This Could Be on Antiques Roadshow

New Harmony has really come a long way over 200 years, but the interest and appreciation for wonderful, beautiful old things is still with the people here, and I'm so excited to see what they bring to the appraisal fair. Let's take a look now. You said it was your grandmother's? Okay. The costume, the hat, and everything, this is definitely Central European, probably Austrian or German. There's a small number on the back that says 23T, and that's just a stock number, but you can tell by the lettering as well as the C class because it's not a safety class, but this is going to date to sometime probably 1890-ish approximately, and that's why I wondered if she ever talked about it coming with her or being from a relative there or anything like that. Three years old? Oh yeah. Oh, it's a real antique, absolutely. Yeah, I really like antique jewelry, and a lot of people are starting to really like these portrait pins again. So it's done on porcelain, and when I look at the detail, it is all hand-painted. If you look at the jeweler's loop, you'll be able to see all his hair, every single piece of hair, especially that's sticking out is like a brush stroke with like a feather or something. It's a good size, and it's interesting because it's a boy rather than a portrait of a woman, and they're usually portraits of women, so it's a little more unusual, and I would say your value in a retail setting might be maybe as much as $125 if it was a high-end show where they sell good jewelry. That's mom's Trafari crown. That is a classic. A lot of jewelry companies made crowns, but Trafari, to my mind, some of the best. This is an earlier mark. It does not have the crown, and sometimes people get a little flummoxed by that because we talk a lot about the crown mark and how, oh, that was done until 1965, but it's actually older than that. It is prong set. There is one stone missing, but that's not a huge deal because it's just a rhinestone and it's a round one, so that's pretty easy, probably under $5 to replace. A crown is sort of a formal piece of jewelry, and so usually we say, oh, well, color's better than clear, but in this case, this would have been done for holiday season, and holiday has a lot of black and clear and formal things because people are wearing black, so they want clear because it shows. I would estimate somewhere in the $85 to $100 range. This is a bar pin, and I've always liked bar pins. It's interesting. It's a style that really hasn't come back with people wearing them because the way they were worn was very high and formal, and people don't really dress like that now, and I keep thinking people are going to start figuring out ways to use these differently, like maybe wear it this way, do something different with it, or wear it in a, you know, put it on a scarf or something like that, you know, have a different way of using it. I'm leaning towards sapphire just because of the cut, but again, I'm not a gemologist, so I can't promise you that. You would have to, to get better information on that, if there's ever a free jewelry appraisal day at a jeweler in your area, you might take it there and see what they have to say. It's a very pretty piece. It's well done. I would say it probably dates to the 1890s. Usually these earlier pieces, if they're unmarked, they test as anywhere from about 10 carat to as high as 18 carat, and that really does make a difference in the value, so it would be worth having the gold tested when the opportunity comes. I'm going to assume that it's probably around 12 carat because that's a pretty typical carat weight for gold at that time for jewelry of this sort. So, if we went on that assumption, we're probably looking at a value of around $300 to $400 because of the material. If it's a lower gold weight, it might be as low as $175. This just came up to the table, and this is something really neat we don't see very often because this is from New Harmony. It's an ice pick, and we see lots of ice picks, and they did lots that were advertising, but New Harmony was such a small town. There were never more than a thousand people here ever, and there are only about that many now. So, old advertising pieces from here are pretty hard to get, and this should be worth about $25 in the local market, at least. Like we have a baby doll in there. You have a baby doll. Aw, neat. How did you get this? It was, uh, my grandmother's. Grandmother's, aw. And it's been handed down. The clothes, obviously, are not original. No, but the doll sure is, and this is a very cute, very specific doll, actually. Did she ever tell you anything about it? The only thing that I know about it was it was the last thing that her father gave to her as a gift before he was, uh, passed away. She was, um, from my understanding, she was eight. Aw, that's so sweet. And look at the beautiful eyes and all of that. Well, I love that the little legs are crossed, too, rather than being jointed or said, you know, this was meant to be a baby. It was meant to sit. This was called a Bilo baby, and they were very popular in the 1920s, actually. Yep. And that's why you're starting to see some things that are, uh, you know, hands that are a different material and things because they're still doing the china head, but they're starting, this is starting to be the era where a lot of dolls are made out of composition, which is like a, uh, sort of a wood plastered composite that they would mold because it was less expensive than doing the china head. So this is sort of the last of its line, but they do start to have, uh, other appendages and things that are not made of the ceramic. Uh, Bilo babies were created by a woman named Grace Putnam Story. She was married to a sculptor, and they divorced in 1915 at a time when divorce was not considered something that a lot of people were willing to even contemplate. So because she was suddenly a single mother, she started working as a painter and sculptor herself, and then came up with the doll in the early 20s, and the doll was such a huge success that she ended up being, uh, rather famous in her time and her, uh, painting and sculpture is actually rather valuable too. They actually made quite a number of these. We do see them time to time, and it's a very distinctive face. She wanted to do, to be really enigmatic. It's not exactly smiling, it's not exactly crying, it's not exactly pouting. The idea is we're going to make it so that a little girl playing with this can imagine it doing any of those things rather than just the happy doll with the permanent smile, and that was something a little bit different. Um, they're really, really cute, and they are collectible and have been for a long time. Now, you're correct that this isn't the original clothing. Yeah, my mom made that for, because she was naked. Even though it's new clothing that she made, it is very similar to the original, surprisingly so. So it's actually a pretty good redress, and it looks like she did it, I'm looking at the little buttons here, she probably did it in the 50s or 60s because of the way the buttons are made. So it's not, it's not brand new. The value on these is usually somewhere in the $150 range for retail, and for insurance purposes, since it's a family piece, if you were asked to name a value for insurance, you'd probably want to say around $250. Okay. My name's Lisa. Yes. This is my second year here, and you're the one who kind of encouraged me to come here. I'm so glad, yeah, because we saw each other in Princeton, too. Yes, we did. Yes. Oh, that's just great. I love it. Oh, I do, too. I'm really glad it's going well for you, and you have some really beautiful stitches. Yeah, this is the same lady, and they have explained on the back her name and her age when these were taken, and it was during the Civil War, and that's what I liked about them. Me, too. And look at the beautiful breasts. I think one of the things that really attracts people to correcting things is the clothing and the way people are done. Okay, and you said, so from Greencastle, Indiana, and my mother, age 18 and 1862, so this must have been a graduation picture of yours. I'm not sure. She's a little older here. She's 16 in this and 18 in this. Yes. Okay, yes, and it's interesting because you see the hairstyle, which, you know, we always think, oh, everyone had really long hair back then, but that was not necessarily true, especially around the Civil War, sure, haircuts were. And it could be all bundled up in the back. It's usually piled, exactly, but wearing it to look short like that was actually something of a thing. It's so interesting that you know who she is. That's really wonderful. And these obviously were important to somebody. I suspect this was somebody's grandmother's pictures that they framed because your frames are early 1900s. You can see with the label there. So this is something that was important enough that they did, or the person was important enough to them to have framed at a later time. I think they're really beautiful. I have done no research about the family or anything. Well, that would be interesting to do, too. And I'll try to do a little bit while you're selling today and see if I can find out more for you. But really, the clothing in some ways is the most interesting part for somebody collecting now. Mr. George, I can't find this particular set. Oh, that's a very pretty boba shay, too, yes. What is that called? Yeah, they call these a boba shay, these little brass springs that go on candles. And then these are the lusters or the prisms that hang down from them. OK. Oh, they're just beautiful. Well, they are beautiful. And when I got them, I was thinking of you. I really did. I was like, George would like these. I have to admit, I do like these a lot, actually. Oh, yes. And they have the little snuffer tops. I always like that, too, because this, yeah, people say, well, why would you have these pieces? And people will often have these and not know why they're there. But it really was to snuff the camel. I gave a hundred dollars. Oh, well, that was a wonderful deal because they're just gorgeous. Now, there's a couple of different things going on here. You notice, first of all, this is glass or it feels like glass. But then when you feel these, they're actually plastic, believe it or not. These were added. They're beautiful. But they were added later. This is the thing about boba shays. The idea was that you usually didn't get them with the camel. You got them separately and you put them on because you could change the way the camel looked, but also because it catches the wax. They are done as pieces. So you could unscrew this and then this would come off and then this would come off and make it. Yeah, for real. Actually, we can do it right now because they're easy to put back together again. Yeah, they were made modularly because it was easier to ship. It was just hard if they cast it all as one piece. So so it's a long screw, too. And part of the reason I'm doing this is because sometimes you can tell by the length of the screw that it's an old piece. So then this would come up. Oh, my God. Yeah. So don't think they are the whole thing kind of disassembled so that because this would be a lot to ship. So then you have this is the solid piece. And the reason I'm doing it is because then we can turn it around and we can see if there's any marks on the underside, which there are not. If they were American, the mark I would be looking for would be Bradley and Hubbard or B&H. This was more contemporary. It'd be just barely long enough to hold the whole thing together. But this one, you have to keep turning and turning and turning. My guess is that they're French because it was probably part of a big mantle set where you would have had these on either side of perhaps a clock. Oftentimes it'd be the pair of Campbells and a clock. And they might have even had metal or porcelain and metal ewers that went on the side because that would have been a garniture set in the 1800s. Garniture sets were things you would put on mantles and it was often a fancy vase or a clock in the middle, some ewers on the side and the big fancy Campbell sticks. Or you can take these off and use them on the table just as a set on either end of a big formal dining table. So they're they're just really nicely done. Looking at the way that they are cast and everything and just the overall design, they're definitely a neoclassical design. I'd say they probably date to about 1890. Now, the value on this is going to depend on where you sell. We're in New Harmony. There's beautiful old Victorian and earlier homes here, pre-Victorian homes. And this would look great in that sort of a setting. Another place you might see this, though, would be in a very fancy new house where they have a lot of real, you know, real finery because they're large and they're stately. You put them on a hall table or a side table and they would just sit there and probably never be used. They would just look cool. There's a store called Irish Acres in Versailles, Kentucky, for example. It's a huge schoolhouse. They have nothing but the finest antiques. It's amazing. And in a place you wouldn't necessarily think, they would probably price these between $250 and $300 there. Price has a lot to do, especially with this. This isn't easy to ship. That's not a great eBay item or an online thing, though. It's more something you put out where somebody is going to come and see it and love it and buy it and take it. Oh, this is wonderful. And you're right. It has never been used. It's in the original thing. This is one of these things that, you know, people saved it for good. Did this come from your family? Yes. And was it a mother or grandmother? Yes. And they bought it for a special occasion and then the special occasion never happened. Yeah. Yeah, that happens a lot, actually. And we see wonderful linen sets like this. And they'd probably be a little more valuable if more people had used them back in the day, because a lot of them are in perfect condition like this. But it's really great. It says double damask. And damask is this effect where you have the texturing. And so you get the pattern that way. Even though it's a flat finish, it still looks three-dimensional. And this one says laundered and ready for use. This was an advancement in the time. It says made in Ireland. This would have been done sometime either just before or just after the Second World War. So either 1930s or late 40s, early 50s. And it's a really pretty set. There is some value to them. It looks like it's a larger tablecloth. For people who still use linens and like to set up formally, a set like this is typically going to price somewhere in the $30 to $40 range. So I should use it? I would say use it, honestly. Yes, you know, it's what it was made for. Now, I mean, you know, you want to wash it afterwards. One thing I'll recommend, the dealer right here, they have some little flyers that advertise their store. And on the back, they actually have a recommendation for how to wash your linen safely if it happens to get a stain or a spot. So I'm going to tuck that in there with it for you. But yeah, as long as you know, if you're and if you're reasonably careful, the stuff was made to be used. It is washable. And, you know, it'd be nice if the special occasion happened during our lifetime, right? Yeah, we'll make a special occasion. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Oh, good. If you're good at that, then this was meant to be you. She's the best. OK. Oh, isn't that pretty? And did this come from family also? Yes, all of these. OK, very good. Were you ever told anything about this? No. OK, well, it's cranberry glass for this specific color. And I believe this one was done by the Pilgrim Glass Company in West Virginia. They were probably the most prolific of the cranberry glass makers. Fenton did a lot of it as well. Other companies, not so much because it was very popular in Victorian times. And the reason is because it was hard to get red colors. You had to use a little bit of 22 karat gold in the batch to get this color. And so it was always more expensive. And that's still the case today. They actually do have a little trace amount of gold with them. And so cranberry glass became really popular in the Victorian era. It became really popular again about 100 years later in the 1980s and early 90s. It's not marked in any way. Sometimes they had a paper label. Sometimes they had an impress mark. The value on this is probably around $35 again. So I should use this as well. I would use it. I would use it. It's what it was made for. And, you know, you look around this hall and there's all sorts of wonderful things and they've all survived use. And, you know, I think sometimes it's easy with family stuff to say, oh, it's so precious, you don't use it. So then it sits in the china cabinet and your kids don't ever associate with it. So then when we're all gone, they just get rid of it because they don't have any memory attached to it. So if you use it, then suddenly it's part of, oh, remember when we'd have those wonderful Sunday dinners? Really good. Yeah, we used to. Yeah, and it will look very pretty on the table. And it looks great on the tablecloth. Exactly. OK, here's the last thing. This one I want to know if it's worth trying to have repaired. OK, this is Royal Dalton and Royal Dalton is an English company. But this particular pattern, they're actually influenced, strangely enough, by an American company called Dedham out of Massachusetts. Dedham would do bands like this on this sort of a white background. But theirs were bunnies. And so they became popular. And I think Royal Dalton said, you know what? We sell a lot in America. Let's do something that's kind of to that same taste. But they came up with the idea of the bear walking through the woods. And I love that it's walking through the woods, because at a certain point you see that it's kind of behind a tree. Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually it's not really a static thing. And I think that makes it a lot of fun. This does have some value. If it was in perfect condition, probably around sixty five dollars. As to getting it restored, that's really a matter of how important it is to you for it to be perfect. Because restoration, a pottery restore, they'll rebuild the site and then they'll have to go in and kind of try to extend this. This is painted crackling. It's not actually crackle or it's just to look like it. So they'll have to go in and paint all those little details. It honestly would probably cost what the pot is worth to have it restored. The pot is from, I believe, the 1920s or 30s based on that mark. So it's a really cute piece. But it's it's restoration would be. It's important to me to have it be perfect because it's been in the family. If you can live with it the way it is, you can still use it. You have to make sure you have the cup there so it doesn't slosh out the side where the crack is. If you use this sort of thing, any anytime you're using an old piece with a hot beverage, the recommendation is put warm water in first, let it expand a little, then pour that out, then put your hot tea in. If you pour the hot tea right in, sometimes it will crack because it's like, you know, it's too hot for the room temperature. Like a thermos. Exactly. Well, I will not use this. Yeah, well, there you go. I'm glad to know. For those of you viewing, by the way, these are the folks who have the It Girl lamps that I talked about in my short recently. And we found out after the fact, I think I told you I thought it might be $750 or something. And recently one sold for $2,200 at auction without the glass. And yours had the glass. So we learned a little bit more. This does seem to be handmade because when I'm looking at the surface here, it definitely it's it's got just a little bit of roughness and around here, too. So this is something that was hand carved. It was not a machine made piece. At least this bottom portion wasn't. The turnings look pretty uniform. And so my thought is that this is probably going to date from about the time that there starts to be machine wood, woodworking stuff. Yeah, the lathes exist, but they still are doing some by hand. It was probably a country piece of furniture at the time. And you got it where now? A good friend of ours, John Hornbach. Yeah, I'm thinking that it probably dates to, you know, middle Victorian period, maybe 1850 ish, approximately. Yeah, possibly as late as 1870s, 80s, 90s, because when you're talking about pieces that might have been made out in the country, you're going to have and especially you're starting to get machine tools. The styles, the forms and the way they do it doesn't change much over a long period of time because they're not in the big city. They're not seeing what the most recent trends are. They're just doing what they need for the house. Well, for twenty five dollars investment. Interestingly enough, I've been watching this show and for the first time in the four years I've been doing this show, I've watched a lot of furniture move out of here this weekend. So it seems like all of a sudden there seems to be interest in furniture again and especially small pieces. So 150 to 200 might be a shock price on a piece like this because it is old and handmade. You could see the same piece that looked like this from the 1940s and it'd be about seventy five bucks. I was on eBay or a marketplace one morning and a lady in Evansville had one of these things for sale. One I have is it's their model. It's fun to show all this stuff because I remember as a kid in the 70s, you went to someone's house and there was an older gentleman and they were usually kind of distinguished and had a nice den. There was almost always something like this sitting in it. And I remember as a kid thinking they were really neat and being told, don't touch. They quit making them, I think, probably in some of them as early as back in the 70s and the 80s. They baked in the 80s. They know they're still in business in Spain. They still make a lot of the replica guns and stuff, weapons and swords. But but not so much the cannons. Well, a lot of the cannon interests, even though the cannons are from all over. I mean, this one's a Gatling gun, so it's perfect example because that was something that was very popular in the Civil War. Absolutely. And the Gatling gun was a huge advancement because it could shoot really fast. You turn the crank and it just go around and empty out the magazine. Actually, if you turn the crank, the barrel actually rotates. Actually moves like it would have. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing that was so impressive about the Denix models is they actually really took time to I mean, they would go to museums, scale the thing down and make it the way it was. So the two guys that started the company were jewelers. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, yeah. I did a lot of reading in history. That makes sense because of the very fine work involved. She sold me this for $50. That's awesome. And I jumped on it like that. Oh, my gosh. Oh, this one is solid metal. They do vary quite a lot in value, even between the models. I think so partly on size. You know, the one nine inches. Yeah, the one ninth scale are definitely bigger and more impressive than the one fourteenth. And of course, you have more detail, the larger the scale. This is one fifth scale. There's one of these right now on eBay for five hundred twenty four dollars. Those are those are kind of the top end asking prices that I see. And for someone serious who really wants that one, when you get down to where you just have that last one to go in your collection and you see it, you're going to step up and pay it and they know it. Yeah. And so for a serious collector, that is a price that they could sell for when they're a little more casual on the marketplace. I usually see I see prices for this three fifty ish. So I think anywhere in that three fifty to five fifty range is possible on it. And the fact that it has the box and the paperwork really, really adds to it because most people who got those, they wanted to display them. They took them. They took them out. And it was still that era where some people kept the boxes. Obviously, one person did. But not everybody. It wasn't like now where everybody keeps every box to everything they ever bought. Well, this is such a beautiful venue. And it is so great to see a lot of people coming in early to the show. We've had a few appraisals already and we are going to come back to this for some more appraisals for you later. But in the meantime, let's show you a little bit of many, many places in New Harmony that are spiritual retreats and places of contemplation. Is this beyond the trees in the statue garden? Is this amazing pavilion? And you can see there's an event. Apparently it's a wedding among the relics in this garden. Is this very interesting stoneware figure the crucifix and God the father? It was made in 1968, but it is actually based on a wood carving that I saw when I was in Krakow in Poland. Dino was a little less bold about crashing the Nuptials as I was. So he's down here on the lake. Hello. I have a brooch that my grandmother gave to me. She was born in 1912. 1912. OK, well, that makes sense, because if you notice on the back, it has this little sea catch here and it doesn't have a safety catch. Right. Back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, this is how jewelry was made. It didn't usually have a safety catch on it. And you just had to watch what you were doing. And fabrics were heavier and they tended not to fall off. You know, now we wear really thin stuff and those would just go flying off. So it's a very pretty shell cameo and it is Italian. And I'm looking to see the detail. The detail is very nice on her. She's a right facing cameo, which they typically are. It is definitely late Victorian, but it almost could pass for Art Deco the way it's designed on the edges there. Yeah, there's an 800 mark on the very bottom. I'm holding it upside down now, right where my thumb is. And that means it is 80 percent silver, which is basically they called that coin silver. The reason they didn't use finer silver is because silver is kind of soft and they didn't want it to get bent. So it needed to have something else in it. But that's actually good. A lot of them are just done in the cheap metal. So this was a little nicer at the time. And I'm going to look at the back and see occasionally they have a signature etched in it because they were doing all of this by hand. You can see all the little scratch marks when you look close because they're literally carving away. Yeah, because they wanted to make it thin so the light would come through. Even though you were wearing it against your clothes, they still wanted it to be delicate like that. The things I look for are what the surrounds made of, the style, the size and also the quality of the carving. And the quality is good on this one. It's got a lot of detail. She's got these ringlet curls and you see all the little rings in them. The other thing I look at is the noses. If it wasn't a great carver or the shell wasn't, you know, because it's a natural shell, if the shell was not really quite as wider as it can be, the nose can look like like a cartoon nose. Oh, OK. And that to me is a turnoff. The people I know who like cameos, they want them to look like this. So it's a good one. A lot of older dealers who used to sell these 30 and 40 years ago when there was an older generation who bought them to tell me, oh, you can't sell cameos anymore, no one wants cameos anymore. I sell every one I get. They absolutely are popular and they do have a following. It's just that 20 or 30 years ago, it might have sold for more because there were more people interested. But there are plenty of people who would buy this. And I would think that you might see a retail price around 125 to 150 would be my estimate in a high end jewelry store or an antique show that does a lot of finer jewelry. Here you might see it priced more at like a hundred dollars because this isn't so much a jewelry show, although there's a lot of jewelry here. But it's not really that people around here are not as inclined to wear and collect jewelry as they are, maybe in a big city where they have more opportunity to show it off. This is just how this is. But I think this had a pin through here. At one time, this probably did have a pin that swiveled. You know, these got used and then they got unused and then they sat in barns a long time. And how did you get this one? Somebody gave it to my dad a hundred years ago and then he put it in the barn and it's been there for 102 years. Wow. So they just passed away. They passed away. So we're trying to go through things. And figure it out. My siblings think they all think this is a million dollar item. I'm like, I don't think it is. But not a million. But it has some value because it is it's neat. It's rustic. And I don't know what that says. Yeah, let's see if we can figure this out. It says Evansville F641. I don't know exactly whether that would relate to firehouse. Well, it's possible that I would expect it to say FD for fire department, if that were the case. F641. So I'm wondering if this wasn't used in some sort of an early attraction to pull kids around or possibly in some sort of a store there for like a delivery cart in a certain area, because the tags very specifically Evansville, Indiana, part of like there was a fleet of these for some purpose. It is in actually surprisingly remarkable shape. This would clean up very nicely. And a show like this is where it would probably sell for the most money because it's a local piece and because it's got a primitive look, which is really valued more in this area. I've had wagons like this before. I have not had one quite as old as this with the spoke wheels. We know it's older. I would say definitely late Victorian, probably 1880s and 90s. And three cobwebs. Yes, the way it's it's got like red and black. Right. And it's this is something else that people really like is that it's got multiple layers of actual old paint, not fake, not like they do where they paint a thing white and scrape it and pretend it's old. It's real. I thought the yokes were interesting, too, just the way it's made. The way it's made is really cool. Yes, the yokes are good and they appear to be their wood, their wood also. And then they are in a metal axle. I mean, it's very similar to the way farm wagons were made. Studebaker here in Indiana and a lot of other companies made farm wagons that were large versions. And the manufacturing process is pretty much the same. And what I'm used to seeing when I see these in the three hundred dollar range. You've got a couple of different ones here. This little poodle is likely to have been an American poodle. They call these spaghetti poodles. Yep. Yep. Because of this. That's what they call. And they were very popular. Well, it's not a poodle, actually. Usually they're poodles. This one's a spaniel. And these were very popular in the 1950s. And they're popular with collectors now. And they'll sell for 15 or 20 dollars, actually, which for just a little dog figurine is pretty good. This one is probably Japanese. Also the same era. And it's nice to look at an A. Oh, is that weird? Look on his side. It's like a K. Oh, it does. And then an X on that side. Well, that is coincidental. It's original, but it's coincidental. Because these were made in Japan, they look like letters to us. They were just sort of slapping paint on and getting it out the door. Because the Japanese companies in the 50s, when we helped rebuild their ceramic industry to help them come back after the war, their stuff at first, it's cute, but it wasn't being made super thoughtfully. Like, we want this to look exactly like this dog. They were just like, we want to sell stuff and we need to make a bunch of stuff now. So they're not trying to be completely accurate, but it's still a cute piece and probably $10 to $15 on that. There's like 3077 or something like that on one of his hind legs. And when I looked it up, it said that number exactly on there. And it said something to do with Germany, but that's all. Yeah, I'm thinking it might have been by Goebel or one of the others. Yes, that was the name. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. It looks like a Goebel piece and it's supposed to be a Rottweiler. Okay. And it's very cute. And Goebel was a little more about trying to make it look a little more realistic. The German companies, which we also rebuilt after the war, they were a little higher end than the Japanese as far as there were at that time. Eventually the Japanese caught up to them. That one being a Goebel is probably going to be more like a $25, $30 piece. It's probably the best one. And then this is just cute as can be. Is it that cute? It is super cute. And part of what I really like about it, besides the fact that it's double-sided, is that little circle there, that ink stamp is the original price. No way. Yep, that is the price stamp, 25 cents from sometime in the late 50s or early 60s. And the stores, because this stuff was inexpensive and they weren't thinking, oh, years from now people are going to collect this. They just stamped the price right on it. And they figured you don't really care because it's just a fun thing to put on your stove and you're going to use it and then you're going to break it and then you're going to throw it away. And someone did chip it a little bit, but it's behind the ear, which doesn't affect it too badly. But these are actually, anything that's sort of cute kitchen from the 50s now is really popular right now. This kitsch has really come back partly because of a woman here in Indiana named Misty, who does a YouTube channel called Thrifter Junker Vintage Hunter. And she really loves kitsch. And okay, the hole is actually, when they're making ceramics, it's enough of a hot process that they have to have a vent hole for the gas to escape or else this would crack. And they just happened to put a big vent hole here, probably thinking, oh, maybe someone will want to hang it or maybe we'll use it in some other way. And they never actually did. It's just cute. And they're a lot of fun. And because she's really gotten people interested in 50s ceramics again, it's probably a $25 piece. Considering it was a 25 cent piece new, that's pretty good. I got it for $1.98. Oh, that's great. So I have a set of alexandrite color changing. I love alexandrite glass. And as soon as you took it out, I thought, oh, how fun that she has it. And I'm happy because I have my light. So you see that it's blue in this light, which is sort of like a fluorescent light. But then if you hold it out in a natural light, wow, it changes and you get the lavender and it's just so fun. People are all excited about uranium glass with the vaseline where they can shine a black light on it. But a lot of the people... But you aren't dining by black light. You're not dining by black light. And a lot of people don't realize that you can do a light trick with this and it's wonderful stuff. How did you get this set? I got it at an antique store in Oklahoma City where we were living. Very good. And did they tell you the pattern name? Because I think it's a... You could start out with a dinner party that started during natural light and then you could turn on the light. And it would change in the middle of your dinner and people are like, wow, that's an interesting thing. So then it could match a dessert plate. Exactly, exactly. No, it's great. I love it. And you know how to use it. And that's, oh, it's so fun. Tiffin was the company that did more of this, but Morgantown also did it. And your piece seems to be a 1950s era piece. Knowing the pattern would probably help in terms of getting you an exact amount. The value that I should give you would be an insurance value because you're not selling the pieces. And if you had to replace this, you might pay as much as between $85 and $125 a stem. I do like the variegation in the glaze. And it's great that it has paper label on the bottom because there were a lot of Midwest potteries doing similar work around this time. And all the stuff made in Whitehall, Illinois, almost none of it is marked. And then you're like, which of the 10 companies that was here did it? And it just gets really complicated. If I had artifacts store, I might price it like he suggested that you price it. If I was a normal person selling in a normal place that didn't have a lot of high-end designer stuff to make this seem more elevated, I would price it around $100. As opposed to the $300 he quoted you. I think it's a really beautiful piece. It's very studied. The glaze is nice. I really like the shape around the handles. And I think Monmouth is actually a little underappreciated, except in this part of the country where it came from. You go to other parts of the country and they're like, oh, it's a pretty Deco vase, $45. And if they don't know it's Monmouth, they don't assign it a premium. And so much Monmouth is unmarked that a lot of pieces slip through. So I think this is the place to sell it. Okay, here's an example just to show you. This is a fabulous Monmouth vase with the lizard. It's the same glaze. It's kind of the same thing, but it's got this amazing lizard on it. It's a scarce piece. It only went for $125 on eBay. Now, again, I think that's because whoever listed it, listed it at $125 and someone said, yeah, that's a great deal. I think it's worth more than that. But just to show you that it's not yet bringing really elevated prices, like I think it should. I feel like pottery is also starting to turn around right now though. So my friend, Lisa, asked me to look into this woman a little bit more because we had some information about her. Her name was Sarah Merrick Earl. She lived from approximately 1841 or two until 1924 in Greencastle, Indiana, where she never left. And she's wearing some wonderful Civil War era gowns. And the only thing we could find out is that her parents came from New York sometime around the 1820s. The grandfather moved the family to Aurora, Indiana, back when it was a pioneer town and Indiana had just barely been a state. So we were able to find out about her parents. But interestingly enough, nobody seems to know Sarah's descendants. And we know she had descendants because we were able to find her gravestone and her gravestone refers to her as mother. So she did go on to have a family and has descendants somewhere, but we have not been able to trace that thread. So this was Sarah. And then Mrs. William Boatwright is the one who put the information on here. And I assume she's a descendant, but I could not find any information about the Boatwrights because women always called themselves Mrs. and their husband's name. And there's no record of the husband, which means there's no record of the wife. An interesting custom back then, women just sort of gave up their identity and were Mrs. whatever their husband was then. Now she's so cute, 16 years old. And of course, she seems sort of melancholy, but that's because they had to sit so still for pictures then because the exposure times were so long. If they smiled, then their mouths would move around and it'd be all blurry. So she just looked sort of serene. And she's 16 at the beginning of the Civil War. Yeah. You know, that had to be. Oh, that had to be psychically difficult for everybody who went through it, whether they were directly involved or not, especially being in Indiana, which is right on the border. And Kentucky was such a contentious state because it was split. So yes, I'm sure it was interesting times. So all of these came from your mother. This is just so neat. And you've got a wedding set here. We always think, well, the fancy ring would have been the wedding ring for the wedding day. But a lot of times the fancy one was the engagement one. And then they would- Well, see, I don't know if them were when, they probably weren't when she first got married, but it's probably later on because we had a lot of kids. Exactly, yeah. My mom and dad had very plain wedding bands because they- I wear that when they put it, my sisters put it on my finger, Uncle Dave, her finger. And I think that one she found somewhere. Oh, that's just great. Well, all of them are older than when they were married. All of them look like 1930s. This one's marked Princess and it is 14 karat gold, but it's in the Depression era. Because when you look at these from a distance, it looks like Kong settings that have jewels, but there's no jewels in them. It's just the way the gold's shaped. And they would use white gold to make it look different. And yeah, she liked white gold. Yes, I do too. This one does have one diamond chip. It got really thin. Yeah, they're both marked Princess. So they're 14 karat. These are Depression era, even though that was before they got married. So these probably were something they could afford because they were used jewelry and they weren't expensive then. But now they're- Well, first of all, people really like them and they like that there's a set together. Some people even will have them fused together with other gold as one ring. Since it's family, I'm sure you're keeping it. Insurance value is probably about $350 or $400 on that set, maybe even a little more. This is really dirty because I wear it every day and it looks pretty when it's clean. This one is also going to be 14 karat. Same era, I would say probably maybe $300. It is Japanese. And this is a Kutani figure. Kutani is this particular type of redware. And the Kutani decoration was more on the surface than what we usually see with Satsuma. So there's a whole lot of enameling and that's why you have so much design. And this has a lot of gilding too. And it's a very handsome one. It appears to be all of these things have meaning and I'm not so well-versed to tell you exactly, but the scroll here indicates that he's some sort of a scholar. The tree branch is going to tell part of the story too. Figure overall is actually a pretty complex mold. And you said that he brought it back from Japan with him. I like the idea that he saw it in the store and they didn't want to sell it. Yeah, well, that's what she's told us. So, and I believe that because this was a substantial piece. It has some wear. So it probably was something that sat in a place where it was towards the front of the store and they moved it around when people were coming in. And so I imagine that that's why they wanted to hold onto it. But he probably gave them an offer they couldn't refuse. Probably so. He had a little money. And also this was the era, I'm sure when he was there, this was when they still were not quite as industrialized, not as rebuilt and money was a thing. So they said, well, we'll take the American dollars. It's a really handsome piece and it's really well decorated. Now, it's not a period piece. It doesn't date back to the dynastic eras in Japan. So it is 20th century. There's some nice detail to the fact that his mouth is open and you see teeth. This was a more complicated figure than they usually are. I think that the retail value at this point is probably somewhere in the $300 to $350 range, approximately. And when you said redware, what does that mean? Redware means the color of the clay is red. And so you can look on the bottom and see that it's that color all the way through. And so they didn't really have to glaze the face or anything. They just let the color come through. But he's so big and so expressive. And I think that's what's really impressive about this particular piece. She keeps it covered with this cow on her head during my own walking. Oh, well. She's just kind of odd. Well, you can tell her that if she's keeping it covered because she's afraid it'll fade or that something will happen to the decoration, it's OK to have this out. I wouldn't put it in direct sunlight because then eventually you might have some of the gold go. Then she'll be fine. And tell her to get it out and look at it because she's beautiful and she should enjoy looking at it a little bit. So tell me how you got these. That is Grandma Anderson's. My dad's mother's. And I have, you know, I get it. It's marked on the bottom with a mark that says semi-corcelain. The English wanted desperately to know how to make porcelain and the Chinese wouldn't tell them. So the Chinese sent many, many, many sets of custom-made dishware and things to England for many, many years. Finally, the Germans figured out how to make it. And eventually the English did too. I believe this is by the Meakin Company. So this is going to be right about 1900. What they're trying to do is that they want it to look like porcelain, but they don't want to spend the money on porcelain. And they wanted something a little heavier for hotels and restaurants and those kinds of places. And people would also buy it and use it at home. But so it was to have the look of porcelain without the expense of porcelain. So it's an earthenware and it's almost always just completely white or sometimes it has a small decoration. This one, it's got a teeny tiny chip. Yeah, we found that this morning when we looked at it. It's been there for many, many years. Here in Indiana, back in about the 1840s and 50s, ironstone started to be shipped in here from England. And there was a particular pattern called tea leaf where they took copper luster paint and painted a little tea leaf on it. That was very, very popular right in this area. And so ironstone continued to be brought in here up until probably the 19-teens or 20s when they quit really making it. They're starting to make new stuff that looks like this now because it's become very popular with this farmhouse decorating because it's white and it looks good against gray walls and that's what people have now. So now people are starting to buy the older stuff again. And I would say this was likely from a hotel because it's actually a giant sugar bowl. I thought it was a sugar bowl. It is actually a sugar bowl, but it's this big because it would have been on a table with a bunch of people. That's why it's so large. I would say the value, even with the little chip, is probably somewhere in about the $50. All right, cool. That's one grandma. Other grandma. Grandma Criswell. Aw, this is really neat. And I'm going to give you a couple different values on it because you have a couple of different things going. So it's a lady's watch, as they called them back then. And it's got what they would have called a hunter's case because it covered it up. But it also has a really neat watch chain with a slide. This is the slide. And the slide here seems to have a garnet with seed pearls. There are collectors for both. Now, there used to be more pocket watch collectors than there are now. But funnily enough, there's a lot of interest in the slide chains as jewelry. So I'm going to give you two separate values for it, even though she had it together. It's running, which is nice. New watch company at Walton. Established 1885. That's interesting. That's a different mark than we usually see. Walton was a good watch. Kind of a middle of the line. It does have jewels. These little, these are rubies. And the rubies have something to do with keeping the gears from moving without jamming up. So the more jewels, the better on an old watch. Now we'll open the front and see what it looks like. There is the nice dial and face on that. And this one says United States Watch Company. It's a little fancier watch in that it also has the second numbers you notice on there in the red. And that's a little less common. So this was a nice watch and well jeweled. The watches and the cases were actually sold separately back then. You would go in, you would pick a watch case, and then you would buy, pick the movement to go in it. So they were standard sizes. Yeah, and the reason they did them separately is because sometimes you needed a really good movement in a watch you were using for work all the time. So you'd get a very plain silveroid case, but you'd get a really good movement because say you worked on the railroad, it had to be super accurate. On the other hand, you might have a very pretty watch that has a beautiful case that was done as a presentation, but the innards are really kind of cheap because it was just to be a pretty watch. This one is a Wadsworth case and it says warranted 20 years. And what that means is that it is gold plated. The warranty was how long the gold would last before it wore off. So it lasted more than 20 years. So that was good because this should date to right about 1900. So the watch with the case, probably around $150. The chain, this is old enough that they didn't necessarily mark for gold. So I'm looking to see whether it might actually be gold. But I think it's plated because it's got a little bit of wear and tarnish points on the slide. But as a piece of jewelry, these chains with the slides are very popular and that's probably worth maybe $100 by itself. So altogether about $250 is the value. Okay. I've got an old pipe that I inherited and I had no idea. I know it's at least Civil War or older. Made of Meerschaum clay with the carving of the bird. And the carving of the bird is really, really intricate. Meerschaum was a particular type of clay found in Turkey, I believe. And they would carve these out and then send them all over the world. And it's got nice detail on it. The condition is good. There's a little tiny point of damage. You notice it's missing its beak. Yeah, I knew that. Because that would have stuck out and that would be the thing that would get broken. Now, how did you get this piece? It was in a bunch of stuff from my grandfather's. Oh, neat. It was in my dad's attic. They still make Meerschaum pipes today, but they don't look like this. And you notice the case is perfectly formed for it. So they would carve the piece and then they would make the case. Make the case. It's been used some. And that was part of the reason people like Meerschaum pipes is as you smoke them, they get this patina and this color. If they're brand new, they're bright white. In the condition that's in probably a hundred to a hundred and a quarter. Tell me how you got this. Well, I found that in a creek and I've got another one, which is not as nice as that one. But I do that for a hobby. I started finding bone. So I just so I started looking for bone. I'm basically an Indian artifact hunter. But then I got into the mastodon and buoy mammoth stuff. And yeah, of course, this is giant, giant ground sloth, which was the 11th ground sloth bone found in Indiana. They were rare, but they're they were here. They exactly. And it is so it's so interesting where fossils appear and you think, you know, well, like Petoskey stone in Michigan. I mean, who would think, oh, gosh, you know, this this was a coral reef at one time. I'm from Washington state fossils on the site of Mount Rainier that came from swamps that were originally like, you know, very hot and humid. So, you know, the fossil record is amazing. And I have to admit, I did not know that they had ground sloths in Indiana until I saw this piece. So that's pretty cool. What did they call these? A megalonyx or something, I think, is the is the scientific name. What a fun thing to do. I mean, I don't know how you even know where to look for something like this. Well, in the creeks and on the rock bars, you know, where a creek takes a bend and where they'll right where it was, there it comes. Well, the value on this should be somewhere in the $500 range. And maybe even a little more, because compared to the other examples I'm seeing, this one's a little better preserved and a little more interesting. It has a little more of this outer shell to it. So, yeah, I would say five to six hundred. And for insurance, probably around a thousand dollars. Yeah. If I was insured, it'd be, yeah, at least a thousand. At least a thousand. Who wouldn't want to see my man cave? It's just it's full of stuff like that. Oh, I think I would. Yeah, you probably would. Well, isn't this neat? While I was gone, some anonymous somebody left this little gift on my appraisal desk. So isn't that cool? This is treasure craft. I've never seen this little Florida souvenir bag before. So that's a new one for my collection. Well, you brought us something really, really cool. And tell me a little bit about what you know about this and how you got it, because it's really an amazing piece of art deco design. Up at an antique show and I was walking by a table when this couple took this out of a box and sat here on the table. And I picked it up and asked him about it. Well, they said that their father was in the army in Italy and found it on the side of a bombed out building. Well, and they brought it home and it hung on the wall where they were growing up. So fresh out of an estate where they really didn't know a lot about it other than the family story. Right. It has the Fasces on it. Fascism is thought of in a very pejorative way now, but there was actually some belief in the 1930s that it was going to be better to just let a few strongmen take care of everything and tell us all what to do. And actually, the fascist designs. This was even on the back of our Mercury dime. So it wasn't just in Europe that you saw this sort of thing. And here's a reference to Benito Mussolini in Duce. And so this tells us that this is a propaganda piece. It's interesting because it has a date here of 1926. Do you remember any of the highlights of the translation? It was just exalting the glories of Italian fascism under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Yes. It commemorates a competition that was held for the flying boats. Yes. Oh, very interesting. Wow. It is really a stunning piece. Sculptor's information down here. Orinorio Ruotolo, founder of the Da Vinci School of Art in New York. I do see the Ruotolo signature there. Yes. And he did actually do some work for Mussolini, which is interesting because actually a lot of his original work when he integrated to the United States was doing plaques showing the horrors of the First World War. So it's interesting how politics takes us to different sides of the same specter sometimes. Yes. But it's so strange to me that the story is that he brought it back from Italy. So it had to have been commissioned here and sent over there. They must have just known of him as a sculptor. And in the 1920s, you know, he was pretty famous by then. Okay. The other thing about this that's interesting, this is four years after Mussolini is made prime minister. And right about the time that he is consolidating power, taking control of the judiciary, and making the Italian government no longer a democracy, but a one-party system led by him. Do you mind if we take a look at the back? No, go right ahead. There are still a lot of fascist monuments left in Italy, unlike Germany, which ripped down pretty much anything that had to do with the Nazis after the war. The Italians just sort of saw it as part of the tapestry of their country's history all the way back to the times of the Romans. And so there are actually maps you can go online and you can look up and you can take tours of fascist monuments and cities throughout Italy that still exist today, particularly in the north where things were not destroyed so much. I love that it has the patina of Asia. And it's in pretty good shape overall. I mean, there's a little greening here, but honestly, if it were mine, I think I would leave it just the way it is. It is a real stunner. It was $100. Wow, $100. What a beautiful piece for $100. And this is a really, really respected artist. So I did a little bit of looking because you did me the favor of letting me know this was coming and I wanted to have some values for you that made some sort of sense. But everything I'm finding are mainly small sculptures and things he did for tabletops and stuff he did in the United States. And, you know, small bronze sculptures by him are selling in the $2,000 range that were done in this country. But this is going to have added value because of what it represents and its time in history. So, you know, it's probably one of those things that actually to get a real value because there isn't any quote unquote comparable, you probably have to send it up to auction it and see how it actually did. But when I look at this, I'm getting more and more excited and thinking, it might be a $15,000 piece potentially, because who knows if there is another one in existence. Is this something that you plan to keep? No. No. Okay. Friends who have recommended Auction House's Heritage in Texas, I'm one of those individuals who's more interested in finding the place where it belongs. People can see it. If it goes into a collection, no one will ever see it. Right. In a museum or someplace. Right, where it can be interpreted and not just something that someone looks at once in a while on their wall. I have donated things to museums and they're gone. They're going to go mess it. Yeah, I have to say I agree with you. I don't like the donation idea to museums unless they specifically are looking for a piece and put out there that they're looking for it, because a lot of times it does just go in the vault, or waiting for a special exhibition, or sometimes they sell it to fund the museum operations. You could just as well sell it yourself and give them money if that's what you wanted to do. Yes, that's true. He worked a lot in New York. There might be a museum in New York that would show it, especially if there's an Italian-American museum somewhere. If you enjoyed this video, check out this one. Also, click thumbs up to like this video, and check the description for information about our Patreon, our memberships. We've got a lot of different levels with different perks and bonus videos and early content. 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