Crocker Art Museum, Hour 1

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" is fulfilling Californians' dreams at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.

When my mother died, I found this and one other, which unfortunately was eaten by dogs.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ PEÑA: "Roadshow" has set up at the Crocker Art Museum, a place that's a combination of old and new in both architecture and art.

The Crockers, Edwin Bryant-- called E.B.-- and his wife, Margaret, were pillars of the Sacramento community in the latter half of the 19th century.

E.B.

amassed a considerable fortune as legal counsel for the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and after he retired, the couple focused on collecting important Californian and European artworks.

E.B.

died in 1875, and in 1885, Margaret donated the art gallery to the city of Sacramento, much to the public's delight.

Thousands of "Roadshow" fans are delighted to visit the Crocker and show off their treasures.

Take a look.

♪ ♪ Well, this is, uh... what we believe to be ten pandas on silk.

We got it at a estate sale when we were first looking for art for our place.

MAN: How much did you have to pay for it?

$100, yeah.

Yeah, $100.

That's a pretty rare clock, isn't it?

It's a wicked rare clock.

It's actually still moving.

With the decoration, the way the numerals are, it's... MAN: It's better when it's dark.

Yeah, I know, huh?

We can see the yellow neon in it.

It's psychedelic-looking, you know what I mean?

And it works!

I mean, you can't ask for anything better.

Exact time.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It's a beautiful clock.

WOMAN: My grandfather worked for Hal Roach Studios.

He was kind of second-in-command there.

These are from "Babes in Toyland" with Laurel and Hardy.

And these were the toy soldiers that were done with stop-action.

So it was a 16th of an inch, and then they filmed it in 16th of an inch, and filmed it.

And because my grandfather was involved in this particular part of it, we got ten of them.

And you have five here.

Where are the other five?

Uh, with my nieces.

Ah.

So these will probably go to my son and my grandson.

There are actually a couple of different names for the movie.

You...

I think you call it "Babes in Toyland"?

"Babes in Toyland."

"The March of the Wooden Soldiers."

It was changed over the years, as Disney picked it up, and it was colorized, and so that was changed again.

But originally, it was a musical.

Disney wanted to pick it up.

And they said it was too expensive to animate.

And so that's when Hal Roach picked it up and decided to do it live-action.

You're so on the money.

Actually, it was an operetta.

Yes.

Done in 1903 by Victor Herbert.

Mm-hmm.

And when Hal Roach bought the rights, he decided to do this, and it was most famously a Laurel and Hardy film.

Yes.

And they're "insert sight gag here," because, of course, the picture of them dressed up as soldiers, as well.

Yes.

There were a lot of special effects done where they're shrinking Laurel and Hardy down to the size of these scale-model soldiers.

Yes.

So it was early days in special effects.

Why I was very drawn to them is that this is a very key moment in film history for this particular type of technology.

While we have examples in very, very early optics in cinema... Mm-hmm.

Of some stop-motion animation as early as the 1890s-- 1897 is one of the first examples...

Right.

What happened the year before this film came out, in 1934, is, you have a stop-motion animation movie that was all the rage.

"King Kong" jumped the technology of stop-motion animation to the very next level.

So to have a piece that ties into that kind of important historic piece of movie technology so early, also from a Laurel and Hardy film...

Yes.

It's kind of ticking a lot of boxes for me, and I think collectors would be very into them.

Oh, good!

Because it's kind of early days of, of special effects technology, people go crazy for these early pieces.

Yeah, and then you also have the bugler...

Yes.

Who's different from the rest.

And I think, in a weird way, if you were to have them all together, he might be the favorite, because we know that there's probably fewer of him than there are of the guys with the rifles.

Right, my mother gave away the drummer.

(gasps) I wasn't happy, but he was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

Do you know who she gave him to?

Yeah, she gave it to one of the people taking care of her.

Have you ever had these appraised?

Uh, once, but I don't think he was too much into it, so he didn't know, so I have no idea.

What, what did he think?

I think he said five of them would be maybe $1,000.

It's somewhat unprecedented to have such rare early pieces.

Mm-hmm.

And to have them in multiples.

Okay.

So if you were to take one of these, and put them in an auction, I would fully expect that they would reach at least $10,000 to $15,000 individually.

(laughs) Wow!

And you have five.

Wow.

So I'm no math wizard, but that's $50,000 to $75,000 for the set.

You're kidding!

That's amazing!

Yeah.

I had no idea whatsoever.

Well, they're going to be taken very good care of.

(laughs) That's with the assumption that you obviously wouldn't take all five and dump them onto the market at one time.

I think the price would hold up if they were slowly leaked onto the market.

My great-uncle was a steamship captain on this line-- the Dollar Line-- it's out of San Francisco.

And they owned all the mail service, and did all sorts of cool stuff in the '40s, and...

This one was scuttled in the '90s.

No, no, in 1949.

This is a salesman's sample extendable ladder, folded in half, seven stairs.

Nice shape overall.

One break here, which is to be expected.

Guess who did that.

(laughs) Well, you know, things happen.

I think an auction estimation for this piece would be about $1,000 to $1,400.

Seriously?

I think so.

Oh, you're my new best friend.

(laughing) Thank you, young man.

It was my pleasure.

Wow.

I love it.

When I was a little kid, my parents got it at a yard sale in Chicago.

They were looking for a salt shaker for their brand-new house.

But they saw this there for five dollars and they just had to get it.

And ever since then, it's just been on the wall in our house, and I've just always been curious about it.

Do you know when your parents bought it?

Uh, well, I was about one at the time, so I think, like, '98, '99.

Well, the painting is by an artist named Gertrude Abercrombie.

It's signed and dated, 1945.

Mm-hmm.

And it's very small.

Is four by five inches, oil on panel.

Okay.

She is known as, uh, a bit of a bohemian artist, a Surrealist, and she worked in Chicago, so...

Okay.

It makes sense that you would find it there.

She also has a lot of associations with jazz.

Dizzy Gillespie actually played at her second wedding.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So she really did move in those circles.

She's known for these Surrealist paintings.

She considered them somewhat of a self-portrait, and we know that, she said that, I'm not making it up.

(both laughing) In this particular painting, we can see the owl there.

There's the moon and the cloud.

Mm-hmm.

And we also have the cup on the table there, the proverbial witches' brew.

Mm-hmm.

She had trouble with alcohol, as well.

So I, I think we see aspects of her vision of herself as kind of a, a witch, a character outside of the normal.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

And it's all in a very barren place.

I think at auction, even though it's only four by five inches, we would give it an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.

Wow, wow.

That... that's a lot.

More than five.

That's... (laughs) I, I would have guessed, like, maybe $35.

Yeah.

Wow.

Her work is quite rare, and it's also on a major upswing.

Her strongest prices are all within the last five years.

Wow!

♪ ♪ PEÑA: The Minton tiles in the entry, vestibule, and staircase landing have held up well over the years.

The Staffordshire, England-based company was a leading pottery and porcelain manufacturer in the 19th century, and was thought to produce some of the best-quality tiles available at the time.

♪ ♪ WOMAN: I brought a watch that I found while thrifting.

And what made you pick out this piece?

It tickled me.

Every time I touched it, it had, it had heft.

It had weight.

And so once I did that...

Feeling of quality, huh?

Feeling something, and I guess that's what quality feels like.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

May I ask what you paid for it?

I paid about $100 or so.

Okay.

This model is the large size of the Blancpain Aqua-Lung.

I would date it about 1961, and it's a diver's watch, of course.

And it was made to go to 1,000 feet in depth, which was extremely deep for this time.

This watch is very complete.

I know you replaced the band.

An original rubber strap, are very difficult to find, the original rubber straps.

The straps can be worth over $1,000 for a black rubber strap.

Because it's a larger size, it's a very desirable model.

So do you know how much your watch is worth?

12 or 13?

Uh-huh.

And you're, a hundred or a thousand you're thinking?

Well...

Okay.

(laughs) Well, it would be nice if it were a thousand.

The value I'm giving you is just for the head of the watch.

And a head is a watch without a bracelet or band on it.

This particular model that you have, I think a low estimate would be $25,000.

And I think it more likely would sell between $30,000 and $35,000 at auction today.

Hm.

Oh, my.

That's very nice to know.

Thank you.

Ooh.

(laughs) I'm sorry, I'm trying to compose myself.

Yeah.

Thank you.

(chuckles) It's a really nice one.

You don't want to know where I keep it.

(laughs) No, don't tell anybody where you keep it.

You should lock it up in the bank.

♪ ♪ My grandfather called him Ham Gravy because of the color of his hair.

Okay.

Made my mother very mad.

She thought...

I thought it was a fabulous name for a doll.

JDK211 was the style number of this particular face.

I brought my dad's, um, junior violin.

He took lessons back in 1940, 1938 area.

And it's a... says "Stradivarius" in the, um, center of it, but we're not sure yet.

So my grandfather grew up in Japan... Uh-huh.

And then became a teacher in Japan.

Uh-huh.

He later became a professor at Stanford and I inherited his library.

All right.

I dared never touch the books until now.

Right.

Just before coming here.

So these books were published in Yokohama in 1895, and it's two-volume set of a, of a first edition.

We were very excited to see them because, um, not only are these two volumes extremely rare, um, they also have an incredible history.

The author, Joseph Heco, was actually the first Japanese-American.

So he was actually found at sea in the 1850s by an American frigate, and brought to San Francisco, and became involved in the Gold Rush, actually, in the 1850s.

He eventually became an American citizen and worked with the California, um, Senator Gwin.

He ended up in Washington, DC, where he actually met President Lincoln.

He later returned to Japan and worked with Commodore Perry when they opened up Japan to Western influences.

And he published these books about his life in 1895 in Yokohama.

Have you had these books ever appraised or evaluated in any fashion?

No, and you're saying this is the author?

Yes, that's an inscription from the author.

Not probably to your grandfather... No.

But to someone that he had known.

Yeah.

And that adds an additional level of interest associated with it.

Well, I can tell you that I was very excited to see these, because, um, only three copies of this book have appeared in the auction market for the last 30 years, um, so they're very, very hard to find.

(sniffling) Do you have any sense of the value?

Well, I would say conservatively, that the pair would probably have an auction estimate of $6,000 to $8,000 in today's marketplace, and you probably could have them insured for at least $10,000.

It's, it's an incredible book.

So glad you brought them in.

Thank you so much.

We'll put them either in a museum, or in a safe deposit box.

That sounds like a good plan.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

PEÑA: In the late 19th century, the gallery wasn't only meant for displaying the Crockers' art collection.

It was also used as a gathering place for Sacramentans holding private parties and public events.

Notable visitors of that era included Queen Liliuokalani from Hawaii, President U.S. Grant, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few.

WOMAN: I brought a Wayne Thiebaud silk screen from 1954.

It was a gift.

It's inscribed to my father personally, and spent about 50 years in a linen closet.

When my mother died, I found this and one other, which unfortunately was eaten by dogs.

(appraiser laughs) (laughing): My sister's dogs.

Well, this one survived.

This one survived.

I preferred this one anyway.

I have kind of a thing for birds, and I believe this is his first wife.

But I'm, I'm not sure-- that's family lore.

It's inscribed, "To Zach," which is my father.

Right.

"One summer of happiness."

Yes.

And my father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Uh-huh.

And he could adjust his schedule so that he had days free to volunteer at the art show at the old State Fairgrounds.

Right.

So that's how he met many people there.

Including Wayne Thiebaud.

And my mother, unfortunately, was an eccentric decorator who wouldn't allow nails in the wall of our house.

Oh... (laughing): So it was... That makes it hard.

It was never hung.

Okay.

So when she died, I got it, I framed it, and I love it.

Well, it was the perfect piece of artwork to see here in Sacramento because of Wayne Thiebaud's great history.

And Wayne Thiebaud is a fantastic American artist, and he's best known for his impastoed paintings of confectionery and cakes and... Pies.

Pies.

And ice creams.

Yeah, and his views of the hills of San Francisco.

He got his Master of Fine Arts degree at the state college here in Sacramento.

And Wayne Thiebaud, born in 1920, is still living and working.

I hear he still plays tennis.

That's fantastic!

(laughs) And this is a very exciting work because it's such an early work, 1954, when he was beginning his career.

He studied lithography and screen prints, and this is a color screen print or serigraph.

It's a small edition.

He was not doing large editions, he was not yet such a famous artist, so it's edition of 22.

And most of these are small-editioned, or not even editioned at all.

Even though it's six of 22, I've never seen another example of this print, and it, it's a wonderful image because Wayne Thiebaud is sort of known for his images, as you said, of, of cakes and candy apples.

He's sort of a pop icon of postwar American painting, of that kind of imagery that he made his own.

But this has very kind of a pop feeling, too.

It does.

The, the flattened colors, the screen print technique.

Uh-huh.

Reminiscent of Andy Warhol... Mm-hmm.

And other artists from that period.

Early Wayne Thiebauds like this are extremely scarce.

Right.

So, keeping that in mind, this wonderful early print, I would put at auction at $3,000 to $5000.

Oh, okay, that's great.

If it had been framed and kept flat, I think, at auction, a conservative estimate would be $6,000 to $9,000.

WOMAN: So Dorothy and Billy Rolls were my grandparents, but I knew my grandmother until she was 93, so she left everything in her show trunk to me.

They're just hard shoes with a piece of wood, and some bolts, that then bolted to the stilts.

Which is pretty typical because, where else are you gonna put your feet?

We brought a folk art carved eagle that we think is a John Haley Bellamy carving.

And we're here to find out if it is or not.

And talking to conservators, I said, "Well, we're trying to get tickets to the Roadshow," and she said, "That would be perfect, and take it there."

So here we are.

WOMAN: I inherited it from my mother-in-law.

It was a gift to her from a secret admirer that we don't really know who it was.

I had it in my house, and a friend walked in, and I was playing Nerf with my grandson around it, and they said, "I wouldn't do that."

And after that I put it away.

I know it's American Belleek, I've looked it up online.

I can't find anything like it, so I'm very curious.

American Belleek is a manufacturer in Trenton, New Jersey.

The mark has the word "Belleek."

Uh-huh.

And then the crown and the sword.

Underneath it, "O&B," and those same letters appear here in green.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, the "O&B" stands for Ott & Brewer.

The factory originally started in the middle of the Civil War.

In 1863... Oh, my gosh.

There were three people that came together.

And then Mr.

Brewer joined a few years later.

Two of the other partners dropped out, and by 1871, it was Ott & Brewer.

They were in business together as Ott & Brewer only until 1892.

So that gives a very, very specific timeframe within which this piece had to have been made.

Okay.

In around 1882, they brought over from Ireland two guys who had been working for the Irish Belleek factory, because those wares were selling extremely well, and they thought-- commercial hat on-- "We're gonna be able to do the same."

So they started a line that they referred to as Belleek.

Mm-hmm.

It's not exactly the same as Irish Belleek, but it was this incredibly thin, very beautiful porcelain body.

Mm-hmm.

Very translucent.

Uh-huh.

Really, really elegant pot.

Mm-hmm.

And this is completely hand-done and -painted.

It's really beautiful.

Oh, wow.

At auction, I would probably say something like between $1,500 and $2,500.

Oh.

And it's a really, really nice example of its type.

Oh, well, thank you.

Real treat to have you bring it in.

Thank you.

WOMAN: I went to answer an ad in a penny saver.

It was an ad for a mattress set, and I was a starving student in college.

I went to go buy the mattress set, and I met the person, and I saw the chair.

And I just fell in love with its design, and she allowed me to sit in the chair, the owner.

But she told me it's not for sale.

And so I said, "Oh, my goodness, I love this chair."

It felt so wonderful.

She said, "I'd only sell it to the right person."

I left her my name and my number.

A couple of weeks later, she called me, and she said, "You're the person."

And she said, "How much could you afford?"

And I said, "Maybe $25."

And she said, "Okay, um... How about $23?"

And so that's what I bought the chair for.

And then, a couple of years later, I was in a bookstore, and I was looking at a book about Nelson Rockefeller's house, and there is the chair.

I found this name, George Nakashima.

It was before internet, so I didn't have that advantage.

So about nine years ago, I'm at a party here in Sacramento.

A man walks in, he's kind of a cowboy.

I said, "What do you do?"

And he says, "I'm a walnut farmer."

And I said, "Nuts?"

And he said, "No, wood."

I told him about the chair and I said, "I think it was made by George Nakashima."

And he goes, "I know George!"

And he tells me about how he was sourcing walnut to George.

I just love this chair.

I love the design.

I love the wood, and I've used this chair.

It's not something precious.

It's something, a part of my life.

And it's in my living room, and my kids sit on it, and we just enjoy the chair.

It is very early in his career.

In the late '40s, after he was interned during World War II in a Japanese camp, he was exposed to Japanese traditional woodworking techniques there.

His first designs, of which this is one of the first designs, had a very strong Japanese traditional feel to it.

Hundreds and even thousands of years of Japanese woodworking had really remained unchanged, and traditional techniques had been passed down from generation to generation.

George was taking those techniques, honoring them, but then shaping that tradition gently towards modernism.

And what this chair is, it's a very elegant, sophisticated, modern version of a traditional Japanese crafted chair.

By the time he died in 1990, he had been making them continuously for over 40 years.

And his daughter Mira is continuing that tradition and making them today, so there's quite a lot of them that, that are out there.

There are also quite a lot of people who wanted to make chairs that looked like George's.

So how do we know that this is by George?

I don't know.

A couple of little small details.

The grass seat is original.

This is seagrass that's tightly woven, which is a traditional Japanese technique.

It's completely put together with wood pegs.

There's no metal screws, or any kind of nails-- this was all crafted by hand.

Right.

You can see that these side rail spindles here are pegged right here on the side.

That's typically a traditional woodworking technique, but George had a very specific way of creating those and attaching them to the rest of the structure.

Also, these side rail spindles are shaped by hand.

The legs, which are also hand-turned, turned on a lathe...

Some chairs that I've seen by other makers never have those types of subtle details that George had.

Mm-hmm.

So this chair is by George Nakashima.

That's great.

And it's known as the Grass Seat Chair.

And it's very hard to date it, except by looking at the patina.

The original oiled finish is a little worn, but it has a really wonderful warm patina.

And what year did you buy it?

1986.

1986.

So George was still alive at that time.

Yes.

They were made exactly the same between the late '40s and the time you purchased it in 1986.

But I would think that this chair is probably from the mid-1960s.

The wood is American black walnut.

These were made in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

You paid $23 in 1986.

What do think it's worth today?

(inhales, exhales) Okay, I'm gonna just go for it, I'll say $2,300?

That's a pretty good guess.

This chair, at auction, typically sells for between $2,000 and $2,500.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

They're rarely marked.

I've probably sold 100 of these chairs... Really?

Over 30 years, and I have never seen one that was marked.

And so it is John Christopher Miles, who was a Canadian artist but ended up moving to Massachusetts and lived just outside of Boston.

He rarely dated his paintings.

He rarely signed his paintings.

So there's very little known about him.

You happen to have one of the few signed and dated examples.

So, John, I'm looking at these prices for tickets.

They look like what you would pay for a soda and a hot dog.

(laughs) It's a little bit different now, unfortunately, the, uh...

I would have a lot more money if that was the price if I took a kid to a game right now, unfortunately.

In 1933, my grandmother was hired as a companion for an older lady, and they went to Hawaii, and they were there for 18 months.

And while she was there, she learned to play ukulele, and the hula.

And when she came home, she brought it with her, and I inherited it when she passed in 1984.

So when did she come back from Hawaii?

In... May or June of 1934.

Well, there's a label inside this that states that Kamaka took out a patent on the ukulele design on it in 1928.

So we know that it's between that period.

They had been making this ukulele in, in the pineapple shape for some time with different kinds of decoration on the face.

Sometimes they would paint the whole face like a pineapple, and sometimes they would actually paint the pineapple design in the finish.

But by this time, they were trying to make more of them, and so they, they patented the, the pineapple concept.

The pineapples on the, on the head stock and on the face, they're actually a foil sticker.

And what makes this one so exceptional is that it just sparkles.

And it's a very fragile finish.

It's just a shellac finish that doesn't hold up very well.

Oh, really?

The fact that it came back from Hawaii is probably a good thing, because it didn't get a lot of humidity.

It doesn't need anything.

It has its original tuners, and it just needs a set of strings, and it's ready to go.

Oh, wow, okay.

In a specialty shop, it would probably have a retail value of around $1,200.

Oh, really?

I'm so surprised!

Well, condition, condition, condition.

(laughs) This one, this one has that in spades.

Well, then, I'm glad.

Yeah.

I know she thought it... She took very good care of it.

Yeah, she obviously did.

So, so that's fantastic.

Thank you.

WOMAN: This is a Confederate uniform that was given to me by my grandmother, that was worn by my great-great-grandfather's son, who was in the army.

He came home because he was sick.

So he had his furlough paper, and his two-dollar bill.

Right.

In his vest pocket.

And he was able to come home to be with his parents.

But he did die two weeks later.

Right.

At the age of 17.

Wow.

His name was John Haygood Cartledge.

The information in regards to the, his history, of him going to war and coming back, was written by my great-grandfather in his autobiography, and so we have everything documented.

So how long ago did you inherit these?

My grandmother gave me the uniform, and I would say it was probably back in around the 1950s.

Wow.

And I've just had it stored in my closet.

So you've got here his vest, a shirt, his forage cap, and trousers, probably from around March or April of, of 1865.

He died in April 21, 1865.

Right, right.

The vest is made from what's called jean cloth.

It's a woolen and cotton mix and it's very common in the South.

It was a cheap cloth to make, very similar to what we would call jeans today.

Oh, sure.

But woolen and cotton.

The shirt is all woolen and it's pieced together in spots.

The pocket has pieces in it.

They weren't gonna waste any of the material.

His forage cap over here is blue, but that's also what's called a satinet.

It's a woolen and cotton material.

The trousers, as I talked about with the, with the vest, are also made of jean cloth, but it's a lot coarser.

It was homespun, really cheap, loosely woven material.

They're just so crude, and so nice, the way that they're stitched together.

They're so quickly made.

Surviving trousers are extremely rare, because when a lot of these guys came home from the war, this is all they had, and they had to wear it, to wear out in the fields, and the stuff was worn out.

So for us, these are the types of things that we sometimes see only behind glass in a museum.

You never really get a chance to handle them, let alone have a family history with them.

We don't know how many of these pairs of trousers survive, but there are probably a handful in collections around the country.

It's all really great that you have all of it together, with the key piece really being the trousers.

There's no way of really knowing who made these.

But being from South Carolina, they probably came out of an arsenal in South Carolina.

There's some fraying around the cuffs at the bottom and other wear areas you would expect to see.

But they're in extremely good condition.

He probably wore them for a little while and then he passed away.

They became keepsakes, and they were put away.

That's probably why they all survive.

The cap has a little more wear.

Yes.

Um, there are sweat stains all around the outside of it.

But, you know, these things are in great condition.

When you came in, I'm sure you noticed the excitement with us at the table.

So we talked about it for a while.

And with all of the pieces, the history, we put an auction estimate of between $50,000 and $80,000 on the group.

Oh, that is, is shocking.

(laughing): Yeah.

Well, it's wonderful stuff, and extremely, extremely rare.

Officers' uniforms survive more abundantly than enlisted man's.

♪ ♪ APPRAISER: I'm thinking they're fish scales.

Fish scales.

And I... my guess is from the Philippines or somewhere in the East.

Okay.

Asian art.

Got some little shells here.

Some little faux curls there.

It's wired, I've got a butterfly here, but you can definitely see the ridges on some of these pieces.

I brought this beautiful jar I found in an estate sale.

I think I only paid $40 for this.

I loved the colors, the composition.

PEÑA: The Crockers collected an impressive number of paintings of California scenes.

German-born artist turned California resident Charles Christian Nahl was an acclaimed painter and lithographer of the California Gold Rush.

This piece, "Sunday Morning in the Mines," created in 1872, is the best-known of the works commissioned by the Crockers.

The allegorical painting depicts virtuous miners starting their day on the right and the antics of those less upstanding on the left.

♪ ♪ I brought a clock that was given to my grandfather, who was an eye doctor.

In 1895, one of his patients gave this to him, and it's been around our family for a long time.

It was in our house, where I grew up in San Francisco, for probably about 30 years.

(ball clicking) Every minute, another ball would drop and you'd hear it go down the ramps.

In a quiet living room, you can hear the ball come down-- it made that same sound, and it's so familiar to me over the years.

Narrowed it down between Austria and France for the country of origin.

Okay.

Well, the clock is French.

We have a green onyx base.

They loved this in the latter part of the 19th century, brass and steel construction.

This type of clock, a lot of times you'll hear them referred to as a water wheel clock-- no water involved.

You mentioned that sometimes it'd throw a ball bearing every now and then.

Yes, and we, we added these little parts to it-- if it were antique value, they can come off easily-- which tends to keep the balls a little more compliant.

And we also added this little tray.

And sometimes, at the end of a week, we'd find, oh, two, three, or four balls in that tray, and we'd just put them back into an empty spot... Sure.

...on the conveyor belt or something.

Sure.

Sure.

And be back in business.

There's a lot of reproductions, and I think the first thing I want to mention is, be really careful when you're looking at this form of clock.

You can be an expert 99% of the time by saying each one of those is a fake.

There's tremendous number of fakes out in the market.

Fortunately, you brought us a great clock here today.

The clock dates from, I'm gonna say about 1880.

I think that's a good date.

Okay, I'd buy that.

I don't know the maker, it's not signed, but whomever made it was very capable, a very, uh, good clockmaker.

The quality of the movement is superior.

You have all these other things going on.

So, value, had you ever heard of a value or thought about a value on the clock?

Well, in the '60s, there was a fellow in the Seattle advertising one like it for, um, $25,000 or best offer.

And I saw a reproduction on an internet site.

They claimed it was a reproduction.

They wanted $7,500 for it.

Wow.

I don't, I don't have any idea what something like that's worth.

Well, in today's market, the retail value on the clock would be $15,000.

$15,000.

Yeah.

Pretty expensive timepiece.

But wow, what a remarkable clock.

And it also gives a person a little bit of pleasure, because you have to fiddle with it a little bit.

You do have a relationship with this one.

Yes.

It's interesting to me that you, you put the gloves on as, as you handle this.

I don't know whether the patina holds up to the oils on your skin.

The patina should hold up fine to the oils on your skin.

I would even recommend, as you handle this in the future, just feel free to kind of get the hands on.

Free!

This is beautifully patinated bronze.

It's, it's very, very fine.

It's a sophisticated construction with a beautiful stand, which I think is fantastic.

Well, my parents bought it, um, in 1964.

When I was growing up, I thought it was actually a picture of my mother, but the story is that it's from a newspaper advertisement for Serta Perfect Sleeper.

And so this was the lady in the advertisement waking up on the mattress, and having a nice stretch, and feeling so good about the morning.

And at some point, I realized it was also a little bit kind of creepy and weird that she's having this dream about the Cossacks coming to rape and pillage, and she's got this little smile on her face.

And I guess my stepmother wasn't real sure about it, either, because she didn't really want it in the bedroom.

And so my dad took it to the hallway of the office where he worked, and there was a portrait artist that came into his office, and saw it hanging there and said, "You know, that's really very valuable.

"And if you'd like to sell it, I will sell it for you, and I'll keep half the proceeds and give you half."

And rather than do that, Dad brought it home and put it in the garage.

So I happened to be going by the house one day just a few years ago, and, and he was talking about how he needed to clean out the garage, and we went out to take a look and he said, "Do you want this?

No one else wants it."

And I said, "Of course I want it."

Um, one family member found out that I had it and was a little upset, because they felt that it's a valuable painting and I shouldn't just get it.

So my dad gave each of the siblings a check for $12,000, and gave me a letter of ownership saying, "I value this painting at $12,000, and I'm giving it to my daughter."

And so I ended up with it, and my husband won't let me hang it in our bedroom.

Um, and so it's in the guest room and, um... Just a beloved piece of my childhood.

Yeah, well, Ralph Goings is known more as a Photorealist.

This is one of his earlier works, in the early '60s, when he was, um, doing more figural works.

His Photorealists is what people really want.

Mm-hmm.

And they go well into six figures for the paintings.

Wow.

This one, because it's that early, and because figural, it's not always the...

It's not the prized one, but it's certainly worth more than what your dad wrote a note for.

(laughing) Right now, I'd put an insurance value on this at $75,000.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Then it definitely made up for the fact that I spent as much on the carrying case that I brought it here in as my parents spent on it when they first bought it back in '64.

That's amazing.

How much... How much did they spend?

$300.

That's great.

Yeah.

PEÑA: E.B.

Crocker's appreciation for art met his passion for the abolitionist movement in this tabletop sculpture, "The Slave Auction," created in 1859 by John Rogers.

More than just a scene of a family tragedy, the piece, often called "Uncle Tom's Cabin in Plaster," depicts an enslaved black American family being sold at auction.

The politically charged sculpture, though mass produced, was not commercially popular.

However, the piece certainly must have resonated with Crocker's abolitionist views.

My father collected primitive art.

That's, um, more like island mask.

Uh, South Pacific.

And it's, typically, this style mask is much larger and also typically has a finial on it.

It's a ceremonial mask.

This is a Solomon Island canoe prow.

Mm-hmm.

So they would lash this onto the front of their canoe, and that would be for safe travels and for protection of the, the crew on board.

The canoe prow he bought from a dealer.

And I think he paid $450 for that.

Okay.

And this is back, late '60s.

The Mortlock Island mask, I think he paid $2,000, and he purchased that from the Rose Bowl swap meet.

My father estimated that these were 19th-century.

He gave estimates on these, but to the last estimate that he noted was from 1999.

On this, he had said $75,000 at that time.

Okay.

And on the mask, I believe that was around $12,000.

Well, first of all, let's do the geography.

We are in the Pacific.

Yup.

And if you look at New Guinea...

Right.

This piece is also in Melanesia and is way to the east of New Guinea.

This is in Micronesia, in the Caroline Islands, which is due north.

Got it.

Of New Guinea.

Okay.

So that kind of puts it into perspective.

You can see down here on the edges... Yeah.

And on the nose, the eyes are popped out a little bit, and we have some conditions on the back.

Right.

That in itself does hurt the value a little bit, but it also tells us that it's probably been used.

Right.

So in that sense, it's good.

The same thing on the Solomon Islands.

If you look at the raised surfaces, you can see that there is a patina of handling.

Yeah.

This is a decorative prow that's on the front of a fishing or a hunting canoe.

Some of the research indicates that these things could be displayed prominently when they were returning from a hunting party to indicate that everyone was safe.

Got it.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

The next thing that we always are concerned with is age.

Right.

I've done a lot of reproductions on this show.

I can tell you that this is not a reproduction.

Thank you.

Stylistically, the painting is a little bit baroque on this.

We're looking at a 19th-century mask, and probably the latter part of the 19th century.

Somewhere between 1875 and 1900.

The ones that have really sold well, and that is in the six figures...

Right.

Actually are a little bit smaller than this one.

Oh!

This one's 23.

Those are in the 19- to 20-inch range.

Right.

Now, the same thing over here on this piece.

It's a little bit baroque when you look at the hair style on this.

Yeah.

The way the treatment is on the earrings, and I'm just gonna just turn this so the camera can see the earring and they can see the raised surface on the top of the ear and the bottom of the ear.

This mask is interesting, because we know that headhunting stopped in the Solomon Islands at the end of the 19th century.

Right.

So clearly, I think the date on this one could be in that same range...

Okay.

Of 1875 to 1900.

This object definitely was used... Mm-hmm.

But it's a later piece.

Right.

So we have to take that into consideration.

I will say that masks from Caroline Islands, specifically Mortlock, are extremely rare.

That's an important consideration when we come to value.

On this piece, it's a little bit later.

Yeah.

Now, it does have what appears to be a lot of use, but it's a little bit cruder.

What do you think the values are on these pieces now?

Starting with my dad's estimate-- that was before 2008, when everything dropped out, but now I know the economy is better, and things are starting to get more collected-- I would expect at least to recapture that level.

I'm gonna give you values based on what I think an auction would be.

And this piece here, I would go in, and I would catalogue the Mortlock at $20,000 to $25,000.

Okay.

On this piece, I would go $10,000 to $15,000.

Wow.

Now, maybe something would happen and it would go higher.

But I think those are good, realistic values.

Okay.

Now, if you came to me and you said, "I want to insure these pieces"...

Right.

I would say you should probably insure this for $30,000 to $40,000.

Mm-hmm.

And that one maybe $20,000 to $25,000, on an insurance value.

Got it.

Did I answer all your questions?

Okay-- you did, yes.

Do you have any more questions?

Can you make it higher?

This is a lap quilt.

That's why it doesn't look like it would go on a bed.

And the cat should stay away from it.

(chuckling): Cats should stay away from most textiles.

Whoever did this was very talented, I'd say.

I know, and pieced everything together.

Because they didn't have so much to do then.

(laughs) It's a, uh, silver, uh...

Some type of Art Deco silver piece.

We call it "the torch lady."

It came from France in the '60s.

MAN: This is a swivel gun.

It came from the Russian fort in Sitka, Alaska.

And when the Russians moved out in the late 1800s, not long after that, there was a gold rush in Skagway, and many, many people came to Alaska, and a lot of things were left behind, appropriated.

One of the people that came to Skagway was a man named Dr. Will Chase.

And in the course of his work as a doctor, he got this through one of his patients.

When the Skagway gold rush was over, the next big rush was in Cordova.

So many of the people moved to Cordova, and he was one of them.

And my father moved there after the war.

Worked in the hospital, he was an X-ray lab technician.

So he got to know Dr. Chase, and toward the end of his time in Cordova, Dr. Chase passed this on to my father.

So you think it's Russian or...?

Well, it came from the Russian fort.

For where it originated, I don't have a clue.

Okay, it's a swivel gun, and it would have been used mounted on a ship, and this would have given them latitude to turn it, aim it in several different directions.

It's actually a very typical type of swivel gun, um, that was used in Malaysia.

Malaysia!

Indonesia and the Philippines.

Okay-- okay.

The name of this type of cannon is called the lantanka cannon.

They're difficult to date, but I would think that this one is probably 19th-century.

But it has an unusual amount of decoration on it, more so than the ordinary ones.

Have you ever given any thought to value?

Not a clue.

I didn't know where to ask or even any idea to start.

At auction, it would probably make somewhere between $800 to $1,200.

$1,200?

Yeah.

Okay.

MAN: Well, it's a, a Joe DiMaggio autographed bat.

I got it through an auction in New Jersey back in 1976.

Well, first, let's talk about Joe DiMaggio, widely considered the best ball player ever, played 13 seasons, all for the New York Yankees-- 1936 to 1951.

Right.

And why only 13 seasons there?

Because he also served two years in World War II.

Nine World Series championships.

A 13-time All-Star, 2,214 hits.

He finished up with a career batting average of .325.

Most known for the 56-game hitting streak that still stands today.

Right.

Known as Joltin' Joe and the Yankee Clipper.

And I don't know how I could be more excited about an old wood bat to come in than this one today.

Tell me a little bit more about how you, how you acquired it.

I put a bid in through mail.

I bid $130 for it.

A gentleman back East bid $130, also.

So we had a three-way conversation via phone.

And they wanted us to outbid each other.

So I bid $135, and he bid $140.

So I went up to $147, and he said, "That's too rich for me."

And what year was this?

This was 1976.

As we're here today, in 2019 dollars, would be the equivalent of about $650 or so.

I made $150 weekly, and I put $147 for the bat.

My wife wasn't too happy.

When it came in the mail, it smelled like oil, like olive oil.

Tell me more about the provenance the auctioneer provided when you were bidding on the bat.

It was game-used, autograph, Joe DiMaggio bat.

The lady used to work for the Yankees in the front office.

Her husband was a collector, and she would get all these items for him.

He passed away one year and she didn't know what to do with all his stuff.

So she put everything up for auction.

Did you ever meet Joe?

Yeah, I met Joe DiMaggio.

I heard that he was doing an autograph signing at a college in San Jose.

So I went, I got in line-- very small line, I mean, nobody was there.

I was telling him about the bat, and I asked him, "Why is it black?

"Why is it burnt?

And why is it, uh, sanded?"

He said, "Well, you got my bread-and-butter bat."

He said, "You know, I get a shipment, "and I go through the bats, "and I pick the one that feels good.

"I dip it in olive oil, and I sprinkle rosin on it, "and then I put it under a flame.

"When it sets, I sand it smooth, and that's my bread-and-butter bat," he told me.

That's awesome.

It was awesome.

And one thing else I remember about Joe was, uh, he had huge hands.

His hands were huge.

What year was that?

It was 1994.

Did you have anything signed that day?

He signed a baseball for me.

And how much did that cost in 1994?

$30.

I was gonna bring the bat.

Mm-hmm.

But I didn't know for sure that he was gonna be there, and I didn't want to bring it out.

What you talk about is exactly what we want to see to authenticate a Joe DiMaggio game-used bat.

Mm-hmm.

The special characteristics that were unique to him.

Right.

And we know from his stories, he told people, like he told you, we know that it's documented about some of these features we're gonna go over about this bat.

So it is known that on his game-used bats that he did sand the barrels.

The other thing about this bat, too, is, we see the tape on the handle, We're gonna assume that's because this bat cracked.

Right.

But what a lot of use this bat saw before it eventually took a crack.

The bat came out in '47 and that was his MVP year.

From the Louisville Sluggers that, that I've reviewed, 1946 to 1948 is when these particular specs were part of Joe's order.

Right.

So we have the bat at 35-and-three-quarters inches.

We have it at 35.7 ounces.

That's not uncommon for them to be slightly under 36 ounces because of the sanding and the use.

Right.

This particular Louisville Slugger game-used Joe DiMaggio bat is made of ash, and then the last key component, of course, is the serial number on the knob.

Are you familiar with that?

D29, that's a small knob.

Yeah.

Yeah, so part of the Louisville Slugger process was, the players would order these bats to their specifications.

Right.

And they would vary throughout their career.

They would change size and weight.

Joe DiMaggio was only known to change about half an inch on the size of his bats over his career, but that serial number would not be something that would ever get shipped to a hardware store, or a sporting goods store, anything like that.

That number is unique to his game-used bats.

Right.

It's also signed by Joe DiMaggio.

We can only imagine with the use on this, how many hits did this one see?

If you've read about Joe's bats, Joe DiMaggio's game-used bats, they're not readily available.

And like, with ones like this, you can see how much use he would get out of them.

They're hard to come by, they're very desirable to the collectors.

I can find records as... auction records have been databased now for, you know, 20-so years, I can find maybe about 50 examples that have come to auction.

I am super-excited about this bat.

I would place a value at auction of $80,000 to $100,000.

Oh!

Mm.

(chuckles) Awesome.

Great, that's... that's great to... Great to hear.

Great to hear.

You know, I'll, I'll never sell it.

I would have a value placed on it for insurance purposes of $125,000.

Wow.

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

This is our porthole from the Walt Disney World "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" ride, and we found out that it's worth $3,000 to $5,000, and that the market's going up.

Uh, and also, more importantly, we learned it is stupid-heavy.

Finally, at long last, we found out how much these allegedly family heirloom is worth.

It's worth 20,000... Pennies.

(both laughing) And we brought this print that is our friend's.

She got it from her grandparents.

It's 100-year-old Hawaiian block print, and they valued it at $12,000, so we may not be giving it back.

(cackling) The reason I like this poster is kind of, if you look at it, and you go around, I can hypnotize people with it because of the colors.

(laughs) The expert said it was worth about 100 bucks, which is good for me.

I have some... also have some, um... handcuffs from 18...79.

Not worth anything, but they're fun to have.

(chuckles) And I have my great-great-great- great-aunt's diamond ring, her wedding ring, and it was about $13,500.

So we scored today.

(laughs) Uh, I'm 65 years old.

When I was 21 years old, I bought this statue because I wanted an antique.

It was my first antique.

I've watched "Antiques Roadshow" for 30 years and this is making my bucket list.

PEÑA: Thanks for watching!

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."