ellington.

Right, right.

A lot of people say he didn't get credit for some of the stuff he did.

Not that Ellington was trying to take advantage or anything.

Sure.

But I'm sure when you're sitting down, playing tunes all day, composing...

It gets mixed together, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

When these come up, for, per-page, they usually sell around $1,000 to $1,500 per page.

Wow.

I think because he signed it, and because we have this letter, I think you're looking at more like a $3,000 price at auction for this.

Wow.

I never would have guessed that.

I'm definitely going to have to put it in a frame and hang it in the living room.

WOMAN: My aunt worked in the White House for many years, under several different presidents.

And Franklin Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower.

And that was a memento that he gave to her.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

MAN: This is my grandmother's chair, one of a set of six.

So I'm hoping to find out more about it.

What this would have been called is a harlequin set.

Okay.

So each plate was different.

They were painted with completely different patterns, completely different designs and colors.

But these were all made by the same manufacturer.

And they're all hand-painted.

MAN: It's a Confederate belt buckle.

It's part of a collection that my grandfather had.

He grew up on Missionary Ridge, in Tennessee, and he found most of the items in his collection.

He would find things on his way to school.

Family lore says that he found a Confederate rifle with full... with full bayonet on his way to school one day.

The Battle of Missionary Ridge was the second part of the Battle of Chattanooga.

The Confederates had pushed the Yankee Army into Chattanooga after they had won at Chickamauga, and they took a position on the heights around the city, trying to blockade it and starve the Union Army out.

They came out November of '63, fought the Battle of Lookout Mountain, pushed the Confederates away, and then the next day, the Battle of Missionary Ridge.

It really was the beginning of the end for the Army of Tennessee.

You got a neat, Confederate, egg-shaped belt buckle.

They're fairly cheaply made.

They're just made out of stamped brass with a very high copper content.

And instead of being lead-filled on the back with studs or hooks, they just soldered telegraph wire onto them, and that's how they created the belt hooks.

It's not uncommon to find them without that telegraph wire.

It was not real sturdy.

Obviously, this rusted away and disappeared.

The telegraph wire hooks, the lack of them, hurts the value of the belt buckle.

These belt plates were made mid-war.

They got issued a lot to the Army of Tennessee circa 1862, '63, and you do find a lot of them related to being found at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.

In today's market, at auction, this buckle is worth somewhere between $1,200 and $1,800.

That's all right-- amazing.

If this still had the telegraph wire, $3,000... Wow.

Maybe up to $4,000.

This is one of my treasures that I really love.

It's something that was made by an artist by the name of Elijah Pierce, a folk artist who is now internationally known.

But I was going to the university, taking a few courses when my girls were real little, and in the fine arts department, there was an exhibit of a newly discovered artist-- although he was in his 70s at the time.

And he happened to be there that day, and I met Elijah Pierce, and was so impressed by him, as well as his beautiful artwork.

He was very slender and tall and very regal.

He reminded me of an Ethiopian king.

I always have that picture in my mind.

So I really was impressed by him.

So I got this one anniversary when my husband at the time bought it for me, and I just adore the piece, because he does a lot of Biblical subject matter.

Right.

And Adam and Eve start the whole thing off with Genesis, so... Yeah, that's where it all started.

I love this, I love this piece.

Yeah, yeah.

And I just love the quality of it.

Right.

And especially the little devil down here and the little snake up here.

Right, there's so much vitality and, and richness.

I just think it's...

He was born in Mississippi and started carving as a kid, he just loved doing it.

Yes.

And he had a pocket knife and he made these critters.

He was part of the Great Migration, which was a huge migration of African-Americans from the South North.

And somewhere along the way he opened a barber shop, which was, functioned as a community center.

Yeah.

He found profound religious conviction.

Yes, he did.

And then created these relief carvings, amongst others, that chronicled his life and also the history of the Bible.

He is now one of the most respected and sought-after African-American artists for the power of his religious convictions, which you can see in the intensity of the work, but also his humanity.

All of that is evident in his work.

So this is a wonderful relief carving, probably carved in pine, which is a soft wood and easy to manipulate, and then painted with these vibrant colors.

I just want to show your personal connection to this work.

So it's signed and dated, "10-16-'75, E. Pierce, thanks."

He was such a sweetheart.

He was a good man.

You just knew it.

Lovely, lovely story.

Yeah.

At the point that you encountered Elijah Pierce, he was living and working in Columbus, Ohio.

And you saw his work at Ohio University.

Ohio State University, right in Columbus, yeah.

He had a barber shop in Columbus, and that's where this was purchased.

Yes.

Do you have an idea of what your husband paid?

He paid $75 for it.

A conservative auction value would be somewhere between $10,000 to $15,000.

Wow.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: The Ca' d'Zan mansion has 56 rooms in total.

That includes well-appointed his-and-her master bedrooms, six guest bedrooms, and 15 bathrooms.

MAN: My mother purchased it from an estate sale in Harbor Acres, and she paid about $20 to $30 for it, and she gave it to me.

And how long ago did she buy this?

Like, I was a little kid-- probably 20 years ago.

Okay, this is a beautiful brocade silk case.

Inside, we find this beautiful Art Deco, laque burgauté chinoiserie hand mirror by Cartier, probably circa 1930.

The technique that they used was that they would inlay mother-of-pearl into this black lacquer, and the influence is Asian, and you can see this riverside scene that they've done so beautifully within this gold scallop frame.

The condition on this is exceptional for being as old as it is, and you don't see a lot of this.

They're very sought-after, and at auction, I think you'd be looking at an estimate of $8,000 to $10,000.

Wow, great.

So, fun to see.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome.

WOMAN: We got this out of a family that lived in Albion, Indiana, in their home.

And the story with this, supposedly their family brought it on a wagon train from Pennsylvania to Indiana.

And that's really all I know about it.

That's actually pretty interesting.

Yes.

So this piece is very much decorated in the Pennsylvania German Dutch tradition.

Yes.

So you see these, these motifs repeated over and over.

So that's one easy way we could recognize it.

It's typical of dower chests or blanket chests that were made in Pennsylvania.

They come in a variety of colors, painted decoration.

This particular one is relatively simple.

So the person who painted this didn't go overboard, but the thing that I found very appealing about it is, I like the palette.

These can vary tremendously in value, according to how complex the design and how many colors were used and that sort of thing.

But this sort of mustard yellow background and this ocher design, these geometric devices, it's survived in pretty good condition.

You might look at the top on this one and say, "Well, it's kind of worn," but oftentimes, when the wear starts, they just strip the paint off the top 'cause it doesn't look good anymore.

Thank goodness they didn't do that.

These chests are typically made of poplar.

Poplar is a wood that has a nice smooth grain and it accepts paint very readily.

I'm going to open the lid here.

They didn't pick poplar because it's a pretty wood, because it isn't-- it's pretty dull stuff.

At some point, these hinges were changed.

That's not a big hurt.

It isn't?

It really isn't at all.

Okay.

And there's, there's been some evidence of either a dog trying to get in.

Or, who knows, it may be a squirrel or a rat trying to get into what's inside.

Yeah.

I don't know the story behind that.

This particular piece can be dated, I would say, about 1830 or so.

1830, wow.

And if we're... A little bit earlier, we might see what they call a bracket base, rather than having these turned feet.

But this is very successful-- it's relatively small, it's well-proportioned, it's in good shape, it's a simple but elegant design.

Do you remember what you paid for it?

I don't think it was any more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Do you have any idea as to what it is worth?

I did have an antique person offer me $2,000 for it.

That was in the '90s, and the painted stuff was sort of a little hot at that time, so I have no clue today, and it would be interesting to find out.

In this market, which is in many areas somewhat depressed, because younger folks don't take a lot of interest in this material.

No.

But at any rate, I think in an auction situation, I would estimate it probably $1,200 to $1,500, which isn't markedly different from what you were told years ago.

Right.

Do you use it?

Actually, my television sits on it.

If this were refinished, for example, it'd be worth $200 or $300.

Yes.

The value is in the paint.

♪ ♪ They reminded me very much of window displays and sort of a Christmas window display, which is when they did a lot of these things.

And maybe they had a whole Dickens theme going.

One thing with store window pieces is, they're big.

And marketability can be a challenge because of that.

Well, they're not for sale, 'cause they're part of the family.

Okay.

This is Burt and Joan, and they're with us.

Okay.

Forever.

What'd you pay for it?

$1.99.

Carnival glass was made in response to the craze for Tiffany.

Carnival glass was pressed and molded, and it enabled the companies to make many more pieces much faster and for not a lot of money.

WOMAN: Well, I know it's a LeRoy Neiman that my mother gave me.

She bought it at the Goodwill store for one dollar, and then did a little research and realized it was more than just a dollar painting.

LeRoy Neiman is a very well-known artist born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1921, and he died in New York in 2012.

He painted sports figures, he painted musicians.

One of the interesting things about him is, he was a millionaire as an artist in his lifetime promoting his own work.

He was not the starving artist by any means.

He modeled himself a lot on the French Impressionists Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec.

So here we've got a jockey, and it was painted in 1964 in an Impressionistic style.

It's noted on the back: "Jockey Bill."

At an auction, the value would be easily $5,000 to $7,000.

(gasps): My goodness-- really?

Yeah.

That's fabulous!

♪ ♪ WALBERG: Mable's death in 1929 was the beginning of a series of hardships for John Ringling.

He lost control of the circus, suffered financially, became unhappily remarried, and gravely ill. John died on December 2, 1936, just days before Ca' d'Zan was set to be auctioned off.

The auction was canceled, and John's Sarasota residential property and the Ringling art museum eventually became part of Florida State University.

MAN: My dad was in the Marines, and when the Hindenburg crashed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, his unit was sent to guard it till they had the investigation about why it crashed.

Some of the guys picked up some of the stuff they were throwing out, and...

So he could pick whatever he wanted.

Yeah.

I love this note that he typed.

"I was in D Company, 5th Marines, "stationed in Quantico, Virginia, on May 6, 1937, "when our company was called to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

"The German dirigible Hindenburg "had burned and crashed on landing.

"My company was assigned to guard the wreckage while the investigation was carried on," and it's signed by your father.

It's a great display.

And obviously, a lot of folks know the story behind the Hindenburg.

It was on its transatlantic voyage, and it suddenly burst into flames, the hydrogen core.

Folks probably remember, "Oh, the humanity!"

And so much debris fell, and obviously, there were lives lost, so it had to be a controlled site.

What's interesting about this grouping is that you've got so many different types of material.

You have a pull rope, part of the metal strut, which is the thing we more commonly see.

You have here this labeled "upholstery."

I think it might actually be canvas from the skin of the airship.

Oh, it could be.

But that would require a little bit more examination.

Plus, you have the window section, which is very unusual.

And plus, you can see what had happened to it, it's charred and started to melt.

So this type of grouping at auction, because with the solid provenance of your father being an actual guard on site, I would say we're somewhere in the $5,000 to $7,000.

Wow.

And for insurance, I'd be at, like, $10,000.

Okay.

So, Les, you really made my day today.

You bring in this great 1996 Yankees World Championship ring, and you bring in this so cool Mickey Mantle-signed portrait ball.

What great souvenirs, especially since...

I mean, the Yankees are just in Tampa, an hour away, for spring training, right?

Yes.

I worked with the Yankees for 11 years.

I was the director of Florida operations in Tampa.

I was the first employee.

Thank you, Lord.

(laughing) So what happened in '96?

We won the World Championship, and that was the result: a beautiful ring.

Do you wear it all the time?

I wear it all the time.

The baseball was acquired at a baseball card show.

This gentleman had three baseballs: He had a Mickey Mantle baseball, he had a Ted Williams baseball, and he had a Lou Gehrig baseball.

So were they all decorated like this, with this funky writing and the pictures on them?

He was an ex-umpire, and he had hand-printed those himself.

Unfortunately, I didn't get his name.

I wished I would have.

But he had three of them, he was an older gentleman, and he told me that he was selling them because he knew he didn't have much longer to live and he wanted somebody that loved baseball to have them.

Well, I'm so thrilled you brought it in, because we've never had a baseball like this on the "Roadshow," and I've always wanted to tell this story, because I know who the artist was.

That's... that's fantastic!

You ready?

His name was George Sosnak.

George Sosnak.

George Sosnak.

Amazing!

Amazing.

So let's take a look at this.

He would send the ball away and he would have it signed just like it's signed here, Mickey Mantle, right?

Yes, yes.

And what he would do afterwards, he would put wording in India ink.

It's like reading the Gettysburg Address on the head of a pin.

And then at the end, he would put a little coat of shellac on there, and that's why it's got that color on it.

Oh, okay.

But yours is beautifully preserved.

Let me give you some values here.

So rings that were given out to staff and scouts and that type of thing generally sell for around $5,000 to $7,000.

Right.

If you're going to insure it, I'd have you insure it for probably about $10,000.

Now, the baseball, I've seen a number of these sold.

If I was going to put an auction estimate on it, it would be $8,000 to $12,000.

(laughing) That's... that's... that, that amazes me.

It amazes me.

(clears throat) That's wonderful.

If I was going to put an insurance value on it, I'd put $20,000 on it.

(gasps) So I have to say, Les, it's a pretty good trade.

That's a lot of money for me.

(laughs) That's wonderful.

Yeah.

That'll pay for my wife's stem cell surgery, as she's... (laughs) Oh, my goodness.

WALBERG: You're watching "Antiques Roadshow" And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

I brought my elephant.

I found out today that he is mid-20th-century, worth maybe-- a knock-off, thank you-- made of plaster of Paris and covered in something or other.

Worth maybe $80, $85, which is fine, I got him for $9.95 at Goodwill.

We brought in some things and we had some d'ohs and some... Oh!

(laughing) I used to wear this bowl on my head as a child, and I found out that it's Irish silver and worth about $800.

So I brought in my painting, which I was told was by an obscure German artist-- translated: unknown German artist.

And I thought it was so valuable I could justify taking the entire day off of work, but it turns out it won't even cover my lunch hour, so...

But I had a great time.

I found out that this family heirloom is worth between $200 and $300.

So dear children, you're not going to get rich off this clock.

This tumi turns out to be 20th-century, and this gold plume, which sat on a helmet like that, apparently is copper.

(chuckles) So they ain't worth much and I'm so sad.

(laughs) But my Syrian robe, from the thrift shop, is worth about $300.

(chuckles) There you have it.

Thank you, "Antiques Roadshow"!

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."