Fort Worth, Hour 1

MARK WALBERG: From Fort Worth, Texas, it's the season premiere of Antiques Roadshow.

WOMAN: My kids say it's ugly.

I don't ever spend more than $9.99 on art.

Well, it's the best, all right?

I'm flabbergasted.

I suddenly want a beer.

WALBERG: Fort Worth, Texas certainly lives up to its reputation as the City of Cowboys.

Welcome to Fort Worth, Antiques Roadshow.

(whip cracks) WALBERG: And culture.

At the Amon Carter Museum, Roadshow marveled at the collection that included works by Texan painter Julian Onderdonk, trompe l'oeil master William Harnett, and Western artists Charles Russell and Frederic Remington.

A great piece of art with Texas history from the Delaware tribe showed up in Fort Worth.

Check it out.

MAN: It's been passed down in the family from my great-great- grandfather to his daughter to my dad, who passed that on to me.

APPRAISER: Who was the person who originally had it, your great-great- grandfather?

That was Joseph Carrol, and he was originally a surveyor.

He fought in the war.

And then he became a lawyer, and then eventually was a judge up there in the north Texas region, 1850s, 1860s.

Do you know what tribe this came from?

I think they were the Delaware tribe.

That was what's passed down.

But couldn't guarantee that.

It is Delaware.

Oh, wow.

The Delaware tribe worked with Texans through the republican period, when Texas was its own country, that started with the Alamo in 1836, and then went to 1845 when Texas became a state.

And they continued to work with the state clear up into the 1850s.

And Sam Houston's personal scouts were all Delaware chiefs and subchiefs that had come into Texas, and a lot of them stayed here.

I didn't expect to see Delaware beadwork, but I'm not surprised.

Most people are going, "Well, they're from the Northeast, how did it end up here?"

At the time your great- great-grandfather got this, the Delaware tribe, or a good number of them, had moved to Oklahoma.

It may have been made before they moved to Oklahoma.

Okay.

And at that point, it was Oklahoma territory.

This would be called... in the Southeast, the British called these a baldric.

It's like a sash.

And some people wore them across and tied at the hip, some people wore them around their shoulders like a stole.

This particular one is so long, it wouldn't have had a bag on it.

It wasn't a bandolier bag.

It was a baldric.

Looking at the beadwork, I think it was made sometime in the 1830s.

So it was really old when it was given to him.

Wow.

The beads are European glass beads.

These beads are cut beads.

They're particularly hard to sew and were probably brought from Eastern Europe.

Okay.

The fabric is European fabric.

This trim is a trade cloth that was all over the Southeast and the Northeast from the late 1700s through the 1800s.

And it's an important piece.

It not only ties into all this Texas history, it ties into Delaware material culture.

The graphics are classic Delaware.

It's worth a significant amount of money because of all this.

And if it were to come up for auction, on the low end, I think $25,000.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

On the high end, $35,000.

Wow.

Really unbelievable.

It's a great piece of art in addition to everything else, but it's a great piece of history.

WOMAN: I received it as a gift from one of my relatives after my mother passed.

It wasn't hers, it was just something given to me by one of my other relatives.

And I want to show this to everybody to see what you've brought.

You've got this lovely box that opens up.

And so inside, we have this object.

The question is, what is this?

Yes.

And so what we have here is a perfume flask, and the flask is in the shape of a stylized guard.

He looks sort of like either a Swiss guard or an Italian guard.

And what's nice about it, it's set with emeralds and sapphires, and on this side, there's a star with some diamonds and a ruby.

And he's got some little diamonds set into the crown of his headdress.

And his head unscrews.

And this is the dipper for the perfume.

So you would put a little bit of perfume in here.

Probably made in the 1960s.

It was meant to sit on either a lady's dressing table, or you could actually carry this in your purse if you were going out for a dressy evening.

Okay.

The box says, "Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger".

And Jean Schlumberger was a designer that Tiffany had in the 1950s and 1960s.

He passed away, but they're still doing designs from his design book.

So Schlumberger is a very important name to the Tiffany brand.

And also, on the bottom of the piece, too, it's signed "Schlumberger" as well.

Now, there were a number of versions of these.

There were?

The exact same form, but some have jewels, some don't.

Some are elaborately set with jewels.

So yours is quite a nice one with all the jewels that it has.

Have you ever had this piece appraised?

No, I received it as a gift last year, but I didn't know if it was real gold.

The box was cool, and it said "Tiffany", and I said, "Well, I don't know if that's real or not, but..." Well, it's a lovely presentation box, certainly.

So the piece is 18 karat gold, and these are very collectible.

Really?

And at auction, if this item were to be auctioned, I would put a presale estimate on this of between $8,000 and $10,000.

Seriously?

Yes, yes.

They're highly collectible.

Thank you so very much.

I had no idea.

And, yes, I'm going to really thank my relative who gave it to me.

Yes, you should.

There's something rattling around in here.

Yes, there's a piece of paper in there, but we can't get it out, and we don't know how to get it out.

APPRAISER: You need to have tiny fingers.

Super neat.

Not waterproof.

(laughing) I think it has a negligible value, $10 to $15, just because it's interesting.

Where did you get the clarinet from?

The trash.

The trash?

Yes, yes.

Terrific.

So that'll go to Musical Instruments.

Mel Gray, one of my favorite NFL players ever.

Four-time Pro Bowler, right, seven-time All Pro?

What do you have here?

Well, I have an Ali robe, and I noticed he signed it twice.

I got it at an NFL fundraiser.

I think it was right around 2000, 2001.

Okay.

He signed "Muhammad Ali, AKA Cassius Clay."

This is probably around that era, a late '90s, 2000s autograph from Muhammad Ali, which is when he would do this.

He would recognize former and present.

He took it looks like a black ballpoint pen, a little faded.

What'd you pay for it?

I paid $2,500.

There was a gentleman in the room who bid at $2,000, so I went up to $2,500, there was no more bids, and I took it from that point.

So admittedly, you pushed.

I pushed it, yeah, oh yeah.

So I don't mind telling you that you overpaid slightly.

Now, with his recent passing, we will see, I think, an increase in the values and that will shoot up.

Today at auction, it's valued at about $1,500 to $2,000, so you're right there, right around what you paid for it, but as you acknowledged, you pushed a little bit.

Certainly, that's okay.

I would have paid $10,000 to get anything that he signed.

I'm a big fan of his, have been since I was a little boy, and I was not going to leave that room without that robe.

I brought my brother's concert posters that he started collecting in the early '60s as an early teenager.

He used to send money for postage to Bill Graham and the Fillmore West, and they'd send him a poster in the mail to Oklahoma City.

Where have you been keeping them for so many years?

Well, my brother passed away 28 years ago, I believe, and they were always on his wall, and I thought they were gone, and I was talking to my mom about it and said it would be really nice if we had those posters back since he was gone, and she said, "I have them in a box under my bed."

So that's where they've been until about a year ago.

You brought in a collection of 47 posters, and most of them fall between about 1967 and 1969.

And with so many of them, we only had time to choose just a few posters, and I picked out three specifically.

I decided to bring out all the rest just to give you an idea of the scope of what you have.

I kind of tried to do a little bit of research, but the more I did, the more confused I got.

I know it matters-- there's reprints, there's first printings, there's printings all over the map, and I know they have a hole in them, and I don't know.

With posters, condition is everything.

You want it to be in the best possible shape.

And every pinhole, every tear, every tape mark lowers the value slightly.

Right.

But the difficulty, especially with these concert posters, is the values are all over the place.

Some sell for very little, some sell for a lot, and not only does it depend on which concert, which artist played, but also is it a first edition print, is it printed before the concert or is it printed after the concert?

There are many different editions.

The first up is one of the most iconic 1960s rock and roll posters, the Jimi Hendrix flying eyeball from 1968, with art by Rick Griffin, and it is just the peak of '60s psychedelic art.

This is among one of the most desirable collectable rock posters.

Really?

This is a first edition, and you can tell because of the placement of the "Bill Graham" and the poster number.

The poster number is 105 from "Bill Graham Presents," and because of its placement under the word "tickets," you can tell it's a first edition.

Okay.

In this condition, with no pinholes but a little bit of damage to it, but not much, very minor, we'd put an auction estimate of $5,000 to $7,000.

No way.

No way!

Wow, that's awesome.

That's just one.

Oh!

Nuh-uh!

Well, it's the best, right?

It's among the best, yes.

Okay.

Wow.

Holy moly.

That's amazing.

It gets better when we go through all of them.

(laughing) Okay.

The second one, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, at the height of his career, it was in 1968, he's headlining.

This particular poster is $3,000 to $5,000.

Awesome.

And over on the far end there, we've got the Grateful Dead performing at Café au Go Go in Greenwich Village.

That was at their New York premiere, the first time they played in New York in 1967, and that one is around $2,000 to $3,000.

(laughing) Wow.

For a poster?

(laughs) You have 47.

Oh, my gosh!

(laughs) You've got 47 of these...

I can't even do the math!

Well, let me do the math for you.

Okay.

You've got 47 posters.

Uh-huh.

And for a grand total of, at auction, between $20,000 and $35,000.

Oh, wow.

That's great.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

Wow!

He loved them and I love them too.

I want to do something with them, you know?

I don't know what to do.

Enjoy them not in a box anymore.

WOMAN: I got it at a thrift store years ago for $9.99 because I don't ever spend more than $9.99 on art.

And so this was one of the pieces that I brought in.

My kids say that it's ugly.

I was attracted to it immediately when I saw it.

And then actually when I picked it up, I saw the name on the back and it was dated 1947, and I just thought, "Wow."

Well, it's also signed in the front right down here.

Oh, I didn't know that.

"Ferren."

The artist is John Ferren.

He's American.

He was born in Oregon in 1905.

He ended up studying in San Francisco.

His family moved around the Northwest a bit.

And he became an abstract painter early on.

He studied both in Paris and Italy with the idea that he was going to become a sculptor, but after he saw an exhibition of work by Henri Matisse in Munich... Oh, wow.

...he decided he would focus on becoming a painter.

Wow.

So he married the daughter of a Spanish artist, and he met a few Spanish artists like Picasso...

Yes, I read that.

...and Miró.

But they got divorced, and in 1938, he moved back to the States.

It's sort of a cataloguer's dream because of so much information... On the back?

...on the reverse.

And I want to show everyone it not only has the date of 1947...

Right-- yes.

...which you pointed out, but the artist's name printed clearly so that it can be read easily.

Yes.

The title.

"The Prophet."

And even the size of the painting, 19 by 26 inches.

And this is some kind of artist inventory number.

Oh, okay.

This is really terrific to have all this information here.

It's like a dream come true.

Oh, far out.

It is messed up, though, I know.

It has a few surface condition problems, but it's basically in good condition.

The medium here is mixed media on board.

Yeah, I love it, and I keep it on my mantel, and it just gives me peace looking at it.

Well, I think it's terrific.

Do you have any idea what it might be worth other than $9.99?

(laughing) Uh...

I really don't, and actually, my sister is the one that entered me in the Roadshow, and I just thought, Oh my gosh, it was meant to be, you know?

And this was what I love.

If this picture were offered in a retail gallery, the asking price might range between $15,000 and $20,000.

Really, $20,000?

Wow, that is a lot.

So we're really happy to see this today at the Roadshow.

(crying): Thank you.

Thank you.

You're so welcome!

I'm so glad you came today.

Thank you.

My kids are all going to say, "Sell it," you know, and I'm just going to go, "No!"

WOMAN: So, I was on a garage sale trip and I found it in Dallas about 20 years ago.

Yeah, it's been sitting on my shelf ever since.

And what drew you to it at that garage sale?

I think I really love the color of it, how light it was and how thin the wood is, and I just love the shape.

It's got a little bit of a mid-century modern feel to it.

So what do you know about who made this bowl?

So I looked it up online, and there's a, I think, a mark at the bottom, and I just knew a little bit about the artist, but really not very much.

That's why I'm here.

Okay, well, the bowl is marked on the underside with a pressed mark, "Prestini."

Uh-huh.

I like to think that's from the Italian branch of my family, the Prestons, that changed their name.

I'm just kidding, not really.

James Prestini was born to Italian immigrant parents in Connecticut in 1908, and it was while working as a caddie at a local golf course that he met Thomas Watson Sr. of IBM.

Oh, wow.

And Watson enabled Prestini to attend Yale.

So Prestini got a degree from Yale in mechanical engineering and then went back and got a second degree in education, and that's how he ended up as a teacher of mathematics in suburban Chicago.

Wow.

And it was while teaching at the school that he taught a class on woodworking, basically wood shop.

Oh, my gosh.

And so he started turning wood bowls, wood trays, cups, plates.

And he really discovered this artistic side he didn't know he had.

Up to this time, he'd been an engineer and a mathematician.

Isn't that interesting.

But he feels this burgeoning artistry, and he's expressing it with these amazingly thin turned wood bowls.

It is a wood bowl, yet it has the thinness and fineness of something glass or the finest porcelain, even.

He was turning these bowls and other items throughout the period, basically 20 years running from 1933 to 1953, but this bowl is actually after 1938.

We know this isn't from those first five years because it's the pressed mark that we have under this bowl that tells us this is after '38.

Okay.

You actually, I think, did pretty well buying this at a garage sale for $20.

(laughs) Because if this came up at auction in the venue of a specialized 20th century design auction house, I think it would sell for between $4,000 and $5,000.

Wow!

Wow.

But I really just love the bowl.

It's not even the value, right?

It's just so beautiful, I love just looking at it.

They said it's a vernacular piece and worth maybe $500, but maybe more if we could prove that this was made of wood from Texas.

Aha!

Okay, this is your lesser side because see the stains here?

Yes.

So that is a problem.

In today's market, $1,500 to $2,500.

I got it for my 16th birthday.

Well, you've only had it for five years or so, I guess, so... Well, here you are, Prints and Posters.

It was given to me at my godmother's death.

It was given to her by a lady she was a private duty nurse for who bought it on her honeymoon.

When I first acquired it, I had it cleaned professionally.

Okay.

And the gentleman who cleaned it offered me a couple of hundred dollars for it.

What you have here is an antique Caucasian Gendje rug.

Gendje is an area in southeast Caucasus.

It's very close to where the Kazak rugs are made.

Okay.

There are certain characteristics of this type of rug that lead us to make it a Gendje.

It has a multi-corded selvage, and then the design is almost exclusively Gendje.

It has, like, these barber pole striped bands in the field, in this case enclosing pears or boteh patterns along with shrubs.

And also, the ivory rosette border.

It dates from the late 19th century, it exclusively has vegetable dyes, and it's in fine condition.

The value for this rug today in a retail situation would be $6,500.

Wow, yay!

So, many thanks for bringing it in, and I'm glad you didn't sell it for $200.

Me too.

WOMAN: I brought this little carriage clock.

It's been passed down in our family.

It was originally my grandmother's great-aunt's.

APPRAISER: Okay.

Her husband gave it to her when she was going blind as she got older because it has a really lovely chime, so he bought it for her so that she could tell the time, and it even has a button that she could push to find out what time it was.

These were usually used for travel.

In other words, when you move from one location to another, maybe pre-automobile, whatever, this was an upmarket travel alarm clock.

Oh, wow.

Now, I'm sure you felt the weight of it.

These are substantial clocks.

And the button that you mentioned right up here on top is the button that you would have reached over in the middle of the night to depress to find out what time it was.

And it served undoubtedly your great-aunt well, being blind, that she could at any time go over and find out what time it was, so it'd strike the nearest hour.

Did you know where it was made?

Um, I know that it was from New Orleans.

I'm not sure where it was made, if they bought it there or if it was made there.

Okay, well, the clock is actually French.

Okay.

Now, it makes perfect sense for these high-grade French clocks to end up in New Orleans.

They were looking across the water to France for their decoration.

A lot of gilded furniture in New Orleans, and it's because of the French aesthetic.

Now, this is a great example.

And I see that it's running right now.

Yes.

Well, it's a brass case clock.

Now, the finish has deteriorated.

Have you ever thought about having it refinished or anything like that?

That's one of the things we were wondering about, how to take care of it.

If it was mine, I would probably just live with it as it is.

Okay.

Great case.

You'll notice the piercing on the sides.

This is top drawer stuff, where the sides were pierced and then engraved.

On the back, you can see the mechanism where you wind it.

You also would set the hands from that point.

Let's talk about the age a little bit.

That information that you gave me all jives.

I think the clock was probably made around the turn of the century, about 1890 to 1910.

I'd loved to have seen a name on the front, maybe a jeweler's name from New Orleans.

Makes perfect sense that it was there.

Did you ever have it appraised or know anything of value?

No.

Well, these are nice clocks.

People are liking smaller clocks right now.

I'm seeing that the younger audiences are attracted to this form of clock.

It can go with contemporary furniture.

It is such a jewel.

I think it would retail today for somewhere in the $2,000 to $2,500 range like this.

Oh, wow.

Thank you for coming today.

Thank you!

WOMAN: I brought you two fern stands.

I believe they're Bradley & Hubbard from the 1880s to 1890, I think.

And I'm hoping to find out what their value is.

Okay, and how did you get them?

I got them through an estate, through another estate that kind of got passed down through estates, and finally I bought them.

And how much?

I really don't remember.

They were in the hundreds.

About how many years ago was that?

That I bought them?

About ten to 12 years ago.

Okay, did they come to you as a pair?

A pair-- they did.

They did come to you as a pair, okay.

They descended as a pair.

Were they really made as a pair, I'm not sure.

I think somebody just had two plant stands that they acquired.

And they're so different, yeah.

And I did research and saw the Antiques Roadshow had had one of them back in '07 in San Antonio, I believe, and appraised one, but the value seemed to run from $500 to thousands.

Yeah.

They are made by Bradley & Hubbard, and we know that because it's featured on the back of their show catalog, or their trade catalog.

Right.

They're typically referred to as plant stands.

These are interesting and attractive tables for a number of reasons in my mind.

They represent the Industrial Revolution, where we're mixing art and industry together to form artforms, and this is really what this represents.

It's done in the Aesthetic Movement.

And it's basically about every object doesn't just have a purpose, but it's to be artful.

And as you can see from these, they really are.

Yes.

What's interesting here, though, is the metal.

These are made of brass, and they're really a counterpoint to the dark and dreary rooms of the Victorian era.

So now we have this bright spot.

So you see them in interior views in their original settings and how spectacularly brilliant they are.

Right.

And brass is like silver-- these should be polished.

You're not doing any harm in polishing them.

I have not polished them.

And they would show that way, and that's the way they were intended to be seen and you're not doing anything to hurt them.

Were they electrified early?

They were not.

Ah.

They were not using electricity as frequently as they are today at the time these were produced.

So we don't know when they were electrified.

No.

And if we start from the bottom and just look at this overall stance, we can see they almost look like a rocket ship, you know, with this little platform and the base.

It's very explosive, very colorful, that mixture of metal and tile like we see here on the top, this beautiful, hand-painted tile that corresponds with the column when we move down it here.

And you can see what happens to these more often than not is that there's damage, and they're so challenging to repair that I think they're oftentimes discarded.

Ah.

So, made in America, inspired after the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, so they're really 1875 to 1885.

Okay, all right, good.

Done in New England, and we know who made these, and Bradley & Hubbard was a really interesting company.

At their peak, they employed a thousand people, had showrooms in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, so these aren't one of a kind; they made more than one.

Did they have artists do these individually?

I don't think so; they were commercially done.

So they were still hand-painted and finished that way, but I don't think that... they're rarely signed.

We're going to turn them on here so the audience can see.

They do come up...

I shouldn't say frequently, but you can find them, and prices range from roughly $2,000 to $4,000, so at auction, we'd estimate each at $2,000 to $4,000.

Wonderful.

Okay, my husband will like to sell them.

(both laughing) Aurora borealis, they actually took the beads and they dipped them in acid and fired them, and it created all the color.

This was made in the '60s, so it's mid-century modern period.

Most of them are wood.

How this one got to be cast iron is beyond my comprehension.

Okay.

It's the best one I've ever seen, and I've seen half a dozen over the years.

It's European-cut diamond, and it actually was worn by the princess of Lichtenstein.

It's hard to prove provenance, but great story.

Absolutely, thank you.

WOMAN: I inherited these dolls from my mother, and they were purchased by my grandmother.

And now my grandmother lived in New York City from when she was probably 22 to 28.

Well, your little figurines or dolls are referred to as Bathing Beauties.

That's the collectors' term for them today, and they're very popular.

They were often sold in resort areas near the ocean, and these particular ones were made in Germany by a company called Galluba and Hofmann.

Okay.

And there are many companies that made Bathing Beauties, but this is the crème de la crème.

And these particular ones are very nice because they're not only small and detailed, but they have all the original clothing, the original wigs.

Made about 1915.

Wow, okay.

So we do have a couple with damage, but the ones that are perfect would retail for about $400 each.

The damaged ones would be somewhat less than that.

You would figure about $2,000 for the grouping of them.

Well, great.

My mother had them on her mantel with a painting of the Mediterranean behind, and they just looked fabulous that way.

WOMAN: This is a sampler that's been in my family since 1817.

Parthenia Wilcox West is my great-great-great-grandmother, and she was an illegitimate child.

This was passed down through my great-grandparents to my great-grandmother, and then at that time when she passed away, my dad was in Rhode Island, where Parthenia was, and so it came to him, and he has given it to me.

And we can see over here "Parthenia Wilcox West."

Uh-huh.

She was born in 1797, and it says that she did this sampler in 1817.

Correct.

It is a Rhode Island sampler, and one of the reasons that it's different than the typical Rhode Island samplers that we see is because if you do the math, she was 20 years old.

She's already out of school.

She's not being influenced by the formulaic Rhode Island school designs that the schoolgirls had to comply with, and she's free to do her own artwork.

And it's done on a brown linen ground, and that's also not typical.

It's usually white.

We have things like this wonderful federal eagle with a shield.

The bowls of flowers are really extraordinary.

They're so beautiful, they're so delicate.

When we go down the side, we can see these beautiful birds.

Once again, these bowls of flowers.

And a young woman, possibly her, possibly it's her own self-image.

And it's so refreshing on these samplers to see the black thread in such wonderful condition.

And the dyes that they used to dye the silk black were very corrosive, so usually on these very early samplers, the black thread is the first thing to disintegrate.

Oh, my.

Yeah, so the fact that they're totally intact says that this had a very peaceful life.

Do you think it was stored somewhere?

I have no idea until it got to my father.

We saw several samplers on the Roadshow, and one day, he said, "Oh, I have some of that in the basement."

So I know it was not exposed to light.

We then started to be aware of what it meant to have a sampler like this, had it restored at University of Rhode Island, and then it did get displayed for a while, but it has not been out that many years.

This would be very desirable to a sampler collector, and I think a very fair retail value in today's market would be $35,000 to $45,000.

Oh, my God.

That's unbelievable.

Well, thank you so much, and I know my dad thanks you too.

Well, I went to an antiques show in Dallas, and across the room, I hear, "I'm over here, Peggy."

And there it was.

So it talked to you.

It talked to me, and it had a light under it on a stand and I thought it was the most beautiful vase I had ever seen.

And did you buy it when you first saw it?

No, they said it wasn't for sale.

That's not nice!

I told them, I said, "What's it here for?"

So how did you get it?

Well, I said, "If you ever decide to sell it, would you call me?"

And I gave them my name and phone number.

I first saw it in the '70s.

They called me about it in '87, and they charged me $3,000.

So they kept you waiting a long time.

It was worth it.

Do you know who made it?

They said that it wasn't signed and that they didn't know anything.

Right, and...?

After I bought it, I found "Daum Nancy" written in gold printed on the bottom, but I'm not sure that's authentic.

Okay, so you saw this signature on the bottom, the gilt signature.

With the Daum signature, you always have the Cross of Lorraine as part of the signature.

I will tell you that it is a Daum Nancy vase, and in this technique, the timeframe, it would have been made about 1900.

The "Nancy" actually stands for the city in France.

"Daum" is actually the Daum Brothers in the city of Nancy.

In France, during the art nouveau period, the two biggest names were Émile Gallé and Daum Nancy.

The decoration on the vase is violets, which is very, very popular, but also what you have here that is really unusual is this engraved and gilded section on the bottom where you have grasshoppers and other designs, and this is actually taken from Egyptian decorations.

Now, during this timeframe, there was Egyptian revival.

They were redoing decorations that you found on Egyptian vases, Greek vases, Roman vases.

In this case, they incorporated Egyptian motifs onto a French piece.

So, basically, the piece is carved with acid.

The flowers, then, are painted, they're enameled.

The enamel is fired on.

So same thing: this whole design here is carved with acid, and on the bottom, instead of painting it, they actually gilded it.

It's a nice technique.

You can see the carving to the stems, and that's actually the glass, and then it's painted and fired again.

So you really can't wash it off when they fire it on.

It's way up there, it's a couple thousand degrees.

Do you have any idea what it's worth now?

No, it's worth a lot to me because I love it, so... Well, besides being worth a lot to you, I would put a retail value probably in the $15,000 range.

Great!

That's great.

WOMAN: My father was a physician, and back in the day, he actually did house calls, and he said, "You'll really want to go on this house call with me."

His patient had two bedrooms full of dolls.

Wow.

Supposedly, she gave me this doll when I was very little.

Have you ever had her appraised or looked at?

No, I haven't, but she was my favorite.

I slept with her.

Okay.

Well, let me tell you about your little doll.

You have a Just Me doll.

That was her name, "Just Me."

And she was created by the Armand Marseille doll company.

He was a doll maker in Germany.

On the back, you will see "Germany."

There's an "A" and an "M," and that stands for Armand Marseille, and then we see a mark that says "310," and that is her mold number, which is the mold number for Just Me, who remained a popular model.

She was originally made by Armand Marseille and later by the Vogue doll company and was even made as late as a couple of years ago, so she's a very popular doll.

Wow.

On the back of her head above "Germany"...

It's the "Armand Marseille."

Oh, that's what's up there?

Yes, yes.

Because I couldn't see that.

But the wig is covering it, and the wig's been glued down.

And she has wonderful, beautiful sleep eyes made of glass in a beautiful bright blue, and a little pouty mouth, and a cute little button nose, so I can see how she really appealed to you.

Your Just Me is made of bisque, and then her body is made of five pieces, and it's made of composition.

And it's beautifully marked; it's even got the blush on the knee.

And then the other thing that's really nice about your doll is that she has her original costume, which is very nicely made with embroidery and lace with the hat, the suit, the matching pantaloons, and then we have a beautiful blond mohair wig.

I thought maybe it was human.

No, it's mohair, which is an animal fur which is very much like human hair.

And then one of the things that's almost always missing with antique dolls, we have these fabulous little antique shoes and socks with their little pom-poms, which fit her personality perfect because she's all perky and cute.

Fabulous rosy cheeks.

This doll was made in 1925 and was one of their most popular designs they ever made.

Wow.

Still one of the most charming characters, and collectors are looking for her at every doll show.

Wow.

Fairly difficult to find.

She's the nine-inch size.

Do you have any idea for value?

Not at all.

In a retail setting, this doll would sell for $1,200 to $1,600.

Wow!

Oh, my goodness!

That's so cute.

Well, I love her to death, I think she's precious.

And, unfortunately, I've had her up in the attic for, like, 20 years.

(laughs) I'm gonna have to put her out.

In terms of gun collector, in terms of original condition and finish, I would say that this is poor.

Okay.

Looks nice, but because it's refinished, it's in poor condition.

And then this piece, head over to collectibles.

Okay!

Do you want to rewrap?

I'd love to talk to you about these.

Do you want to try and do it in front of another camera besides this one?

I've been collecting World War II posters for a long time, and these are two of my favorites.

I like the patriotism and the beautiful art.

Both of these were designed by rather famous illustrators during the World War II era.

And the one next to you, even though it's not signed, is by a very well known illustrator named C.C.

Beall, and he's well known for a lot of his magazine covers and illustrations.

And the one closer to me is signed.

It's by another very highly regarded illustrator named Bradshaw Crandell.

And Crandell was most known for his glamour art.

He wasn't quite a pin-up artist, but he did these pictures of beautiful women.

The one closest to you was not printed by the government.

It was printed by a private company, the General Cable Corporation.

And what that says to collectors is that because it didn't have the government bankroll behind it, fewer were printed.

Oh.

And the one by Crandell I think is really important because a lot of people now are collecting items that have to do with women, and the Women's Army Corps was a great unit during the Second World War in which women would be able to participate in the war effort.

So you paid $100 each, and the C.C.

Beall poster has actually come up for sale before.

I'd estimate that one between $600 and $900.

Oh, good.

And the Crandell, I had a little trouble finding a comparable-- a lot of people sell reproductions-- so I put together a price based on the fame of the artist, the beauty and the patriotism of the image, and the fact that it is a very pro-woman poster, and I think at auction, conservatively, I'd estimate this one between $1,000 and $1,500.

Oh!

Well, good for her.

Good for her?

Good for you!

Yes.

MAN: It was given to us as a wedding gift in 1982.

We've never known a lot about it.

It's been in our family and on our bookshelf.

We've always called it "the fertility dude."

Where do you think he comes from?

I've always felt like it was northern Africa just because of the proximity to France, but I really don't know, and everyone seems to suggest that there may be other origins, and I have no idea.

I think based on the clues, you come up with a very interesting theory, but this fellow's actually Chinese.

Okay.

I think he's actually a very fun character.

In the Daoist tradition... of course, there are three great religions/philosophies in Chinese history: Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism.

This is one of the Daoist immortals.

We call him Li Tieguai, otherwise "Iron-crutch Li."

Well, his crutch is missing, which is unusual, but nonetheless, this is certainly Li Tieguai, and he embodies some of the ideals of Daoism.

He's very skinny and starved, as you see, because he's homeless.

He also represents the very, very poor, and he's a benefactor and a protector of the poor in Chinese tradition.

This comes from a part of China in the southeast called Yixing.

In fact, we refer to this pottery, this very distinctive brown pottery, as yixing ware.

It's a kind of clay that is native to that area.

They make it into teapots very often.

They believe that yixing will absorb the flavor of the tea so much that eventually, you can make tea in a yixing pot without adding any actual tea.

It has that quality.

It's rarer to find figures made out of yixing.

Now, there would have been eight of these originally for the eight immortals.

This is just one of those.

But you can see the quality is just superb, especially the detailing on the sandals here.

To look around and to see some of the exposed ribs, and in the chest, and even the exposed vertebrae in the back, wearing very, very minimal, kind of draped clothing as a poor beggar would.

He's just extraordinary, and even his expression with these kind of bulging eyes and this very extraordinary expression, he's so appealing, and I can understand why you've loved this and why this has inspired some theories as to... My whole family's enjoyed it.

As far as the date, I would attribute this to the early part of the 19th century, perhaps 1810, 1825, somewhere in that pocket.

It's quite old for the type.

With the glaze, again, it's a rare feature of the piece, but I think it's absolutely fabulous.

Do you have any sense of its value, or was it suggested to you?

Not at all-- I can imagine some prices in a retail setting, but I'd be guessing.

Make a guess.

Oh, I would think in the hundreds.

Well, I think you're a little low on this one.

If this were to come up for auction in 2016 with the market being strong, an auction estimate that would be fair would be $1,500 to $2,000.

Oh, excellent, excellent.

So you brought us an Eloise McGill.

What can you tell me about her?

She was an artist in San Antonio back in the 1880s, 1890s.

She was my great-great-aunt.

She's made quite a few paintings.

We have about six in our family.

We have two in our house.

When I looked her up, I realized that her full name is Eloise Polk McGill.

She has a distinguished lineage.

Some people thought she was a direct descendent of President Polk, but he did not have any children.

But if we follow our ancestry lineage, it goes about five generations back to a Robert Bruce Polk in about 1606, and they branch out from that person.

I see.

She's the grand nice of Judge Baylor, who started Baylor University.

Wow.

So she's got some connections here to Texas.

Absolutely.

She first studied with Robert Onderdonk in Texas, and then at some point later, she studied with William Merritt Chase in New York.

Now, William Merritt Chase was quite a personality as a teacher, and there were lots of little adages that he would say that would stick with his students.

And one of them was, "Take all the time you want to paint this painting.

Take 15 minutes."

Wow.

Meaning that before you touch your brush to the canvas-- in this case, panel-- you should know exactly what the composition is going to be and how the painting is going to develop so that once you start painting, you paint quickly.

Ah, interesting.

And that is extremely evident in this painting.

She's incredibly competent, secure, confident as a painter.

The artist was born in 1868, and she died about 1938.

This painting was done in the last two years of her life.

And when I saw this painting, when you came up, I was blown away by the brilliant color.

She was known for doing blue bonnets as well.

Yes, we have one of the blue bonnets.

Well, blue bonnets are particularly popular in Texas, but I love the cactus flowers.

Cactuses, they bloom in one day and then the blooms are gone.

Isn't that correct?

That's correct.

The value of this painting for retail replacement purposes is probably close to $20,000.

Oh, wow.

We were hoping for a few thousand, that's awesome.

MAN: It was my father's great-aunt's sculpture, and when she died, it came to my grandmother, and when my grandmother died, it came to my father, and he has since given it to me.

And you know the artist?

Rodin.

Who's Rodin?

Auguste Rodin, I didn't want to mess up his name.

And you know the title?

It's "Eternal Spring."

Right.

Of course, the original title's in French.

Rodin, one of the greatest sculptors of the 19th, early 20th century.

Some consider him comparable to Michelangelo.

He was born in 1840 and he studied quite extensively.

In the early part of his career, he actually did decorative sculptures and designed various useful objects and worked in the studio of another artist named Albert Carrier-Belleuse.

Oh, okay.

And then he was finally able to break out.

Rodin was really an innovator.

Most sculpture is of historical things, mythological things, and what he did is he actually moved the focus of sculpture onto actual people, trying to capture real emotions of people.

One of his first sculptures was called "The Age of Bronze," and he was criticized.

People thought he made a cast of a person, and that was his sculpture.

So his early work was highly criticized.

His work is very popular, and the issue with sculpture is when it was made and whether or not it was made under the auspices of the artist himself.

Right.

And that determines the value.

Artist-produced editions of these bronzes, they never put a number on them.

The idea of numbering an edition of five or ten is a relatively new phenomenon.

He cast them as they were made, and he licensed the foundry to produce these pieces.

So you can see here...

It's actually signed "Rodin."

On the side here...

It's signed "F. Barbedienne, Fondeur"-- Ferdinand Barbedienne, the foundry.

And this was a leading foundry in France at this time.

What's also interesting about this piece is that it has a letter and numbers, and these are numbers that are used at the foundry for sort of inventory control, to just keep track of what was made, when it was made.

And as I said, his works are so popular that they were made in addition, you know?

They would make copies.

Sometimes, they would make a copy of a bronze and they just lose detail.

And this, I feel, is an early cast, maybe a lifetime cast.

Oh, wow.

There's so many reproductions and fakes of his work that in order to sell one, you need a certification from a group called the Committee Auguste Rodin.

And they examine them and they issue a certificate saying that it is authentic.

Okay.

So the question becomes, is this a lifetime cast?

That is the question, I guess.

Was it done later?

Was it done last week?

I don't think last week, but...

Right.

My feeling is that it is an authentic period one done somewhere between 1880 and 1917 or 1918, during his lifetime or very shortly thereafter.

You must get a certificate from the Committee Auguste Rodin.

There's a process, there's an application form that you fill out, there's a fee involved.

Right now, they charge 1,400 Euros, and in June of this year, 2016, in London, one brought $450,000.

Wow!

Wow, that... Wow!

$450,000?

That is amazing.

Amazing.

Right.

So at auction, an estimate on this would be in that $400,000 to $500,000 range.

Wow.

I gotta get the heck out of Dodge here.

How am I gonna... (laughs) Wow.

We have protection for you.

Oh, thank you.

(laughs) That is incredible.

If it turns out not to be an authentic authorized casting, it can be worth $5,000, maybe even $10,000 at auction.

Wow, even for a not... a non-authenticated?

Right, even as a really high-quality reproduction, it still can have substantial value.

Wow.

It's really remarkable.

We actually see a lot of Rodins on the show, and every single one is a fake or reproduction.

Same way we see Remington bronzes at every show.

Every one.

They're all reproductions.

In the 21 years of the Roadshow, there's been one authentic Remington bronze, and you've probably come in with the only authentic Rodin bronze ever to come in to the show.

Wow, that's amazing.

It really is.

I'm flabbergasted.

I suddenly want a beer.

And now, it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

And we had a super, amazing, fantastic time at the Antiques Roadshow.

There was some comedy, flash, and The Flash we learned, $1,000.

And a little bit of tragedy, only five to ten dollars, oh well.

And my Salvador Dali is real, and it's $250!

Whoo!

My Gorham silver plated terrine was worth $1,000.

And my thrift store painting was worth $1,500.

Thanks, Antiques Roadshow!

We found out this wonderful hat had very little value, but the broken watch had a whole bunch.

Had a great day at Antiques Roadshow with my son.

And our bust... ...was not a bust.

It was worth between... ...$800 and $1,000.

Yay, Roadshow!

And we have a painting and a tile.

Now, this, it kind of almost looks like what you scrape off of the bottom of a barbecue grill, but actually it's a painting.

We learned that it came from Germany.

It's not worth anything, but, you know, you can hang it in your house and say, you know, "I got a barbecue painting."

And I brought this antique snuffbox, but we found out it's not an antique.

We're the antiques.

We had fun!

Thank you!

I'm Mark Walberg, thanks for watching.

See you next time on Antiques Roadshow.