Vintage Providence

APPRAISER: When you opened the box.

MAN: Mm-hmm.

It was like I was seeing old friends.

Yeah, exactly.

My gosh, my daughter is not going to believe it.

Are you kidding me?

APPRAISER: No, I'm not.

Wow, that's awesome.

You have to keep it away from the cat.

(laughs): Yeah.

♪ ♪ MARK WALBERG: In 2005, "Antiques Roadshow" was flooded by a tidal wave of treasures during our visit to the Ocean State, Rhode Island.

Have the prices of these fantastic finds risen or receded since then?

Let's find out in this fresh look at Providence.

APPRAISER: You've watched the "Roadshow."

You know how excited we get when we find original boxes.

I've noticed, yes.

So what's in this box here that says, "Buffalo Bill"?

I guess it was the Buffalo Bill Wild West cowboy show, right around the turn of the century or shortly before, and this shows cowboys fighting, buffaloes, Indians.

And I bought it at an auction locally here about 21 years ago.

My wife was away for the weekend, and I saw, uh...

I happened to look in the auction section of the "Journal" here, and it said, "Buffalo Bill Wild West set."

I went to the auction.

I'd never been to one before in my life.

I ended up with this.

Your wife wasn't with you, so you could go wild.

No.

If she'd have been with me, I wouldn't have gone.

And what did you pay for it?

I think I paid about $400 for it.

It's made in Germany.

It's made by the Heyde Company.

We all know about Britons when we think of lead soldiers, but Heyde was the preeminent German manufacturer.

Mm-hmm.

Started in the late 19th century, and this is something they made around 1903.

Well, what's extraordinary is... is the large set.

What's doubly extraordinary is, no one played with it.

Well, after I had bought this particular piece, a woman came over to me.

And she said that everything at the auction was her grandfather's estate.

Right around the turn of the century, her grandfather was the European sales manager for the Singer Sewing Machine Company.

Uh-huh.

He had just gotten married, and he thought that at some time, he would have some sons and this would be a nice present.

Except that he and his wife had three daughters, and the three daughters only had daughters.

And she had told me that this box had been lugged from house to house to house and had never been played with, and that's why it looks the way it does today.

It, it's still tied in original excelsior back behind everything.

You can still see some of the straw from the original packing.

It's just absolutely extraordinary, and the condition is just unheard of.

I did some research and talked to one dealer who had sold a similar set a few years back-- not in this condition-- for in the range of $14,000.

This set, on today's market, I think, at auction, could bring in the neighborhood of $15,000 to $20,000.

Well, my father-in-law came in for a visit and looked at it.

He looked at it and said, "What did you pay for it?"

When I told him, he made one of those faces.

So now maybe, um, I did know what I was doing 21 years ago.

WOMAN: I actually just got this book out of our attic.

When my daughter was young, we found "Anne of Green Gables" on PBS.

APPRAISER: Right.

And once we found that, we fell in love.

My daughter was about ten years old when we started reading the "Anne of Green Gables" series, and then at a flea market, I saw this book, and I thought, "Perfect, we'll take it."

Can I ask how much you paid at the flea market?

I don't think it was any more than five dollars.

It's only a book.

It's only a book.

It was written in 1908 by Montgomery.

There was really a lot of boys' books up to that time, but that was the first of the women's, girls' books, say.

Mm-hmm.

And because of that, it had a great audience, and it took off, and the series followed.

It's just one of these most beloved girl books ever written.

And it really means a lot to people.

Mm-hmm.

And because it was a first book, they often didn't print many copies.

The runs are very small.

Publishers aren't sure: "Is this thing going to take off or not?"

Turns out, it was a huge success, and everybody wanted the book, but to get a true first edition was very, very difficult.

Hm.

The book is dated on the title page.

1908, and...

Here...

It says, "First Impression, April, 1908."

That's very important, because this marks it as the true, true first edition.

Hm.

And for a collector, that means everything.

The last copy that sold, two years ago, sold for $20,000.

(breathlessly): No... Yeah.

You're kidding.

Copies rarely come up at auction.

I've only handled three in my career, and this is in equally good condition to that one.

I would estimate it, safely, $12,000 to $18,000 at auction.

(softly): Oh, my gosh.

So you've got a real treasure and a book that you love.

Oh, my gosh.

I had no idea.

And I really am grateful you brought it here to the Roadshow.

It's a very special thing, and take good care of it.

(laughing): Gosh, now I'm worried.

Now you're worried?

My gosh, my daughter is not going to believe it.

Yeah, well, you can call your daughter and tell her.

Thank you very much.

You're very welcome.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I've never seen anything like it with these buds.

It almost looks Danish.

But this little bug tells me it's not.

So I turned it over, and sure enough, there it is, the S with the wings, which is Shiebler, a really fine American Art Nouveau manufacturer.

APPRAISER: It's a, a really fine piece of Russian shaded enamel.

If you look in the little cloisons, the place where they put the enamel, they didn't just do one color.

They have a shading to it.

WOMAN: Right.

That makes it even finer than regular cloisonné enamel.

The workmanship is just exquisite, and the amazing thing is, the condition is so good.

She belonged to my grandmother.

She had a foyer with her and the mate that goes with her.

She was probably made in France in the 1880s.

It's very hard to know who made figures like this.

WOMAN: Well, it's been in my husband's family.

It was hung over his grandfather's desk on Tea Wharf.

How far back does that go?

In the late 1800s, early 1900s.

And so he, he might have been the one who possibly even purchased this from John Bellamy.

It was carved by John Bellamy.

He was the town carver of Kittery, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

He worked in the navy yards, had his own carving shop.

It's a wonderful, paint-decorated carved eagle.

Prototypical Bellamy with the square beak and the red eye.

The saying "Remember the Maine" helps date it.

It's late 19th century, late 1890s.

And you see the support there?

Mm-hmm.

That he put on the wing?

It's totally original.

Beautiful, beautiful pine.

And what's wonderful about it is, there's an early appraisal on here, that in 1960, this was appraised for $250.

That's correct.

You're looking at something that would be valued in the $35,000 to $45,000 range.

(laughing): Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's just... That is unbelievable.

Collectors love the "Remember the Maine."

It's one of his more popular sayings.

So, congratulations.

Oh, thank you so much.

It's... Oh!

MAN: This was given to me by my mother, who received it from her mother.

Everything is original but the paper clip.

That's what makes it stop and go.

When you pull it out... Now it should start to go.

It takes a minute for it to warm up.

There it goes-- oop.

Let me turn the kitty around.

And you'll see, the cat comes up and then disappears.

Now, that cat actually pops up, turns around...

Yes.

And it sticks its tongue out.

Right, before it leaves.

(laughs) Your parents let you play with it when you were a child?

No, my mother didn't give this to me till I was probably in my early 40s.

I'm amazed at the condition that it's in.

Right.

It's by one of the foremost toy producers of the 19th century, Ives, a Connecticut-based firm.

And they made this toy around 1885, and Ives made a little bit of everything in the 19th century.

They were a huge manufacturer of fine toys.

Okay.

This piece, I love it because it combines great clockwork motion with whimsy.

Its movement is really close to the famous French automaton makers of the 19th century, which is a little more smooth, a little more subtle, than the American manufacturers.

Now, have you ever had this piece appraised?

No, it's never, um...

This is the first time it's actually left the house.

Well, the key, I think, looks original.

The rest of the piece has a few spots here and there.

What amazes me is the condition of the cat itself after being around for over 100 years.

I sold one years ago, and it brought over $8,000.

Are you kidding me?

(chuckling): No, I'm not.

So when I saw it come into the Roadshow, uh, I was very pleased.

So the kitten in the can is a great toy.

Wow.

And thank you for bringing it to the Roadshow.

Well, thank you-- so it's worth about $8,000, huh?

Wow.

My wife's going to want to sell this.

MAN: My grandfather and my great-grandfather were brewers in Boston.

They ran the Highland Springs Brewing Company.

And this was an award given to my great-grandfather, who was the president of the American Brewers Association, in recognition of all the work he did for the association.

I only found it existed about 20 years ago.

My mother died, and we were going through her things, and I found this big steamer trunk, and this was in it.

APPRAISER: Wow.

It was manufactured by the Whiting Silver Company in Attleborough, Massachusetts.

And the inscription on the medallion on the front is inscribed 1879.

Yes.

And it says, "Presented to our worthy president by the members "of the United States Brewers Association "as a token of individual respect "and recognition of eminent services rendered.

"The Brewing Industry 19th Annual Convention, St. Louis, June 5, 1879."

If we look around the body of it, we have these wonderful little brewer figures.

This one's sitting with his foot on a keg.

And we'll go around here to a medallion, which has an inscription in Latin.

He's actually holding the spout of a keg here, and an inscription in German on this side.

And then this fellow here, holding a wonderful stein.

Now, it's a tremendously heavy piece, and I'm not about to flip it upside down, but it's clearly marked "Whiting" on the bottom.

The overall piece you would call an epergne.

It's way beyond its decorative appeal.

It's so over the top for a trophy.

(laughs) Do you have any concept of, of what it might be worth?

I only know it's pretty heavy, and I know the base is sterling.

So, I don't know, a few thousand, maybe.

If I look at it in an auction setting, you have people bidding on sterling, people bidding on trophies, and people bidding on brewing memorabilia...

Yes.

...now competing against one another.

In my estimation, I would expect it to realize in the $12,000 to $15,000 range.

Wow-- that's impressive.

MAN: My aunt worked at Rankin-Bass Productions for about ten or 15 years in the '70s and early '80s, and she acquired all of them, and they were the production puppets from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Including Rudolph and Santa, we had Yukon Cornelius, Herbie the Misfit Dentist, and a few others, including assorted reindeer that got melted in our attic, thanks to my mom.

We used to have them around the Christmas tree, you know, growing up, and I'm just used to having them around.

So what we have here are, are the actual original puppets.

As far as I know.

And we can see here they have the articulated legs.

Mm-hmm.

The articulated neck here.

This is, of course, the young Rudolph.

Yeah.

And here's Santa.

When you opened the box... Mm-hmm.

And took these fellas out... Mm-hmm.

It was like I was seeing old friends.

Yeah, exactly.

As I'm sure it is the case with millions of our viewers, this is a Christmas tradition.

1964 is when the film was made, and, uh, it's definitely has a, a warm spot in all of our hearts.

Mm-hmm.

So to actually meet them in person is really exciting.

Exactly.

This is iconic, it's on a very different level.

It's not a toy, and everyone who has seen it has gotten a kick and recognized it instantly.

So you're dealing with something magnificent here.

It's too bad that Burl Ives melted away.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, that's the problem when he's in a hot attic.

Exactly.

They're made out of cloth and wood and, I think, some plastics and things like that.

They're not in perfect condition.

Yeah.

The nose has been replaced.

I guess the bulb broke.

Play-Doh.

Or something.

Santa's whiskers are missing there.

If I were to estimate it at an auction, I wouldn't estimate it less than $8,000 to $10,000 for the pair.

Mm-hmm.

What it would go for at auction, that's anyone's guess.

Okay.

Miniature books are very, very collectible, because they cross over many, many genres of collecting.

This is thumb-sized, so miniature collectors collect this.

It also has collectible value for people who collect Lincolniana, because it's Lincoln's addresses.

APPRAISER: It looks Indian, but it's not.

WOMAN: I thought it was Mexican.

It's not, it's turquoise and silver, but it's made in New York City.

Really?

And how we know that...

This little mark over here, it's a mushroom.

It's made by Sam Kramer.

And I would say this piece was probably made somewhere around 1948, 1950.

Okay.

It's late for a powder horn, but it's got wonderful, wonderful engraving on it.

It's dated 1852.

♪ ♪ MAN: I found it in a little antiques store outside of Boston about 15 years ago.

Okay, and do you know who it is of?

Oh, yes, I knew exactly who it was when I saw it.

Lizzie Borden.

Okay.

And what did you pay for it?

One dollar.

This is a, uh, good photograph of Lizzie Borden, probably the, one of the most famous American murderesses of all time.

Her trial in 1893 for murdering her mom and dad with an axe within 90 minutes of each other was one of the most sensational trials in American history.

Now, she was acquitted after a two-week trial in a matter of moments by a, an all-male jury, then stayed in Fall River, Massachusetts, and was always perceived to be the guilty person for the rest of her life.

And there was a tune, you know.

Oh, sure.

"Lizzie Borden took a axe and hit her mother, 40 whacks," something to that effect.

You have spoken with the Fall River Historical Society.

Correct.

They said that they bought all the negatives for this photographer.

Right.

And did they have this image?

They didn't have the actual copy themselves.

Okay.

They just had the negative, so they could make the print.

Okay, so they also thought that this photograph was pretty rare.

Right.

Okay.

So then you have a historical figure of kind of real interest, and then rarity, so that comes together.

Now, you paid a dollar for it?

Right.

I would think the real value would be $600 to $900.

Great.

WOMAN: I inherited it from my, uh, father.

Uh, he died in 1990, and it was in his estate, and I, he inherited it from his father, probably in the late '70s sometime.

I know that it's made by a clockmaker named, I think, Samuel Mulliken, or some descendant of his-- I'm not quite sure-- And that somehow, his family sort of ended up as clockmakers in Concord, which is where my grandparents lived and kept the clock for a while.

Well, you're right about that.

Samuel Mulliken came from a long line of really well-known and respected clockmakers.

And what you have here is a Massachusetts shelf clock, and it's really a, a wonderful piece.

The condition of it is very good.

Up here, there's two holes.

Huh.

Where there originally would be little brass finials.

Also, there's a little patch here.

The glass is also replaced.

But really, not a big deal in terms of the value of this clock.

It's a mahogany case.

It stands on these wonderful ogee bracket feet, which are perfectly original.

It has this beautiful scalloped apron in the front, and it extends to the sides, as well.

It's signed here by Samuel Mulliken, on the dial, which is always nice to have, because we know who made it.

It's a sheet-brass dial, and it's a time-and-strike movement, and that's why you have two winding arbors.

One powers the time, and one powers the strike.

It's a two-weighted mechanism.

It really is a fantastic piece.

Do you have any idea of the value?

No, it was, it was appraised in my dad's estate for, I don't know, $5,000, maybe $10,000, something like that.

How long ago was that?

1990.

1990?

I feel that appraisal is a little low today.

I would say a clock like this should be insured for around $75,000.

Seriously?

Seriously.

It's, it's that good.

Wow.

When it came out of the bag, I couldn't believe it.

Wow, I love it, so... Congratulations.

Thank you.

What are you going to do with it?

I'm going to put it right back on its shelf and get it insured for a little bit more.

WOMAN: When I was cleaning my mother's house out, in Jamestown, I found it in a bureau drawer in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

And it had the pictures in it.

How long ago was that?

About eight years ago.

The little bag, which fits the tintypes beautifully, is probably from one of the Prairie tribes.

I'd suspect it's Potawatomi.

And I'm really excited to see something from that part of the country.

We're talking about Nebraska, all through that part of the Midwest.

It's an unusual beading style.

They're fairly rare, and it has a pretty good value by itself.

I can't believe these tintypes were all in here.

And I guess you knew that these are called tintypes.

Yes, I did know they were tintypes.

And they're photographs on tin.

Yes.

You can't take the picture and say, "Make me ten copies."

Yeah, mm-hmm.

You have one.

So the only ones are these.

There's not 50 of them somewhere else.

Mm-hmm.

They're Sioux.

Oh, they are?

Mm-hmm.

The women are in what are called dentalium or bugle-bead dresses.

Mm-hmm.

The men have blanket strips that are definitely Sioux.

One man has a blanket strip across his lap that looks fairly clearly Sioux.

Which band, I don't know.

This type of picture was really popular from the late Civil War through the 1880s.

They were made for years after that, but not really before that.

I suspect these are from the late 1870s through the late 1880s.

This is before the tribes fell apart.

The look on these people's faces, the pride, they're just so evocative of a period that is so far gone from these tribes and from our country.

And these photographs show that better than any I've seen in years.

There's people, probably, in these pictures that fought Custer at, at the Little Big Horn.

These men are men who fought at the end of the Indian Wars and fought through it.

They had seen it all.

They had defended their families, they had defended what they considered their country against invaders.

They were part of the old buffalo days.

The buffalo were about gone.

These men had hunted buffalo.

They'd lived in hide teepees.

It was just a whole 'nother world.

And for you to have found these in this little bag, it, they're just marvelous.

I mean, this is the kind of thing that just sets me going.

There are very serious collectors of this kind of thing, and to find a group like this, of very specific-looking people...

There's nothing vague about the people in these pictures.

I'm going to say about $5,000 to $7,000 for the group.

Mm-hmm.

With research, they will make more.

MAN: Well, it's by an artist by the name of Lucian Bernhard.

When I graduated art school-- I'm from Manhattan-- I worked for his son Carl Bernhard.

Towards the end of working for him, I had done some personal favors for Lucian Bernhard, and who wanted to pay me monetarily, and I did not want to accept that.

In turn, he said, "Here, take this portfolio of things and enjoy."

He also wanted to give me some of his paintings, and foolishly, I, I did not accept that, but I accepted this.

APPRAISER: These are the original artworks.

His influence on graphic design and on typography is, is almost undefinable.

He personally designed 36 different typefaces.

I didn't know that.

Lucian Bernhard began his poster career in Germany.

He created something called the object poster, where, when he was making an advertisement, he chose only to illustrate that object.

And in fact, we have a copy of his first object poster.

It's for Priester matches, this is... That's his first?

It's his first object poster, done in 1906.

Okay.

And it seems so obvious to us that on an advertisement for matches, you illustrate the matches.

But in 1906, which was at the heart of the Art Nouveau movement, to do something so simply, so plainly, so without ornament, was absolutely unheard-of and revolutionary.

In 1923, he came to America, and you began working for his son in what year?

In the '60s, when I graduated art school.

And he gave you these original works of art, some of which are maquettes for posters.

Okay.

They're the studies for posters.

We have here Excelsior Tires.

Mm-hmm.

Which is a gouache.

You can see his signature in the lower left-hand corner.

We also have, close to you, a study for a poster for Bleichert Conveyors.

Again, his signature is visible in the upper left-hand corner here.

You also have a watercolor here for Manoli Cigarettes, which is another one of his big clients, and then we have... this would probably be from his German era, because it's a German company.

Rahn Biscuits.

Not only is it a gouache, but if you look very closely, you will see that it's also a collage, that he cut and pasted certain elements onto the background.

I never noticed that.

The top here of the coffee pitcher has been pasted on.

His original artwork rarely comes on the market at all.

His posters come on the market every now and again and sell for a fairly pricey sum, but the posters are obviously much larger.

The worst-case scenario, an auction estimate for the group that I would be very comfortable thinking they would sell...

Okay.

...would be $15,000 to $20,000.

Whoa!

Okay.

Now, that's the worst-case scenario.

The best-case scenario, which is if they are as rare and as exciting and as important as I believe them to be, I can see $20,000 to $30,000.

Now, when you said you made a mistake not taking his paintings, you don't realize what a big mistake you made.

Now I do.

(laughs) WOMAN: My sister and I are the fourth generation to share the care of it.

It began its life, as far as we know, with our great-grandparents in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and then moved to one of their daughters' homes in Trenton, New Jersey, and from there to my mother and father's home in the suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut, and now to my home.

Now, you said it was your great-grandparents that owned it when you first knew about it.

What period did they live in?

Middle to late 1800s.

He was a dentist in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

This is one of the most wonderful pieces of New Hampshire furniture I have ever seen.

Your great-grandfather must have been a collector, or maybe one of his patients' family had moved from New Hampshire out to Wilkes-Barre, and he acquired it from them.

This was made by the Dunlap family, probably by Major John Dunlap.

He and his brother Samuel were cabinetmakers right around the time of the Revolutionary War.

This was made right in the 1770s, and then 11 of their descendants also became cabinetmakers in New Hampshire.

They were very, very popular.

They were in the Goffstown area, which is near Manchester, New Hampshire.

This piece of furniture has several things going for it to make it what I would call an A-plus piece of New Hampshire furniture.

You have the wonderful fan up here, the long lobes alternating with the little short lobes.

That's a definite Dunlap feature.

It matches the one on the bottom.

Chests-on-chests and highboys went out of fashion.

In the Victorian period, nobody wanted them.

They would have taken this molding off, put an overhanging top on it, and then put horrible feet on this.

That would be hard to take off, and so often these were married, the top from one, the bottom from another.

Not the case with yours.

It's magnificent.

It's tiger maple, which was a typical wood for the Dunlaps to use.

They also used very heavy secondary woods-- white pine-- but the drawer sides are very, very thick.

So many of our designs were copied from English, but one of the great things that American cabinetmakers tried to do was to get verticality to a piece of furniture to make it look taller.

And so Dunlap very carefully had the brasses on the bottom match the brasses on the top, rather than having the bottom ones out a little bit.

The proportion is superb.

The color is superb.

A few collectors would pay more money if it had a really old and grungy surface, but this just has that wonderful, warm, honey surface.

Yeah.

There's a little chip missing there.

Never touch that.

All right.

It has its original brass.

The Queen Anne base, the little bandy cabriole legs, are typical of New Hampshire, although they were done other places.

This piece of furniture is worth between $50,000 and $80,000.

Really?

Oh, how wonderful.

You have probably the finest piece of New Hampshire furniture that's ever come to the Roadshow.

Really?

I've never seen a complete pair-- never.

I've seen these in half, and I was wondering, is this a bracelet?

And then you turn it over and you find these clips, and I've only seen a half, and sometimes they stretch.

These are shoe ornamentation straps.

What's amazing is that they are all intact.

These are crystal rhinestones, in lead, base metal.

This is a box that came down through my husband's side of the family.

Has a little message on the inside.

"This box was made in the Sing Sing Prison "about 1866 or 1867.

All convicts are put to work at the trade they are accustomed."

In Peking in the summertime, it's 115 degrees-- very, very hot.

And any of the officials used to come off, and the second they would come off duty, they'd be, you know, sitting down.

They take their hats off and put them on these to cool them down.

And sometimes they even had ice in the bottom of them.

They're probably early 19th century.

MAN: Well, I found it at a antique store.

It was, like, $60 and...

I just bought it, like, straight up, I... Just loved it.

Yeah, I loved it.

Okay, what we have here is a photograph of Father Divine, and the caption at the bottom of the picture identifies the subject.

If we look to the left of his leg, we see the name "Van Der Zee, New York City."

Yeah.

Van Der Zee was a very important portrait photographer who worked out of Harlem.

Father Divine was a social activist who promoted the cause of Civil Rights for African-Americans.

If we look at the frontispiece photograph of Father Divine, we see that the original portrait didn't have all these notations: "Peace," "divine peace."

So what we have, basically, is a sandwich photograph.

The original portrait, and then the highlight of the cloud, the text, that adds a lot to the photographic image.

In the marketplace, an image this size-- which is unusually large for a Van Der Zee photograph, they're typically eight by ten inches-- would be in the area of $2,000 to $3,000.

For real?

Oh, snap.

Yeah.

So very cool thing.

(chuckles) Very wonderful photograph of an important Civil Rights figure during the Harlem Renaissance, the 1920s, by an equally important African-American photographer, James Van Der Zee.

Enjoy it.

Wow, thanks a lot, that's awesome.

MAN: Well, they came from Yale Football Association.

I had an uncle, John Augustus Hartwell, who played football for championship Yale team in 1891.

APPRAISER: Terrific.

He is pictured in the photograph here, right in the dead center, and that's John Augustus Hartwell.

He was a right end for the team.

The team was undefeated that year, in 1891.

1892, the team was also undefeated, but in this year, they never gave up a point.

Actually, the last game of the season, 40,000 people showed up at that game, at the 1891 last game, and that, in and of itself, was important because it really gave notoriety or importance to college football at that time.

It really brought it into the public eye.

And he was on with some very, very elite company.

Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger was on that team, and he's one of the most famous football players of the time.

Some people acknowledge him as being the first professionally paid football player.

Mm-hmm.

You framed them perfectly.

They're well preserved.

They should stay that way.

If I had to give you a gut estimate based on what I think would be a fair-market auction appraisal, I would say, on the pair, $4,000 to $6,000 would be a very fair estimate.

Any plans for what you're going to do with it?

I would like to keep them in the family.

If you're going to keep it in the family, then you may want to consider an alternative estimate for insurance purposes, which might be a little bit higher, $7,000 or $8,000.

Keep them out of sunlight, and they'll retain their gloss.

It's silk with gilt over the top.

It's just a wonderful piece, and I can't thank you enough for bringing them in today.

WOMAN: This came from my father's collection.

He passed away a year ago this month, and he had a collection of bronzes, and he has three daughters.

And he kind of divvied up the bronzes, and this is the one that I happened to get.

Uh-huh.

And it's one of my favorites.

And do you know anything about it?

I do know just a little bit about the artist.

I know that she's from Philadelphia.

I know a lot of people who look at the piece always say she looks like a hood ornament, and so we've always assumed that it might be a hood ornament.

I use it as a paperweight or sitting on top of my books on my coffee table in my living room.

And you said you knocked it over last week?

No, my cats knocked it over.

Your cats knocked it over.

You've brought in a very exciting piece.

Why, thank you.

It's by an American artist named Harriet Frishmuth, who was very famous in her day.

She worked in the early part of the 20th century.

She studied in Paris with Auguste Rodin.

And she also studied in New York with Gutzon Borglum.

He was the sculptor of Mount Rushmore.

Wow.

Her works appear in many museums.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a huge, life-size figure.

She made lots of figures of women, and she did quite a number of fountains.

So she was very prominent in her day.

Wow, yeah.

And the piece you have is signed by her and is dated 1923, which is the high point of her career.

It is a hood ornament for a car.

Oh, okay, good.

And I brought this book in, because there was a very famous foundry here.

The Gorham Foundry... Uh-huh.

Was here in Providence.

And Gorham was known primarily for its silver work, but they did a lot of bronze work of extraordinary quality.

And this is a catalogue from 1928, and here we have a picture of a hood ornament that Harriet Frishmuth also did.

We've handled a lot of Harriet Frishmuth sculptures in our shop, and I've never seen this model.

Wow.

It's very, very rare.

Hood ornaments for big cars started around 1911 with Charles Sykes, who did the Rolls-Royce emblem called "The Spirit of Ecstasy," and they became popular in the teens and the 1920s.

And this would be on a car that would have one of those long hoods, and the radiator would be out front.

It's beautifully cast.

The patina is in very good condition.

At auction, a piece like this would probably bring between $20,000 and $30,000.

(laughing): Wow.

(taps table) Wow-- that's awesome.

Isn't it?

That's retirement.

It'll help my mom out.

I mean, we said that if it was anything like that, we would possibly sell it if we could get that kind of money for it and give it to my mom, definitely.

Okay, that's great.

Wow.

You have to keep it away from the cat.

Yeah.

(laughing): My sister is going to be, like, going, "Yes!"

WOMAN: My husband's great-grandfather served in the Civil War from New Haven, Connecticut.

And this is his hat from the Grand Army of the Republic.

And there is a canteen there that is engraved with a name and a date, and I believe the...

Port Hudson, Louisiana, was a very famous Civil War battle.

Correct.

The family history is that Thomas George Washington Jefferson, who is the great-grandfather...

Right.

was in the hospital in Fort Jefferson, having fought in that battle.

And while in the hospital, he befriended a Confederate soldier.

And at that time they-- according to the history-- they swapped canteens.

That did happen quite often.

They were in camp, in a hospital, and most all of the Union soldiers' canteens looked similar.

They were same basic construction, same basic style.

With a Confederate canteen, many of them were handmade, as this one.

It's made of a wood body, and we also have wood pins holding the two sides together.

I love that trait.

It's a little bit different than any canteen I've encountered, and I've sold hundreds of canteens.

And I love the way he put the date and "Port Hudson," hand-carved it.

It's just got a wonderful look.

Another thing that it has is the original cotton sling.

Those very rarely ever survive, because you can imagine how fragile that would be after being handled for 140 years.

And it has the tin roller buckle.

I love that.

Most of the Union pieces are nicely formed, well made, because there were mass quantities.

This one's handmade.

It just screams "necessity."

And this is his hat from his time in the Grand Army of the Republic.

The Grand Army of the Republic, of course, being the Union veterans of the Civil War.

On the front of the hat, it has the G.A.R.

wreath and the post number.

The wear along the brim, you can tell-- the wear along the top-- that he wore this.

He was proud...

He was.

...to be a veteran.

The image of the man is probably a $50 to $100 piece.

The hat-- there are a lot of hats out there-- but this one has a little bit more character than most.

This one would probably bring between $300 and $400.

This is not your typical thing, and it's one that any Civil War collector, North or South, would love to add to their collection.

I talked with a few of my colleagues, and I even made a couple of phone calls, because I wanted to be sure everybody liked it as much as I liked it.

This is a piece I think... Any reputable Civil War dealer or auction house should be able to get at least $5,000 for it.

Oh, you're kidding.

In that condition, it's just...

It's beautiful.

Oh, my husband will be very pleased.

(laughing) And when you look at the items as a group, it's a little bit more than that.

Because you know who brought it home.

So as a group, you're looking at probably $6,000 to $6,500.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, thank you very much.

APPRAISER: What makes it special is all this incised decoration.

And the other thing you very seldom see are these coggle lines that are cut into it like this.

This is a really early piece, probably around 1800 to 1825.

WOMAN: Oh, well, we thought it was old.

(laughs) APPRAISER: It's sapphire and diamond, and exquisitely made in platinum.

But you should always look at the back.

You can see that the back here has been changed and is now mounted on 18-karat yellow gold.

It devalues the piece by half.

APPRAISER: This is non-lead glass.

If you put this glass under a shortwave ultraviolet light, it will turn yellow, whereas lead glass turns blue.

APPRAISER: Your grandfather owned this?

That's correct.

He...

I inherited it from him.

Uh, he passed away before I was able to find out where he received it.

Uh-huh, so it's been in the family quite a while.

Yes, my mother remembers it when she was a child, seeing it in the house.

Well, it's a Plains Indian courting flute.

Warriors used to stand outside the tepee and court their sweethearts with this.

This is a particularly beautiful one.

The Plains people, they didn't make a lot of sculpture.

They were on the move all the time.

They made pipe bowls and a few things.

And I've studied these pretty extensively, and it appears to be a loon as the flute block, which is very evocative of the sound of the flute, and you can kind of romanticize what it would have sounded like out in the plains.

This is a very beautiful, very early flute.

The ties are buffalo hide.

There's traces of red ocher, both in the buffalo hide ties and on the loon itself.

It probably dates to the mid-19th century, which is quite early for something like this.

Have you got any idea what its value might be?

I have no clue.

Uh-huh, well, they're fairly rare.

I know I sold one years ago to the Boston Fine Arts Museum, and I thought that was a beauty, and I have to say, I think this one's even nicer than that one.

So I think I'd put an estimate of about $6,000 to $8,000 on it.

Wow.

That's fantastic.

It's quite a great piece.

Yeah, I'll feel real glad giving it to my children.

You have an interesting family connection with this artist, I believe.

Right, uh, he knew my parents, and he also knew my grandparents.

He lived in the same apartment building as my parents.

And the artist is?

Lyonel Feininger.

He wrote my parents this letter shortly after I was born.

It's a very charming letter, and I wonder whether I could ask you just to read, perhaps, the first paragraph of it.

Sure, it says, "Dear Valentin, Dear Barbara"-- that's my parents-- "how many times I see the light "shining under the door of your apartment "and hesitate to knock and see how you are.

"What is the use of cordial feeling "for someone you know and are very fond of, "if shyness to make an attempt at communication gets in the way and paralyzes the action?"

It's incredibly poignant.

Very sweet letter.

Very sweet.

I sort of have a vision of him writing it.

Yes.

And I see at the end here, he mentions, "Barbara and the baby."

Right.

And the baby would be?

That's me.

These works that are here, how did you come by them?

This was a birth gift that he gave to my parents for me.

My mother always described him as walking up and ringing the doorbell and saying, "This is for the little one."

This is a letter, a note he wrote to my grandmother and her second husband, with one of his woodcuts on it.

And this my grandmother had, and I inherited it.

So it's a very nice group.

I think it's interesting.

You have the sense of his urban alienation in New York, and he comes across as being such a shy man, when he seems to have been a compulsive joiner.

He was associated with many of the most important Modernist groups of the 20th century, particularly in Germany.

Hm.

Although he was born in New York and died in New York, in my mind, I'll always associate him with Germany, and he moved there when he was a teenager.

Like many artists in the '30s in Germany who were involved with the Modernist movement, were tarred by Hitler as what they called degenerate artists.

Right.

Entartete Kunst.

And as a result of the environment in Germany, that's why he left and came over to the States.

And here he was...

This would have been what, in the... January of 1954.

1954.

And he passed away, I think, in 1956.

So this was later on in his life.

Here's a very typical work, which appears to be one of his seascapes.

Right.

And you can see he's very much under the influence of the Cubists with the way the space is broken up here.

And this one, also, is signed, and here we see the date, which is 1950.

And a very nice little watercolor, with ink drawing around it, as well.

And this one is from a series called the "Ghosties."

Right, he did a lot of "Ghosties."

That's right.

And then this one here, as you say, is a woodcut.

Right.

And he's done some hand-coloring on it, too, and this was a Christmas gift.

The fact that he's given it hand-coloring is going to add to the value.

There's a lot of interest in his work.

These are quite late.

It tends to be the earlier works from the teens that there's great demand for.

But you'd have a great deal of interest in the market for these.

This one, at auction, I would say comfortably $15,000 to $25,000.

Wow.

This one here, probably the same figure.

Really?

Wow.

$15,000 to $25,000.

And for the woodcut, because it's hand-colored, it's going to be around about $5,000 to $8,000.

Wow, my goodness.

So it's really a lovely little group.

It is.

The letter is terrific provenance.

This is the kind of provenance we dream of.

We see so many of the fakes of them, and then you brought this letter out.

He knew your parents, these were gifts.

Right.

It's just marvelous provenance.

And so, all and all, it's going to be $40,000 to $60,000.

Wow.

That's fabulous.

Thank you, very much.

WOMAN: My great-aunt died in the late '80s, and I inherited a desktop mirror, and when I got it home, I opened the drawer up, and there was this watch in a pouch.

Have you done any research on it?

The only research that I did was when I had it stolen from me in Cambridge when we lived there 20 years ago now, and I had to go and look through the pawn items from the police department, and I noticed that it had lists and lists of items, and one was "Watch With Fob."

So I found out that the fob is a sealing wax item, I think, and, uh...

Right, you have a carnelian fob over here.

I know that it's got a date from the 18th century.

This watch was made by a gentleman called Abraham-Louis Breguet, probably the most famous, most important watchmaker of our times.

Really?

He invented a lot of mechanisms that, to this day, are in use in watches, some of them as sophisticated as a tourbillon or a parachute escapement, or a perpetual calendar.

But certainly, the most celebrated watchmaker...

I had no idea.

In the past 250-plus years.

Another thing.

So many people, even back then, were faking his watches-- or, if you will, in today's jargon, knocking them off-- that he came up with what they call the secret signature.

Oh, no way.

Now, if you look very, very carefully, just under the 12, it's kind of a frosted off-white on top of the white enamel dial, and it'll say "Breguet."

Cool.

And it'll give the number of the watch.

Oh, wow.

Another interesting thing that he came up with is these hands.

These are what we call palm hands.

He made these famous.

You'll see them on many, many watches.

Neat.

Now, you said you had an idea how old it was.

There was a date on the inside of 1765.

It's not the date, it's the number of the watch.

Number 1,765.

Oh...

Okay?

How interesting.

We looked up the numbers, and it is, in fact, from 1800 to about 1805, and we have the ruby cylinder escapement.

So simple, but again, so beautiful.

This is our tenth season doing "Antiques Roadshow," and this is the first one that I've personally ever seen.

Awesome.

We have a watch that would bring, at auction...

I would say somewhere in the neighborhood-- here we go... (laughs) $30,000 to $35,000.

No kidding.

Oh, my gosh-- I thought it would be $1,000.

Oh, my gosh-- you're kidding me!

No, no.

That's fantastic.

This fob alone is probably worth about $1,000.

Wow, wow.

So, a little added bonus.

That was the clue for me when I got it back.

That's the only way I would have identified it.

Great story, happy ending.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Thank you.

All of these came from my father, who was in the old- and rare-book business.

The one closest to you was in the family, I think, forever.

We remember it as, as children, just having it hang up on the wall.

The one in the center, uh, I was with my father when we were rummaging around in a rural bookstore and just came upon it and said, "Oh, look, here's a Rembrandt engraving," and he dickered with the man and bought it.

The one closest to me, I don't really know very much about it, other than it sort of was always in the family.

Well, starting with this one, it's an Albrecht Dürer.

Yes.

It is one of his three master prints that he made in 1514.

It's St. Jerome in his study.

And right here, you see his monogram, "A.D.," and the date, 1514.

This is a wonderful early printing.

Dürer's prints were all rated by his cataloguer, Joseph Mader, in the early 20th century.

This particular subject is known in impressions "A" through "F." What you have here is a Mader "A" impression.

So it's the best impression that you could find.

The print in the center is a beautiful portrait by Rembrandt of Jan Six.

It's an etching dating from 1647.

It's a very scarce image.

The plate still survives, but the etching plate has never left the Six family.

You can still actually see the plate if you go to Amsterdam and visit the museum-- it's open by appointment-- and have a look at it.

It is not an early impression, but very few impressions were printed posthumously.

And the print closest to you is a portrait of Jan Lutma, the goldsmith, a friend of Rembrandt's in Amsterdam.

This is not, again, an early impression.

It's a very good printing.

It would date, however, from the late 18th century and was most likely published by Basan in Paris, who put together a whole collection of Rembrandt's plates and issued them in a volume.

Do you remember the purchase prices with your father?

The one in the center, I remember, I think Dad paid $200 for.

And the others, no, I have no idea what the purchase price was.

Okay, let's start with the Dürer here, closest to me.

There is some slight damage that has been expertly repaired right here in the center of the print.

It doesn't really affect its value.

The last impression of this came up at auction two years ago.

It sold for $22,000, and it was a Mader "F" impression.

Okay.

Basically, the latest Mader impression that you could have, this being the earliest.

Mm-hmm.

At auction now, this would bring approximately $40,000.

Okay.

The last impression of the Jan Six print came up four years ago at auction.

Very much like this, it was a later impression.

It sold for $38,000.

Rembrandt's prices in that time have gone up, even in four years, astronomically.

Today, this would bring approximately $50,000 at auction.

And now the later impression of the Lutma portrait, closest to you, would bring about $5,000 today at auction.

So altogether, you have about $95,000 worth of prints at auctions.

(chuckles): Thank you very much.

I, I'm astonished.

I'm... amazed.

(laughs) What can I say?

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

This box was made in Sing Sing Prison by his relatives.

We don't like to talk about that.

And the piece that I have is a porcelain on tile which I found in a basement, and it's worth $300 to $500, which, I'm very happy, because I didn't pay anything for it.

We brought this amazingly valuable painting to be appraised, and I found out that it was worth-- stand by, my dear-- a whole $20!

I didn't know what to bring this morning, so I brought what I thought was my most valuable antique, and it turns out it's a $25 piece of Depression glass that was given away free.

Free Depression- era glass.

Anything more depressing?

(laughing): I don't think so.

And this little bitty book, which I found on the sidewalk, is about 100 years old, and it's worth $35.

So... nothing like found money.

We had a great time at the Roadshow.

It was fun!

Old George Washington here is worth $200 to $300.

But that's not important.

What is important, I had an awesome time, saw these appraisers.

I watched every episode since day one, and to finally come here is a dream come true.

This was really, really fun.

Yeah.

I had a great time.

It was fun seeing everyone we see on TV all the time.

"Roadshow" rocks "Roadshow" rules!

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."