Treasure Fever

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" has just what the doctor ordered.

APPRAISER: It's ghastly.

(laughing): It is.

But your grandfather was a doctor, so it's appropriate.

He was, yeah, he's a physician.

And I got chills when you told me what you had in that box.

PEÑA: It's "Antiques Roadshow: Treasure Fever."

♪ ♪ So we have a whole drawer there, and even this drawer-- my goodness, look at all that.

PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" wants to know, how are you feeling about an hour full of treasures related to physical and mental health and well-being?

The salesman could carry this around from town to town and show the doctor exactly what he had.

PEÑA: Illness, aches, and pains are part of life, but the stuff connected to healing the human body can bring a lot of pleasure and pride.

From medical quackery... APPRAISER: Back then, electricity all of a sudden became the magic cure for everything.

PEÑA: ...to conventional health equipment... APPRAISER: It's really like a snapshot of what a doctor would have in the field back in the 19th century.

PEÑA: ...to items that are part of the history of medicine.

APPRAISER: All of these, as it's called, a Kreuterbuch, were for herbalist purposes-- remedies, nutrition, that sort of thing.

PEÑA: We've got a healthy collection of wellness-related stuff to show you.

Take a look.

MAN: We live in the Black Hills in South Dakota.

My parents ran a private museum in a Wild West show, and my dad was born in Deadwood, South Dakota.

Apparently some Lakota Native American ancestry on his mother's side.

A lot of the Native people would bring him pieces that they wanted preserved, that they were afraid would be lost in their family and things like that, and so... To the best of my knowledge, that's where this came from.

APPRAISER: This is a Lakota bag, and it is a doctor's bag.

And as you can see, it's beaded on all sides.

Yeah.

What's a bit unusual is, a lot of the bags are white background, and this is a blue background.

I want to show how this opens, and... As you can see, it has a trade cloth lining on the inside.

Now, there are a couple of ways that we can date this.

Yeah.

If you look right here in the center, these are metal-cut beads.

Now, metal cut beads really date into the 1890s.

Ah.

So this bag is 1885, 1890.

Really?

And it's not thread, it's sinew.

Again, that's one of the ways that we date Native American material.

I see.

One other thing that is an issue of condition.

Do you see this area here?

Yeah, I think there's another little small spot near the bottom, a couple of beads.

Exactly.

You have a few areas that, that need to be repaired.

Now, that does impact on value.

Uh-huh.

A lot of collectors would look at this and, because it has this blue background, and because it's basically in great shape... Yeah.

It would be highly desirable for them.

And you have almost this transition from Native American into the early settlers in the West.

Yeah.

And you have the blending of those two cultures... Yeah, it's fascinating.

Right in this bag.

Juxtaposition.

What I want to do is, I want to give you a realistic value.

And I think you can use this for insurance.

Okay.

In a gallery, I think you would expect to see this sell between $5,000 and $7,000.

I'm...

I'm flabbergasted.

For a thing that was just commonplace to me growing up, it was just a family item.

That, that's quite a shock.

MAN: Well, it belonged to my great-grandfather.

He was a doctor.

I know it was a salesman's sample that he kept in his office.

When my parents passed away, I inherited it.

My mother sent pictures of it to an appraiser in San Francisco in, I believe, '79 or '80, and they sent her back a note saying it was worth around $1,500.

Well, it is a salesman sample.

A lot of people wonder what's the difference between a salesman sample and a miniature, and the keynote of a really good salesman sample is that it has functionality.

Because the whole object of the piece was to demonstrate the item.

The salesman could carry this around from town to town and show the doctor exactly what he had.

And of all the salesman samples I've dealt with over the years, this is probably the most amazingly functional item I've ever seen.

It's a doctor's examination table, and it's a multifunction examination table.

The patient could lie down here and be examined with a pillow.

If he had to have his height adjusted, this could be adjusted here.

The legs would come up like this.

They could even... Do one leg at a time.

Hold them together.

It's absolutely astounding.

This is a little accessory.

It would go on the side if he had to examine an arm, or maybe... That's what I thought, for the arm.

...draw blood.

And it could, of course, go on either side.

The table would rock to one side.

I'm not exactly sure what that was for, but it could go either way.

This whole leg assembly comes off.

Oh, I didn't know that.

So that another feature of the table could be in place, where it becomes a gynecological examination table with the installation of these stirrups.

Other features...

This bends down.

So it has all this incredible functionality.

Another thing that elevates this salesman sample to the next level is if we can identify the maker.

Now, right here, on this upholstered foot rest, we see "Allison."

I did some research.

There was a company called W.D.

Allison in 1905, 1900, in Indianapolis that made all manner of medical equipment.

Uh-huh.

Nothing they made in that period that I've seen online was as amazing as this table.

But I think this table was made pre-1900.

Amazing detail.

Amazing condition.

Complete in all respects.

Uh-huh.

And I would estimate it in an auction at $15,000 to $18,000.

You're kidding.

I am not kidding.

Wow.

This is absolutely one of the finest salesman samples I have ever seen.

MAN: I was living in Brazil, and I saw this at an antique show, and it was presented to me as being some kind of a Chinese game or something.

When I looked at it, I thought, "That can't be a Chinese game.

It has all these different gems inside."

I said, "It must be like a, like an energy battery."

There are many people that believe you can use crystals to do healing and curing, and I really felt that that's what it was.

So I purchased the thing, $500.

And I took it home and I started examining it, and I discovered a tiny, tiny signature that it was made in Boucheron in Paris, 1884.

Several years later, we were in Paris, and I went to Boucheron, and I showed them the piece, and they thought it was beautiful, but they said, "We don't have the ledger on it."

So it was probably a special order.

The date absolutely fits Boucheron being formed in 1858.

Boucheron, a French jeweler of renowned name.

Right.

He was certainly one of the innovators of different types of motifs and styles.

And you have these little florets.

Then over here, you'll see a peony, and then we have a fan.

(chuckling): Right.

And then, if, if we roll it over...

There's even a little teapot.

There's...

Exactly, a little teapot.

Again, here's that repeating pattern.

We have some ferns around the edge, there's some bamboo.

So there's a lot of different loosely interpreted Asian motifs going on.

Now, this metal is sterling silver, and what's happened is, it's nicely oxidized to this nice hue.

And this is all hand-pierced.

They lay it out and they engrave it lightly.

And then they'll sit down and pierce all these sections out, and then after they're done piercing it, they go back and engrave everything.

This is very typical of the work that Boucheron would have done on a woman's nécessaire.

I think this is a healing nécessaire.

Now, we have to open it up.

We're gonna push this in.

The stones that are here, I looked up.

Amethyst is a very calming effect.

People use it for meditation.

Crystal can remove bad or negative energy.

Once you put these all back in here... And you would put the cover back on...

If you go to the other side, this side doesn't let them go down into the cylinder.

You put the crystal or the stone of your choice-- let's say right now you want to be calm.

You put the amethyst here.

You flip the cover... That's right.

And now you can hold...

The device.

You know, that's something that I hadn't thought about.

To show everybody where it's signed, because it is very tiny.

Very tiny.

You can see on the rims over here, it's signed "Boucheron, Paris."

And my feeling is also with you on that this was most definitely a special order.

At auction today, something like this could be $10,000 to $12,000.

Good, good.

That sounds great-- that's great.

It's a piece of quack medicine from the 1920s.

Back then, electricity all of a sudden became the magic cure for everything.

And this is an elaborate kit.

A kit in this complete shape would sell in the $400 to $500 range.

Oh, really!

It's not an original Norman Rockwell.

Okay, okay.

It's a photographic reproduction of one of his famous paintings.

Oh, okay.

If we could get the magnifying glass right onto the print, you'd be able to see... Uh-huh.

the little photographic pixels...

Okay.

But as a reproduction, it's probably worth about $40.

Okay, okay.

$60, in that range.

But a really, really smooth image.

Okay, I like it.

(chuckling): I can see why.

(laughs) What you have here actually is a mix of things.

This is from the First World War.

This is a... an officer's medical syringe kit.

The rest of this is medicine and cures and treatment, and that sort of thing that you would have during the Civil War.

Value-wise, for the lot, you'd be looking at, retail, around $350 to $400.

MAN: Okay, very good.

WOMAN: Well, my husband's great-grandfather was a pioneer physician, and I live in the house that he built in 1853, and his implements and things that he used in his pioneer physician days are in my possession now.

He made the rounds with these saddlebags and delivered babies.

This is an OB kit, which frightens me.

I always said I wanna hold my legs together when I see that.

So he did a little bit of everything.

Oh yes, oh, he just, yeah.

Country doctor had to know just about everything.

Absolutely.

And so he also did some dental work, too?

Yes, he did.

He pulled teeth, and I don't know why, but he kept the teeth.

I keep them in my kitchen.

I think it's an appropriate place to keep them.

Absolutely, where else would you put them?

(laughing): That's right.

It's really like a snapshot of what a doctor would have in the field back in the 19th century.

What we see here is that, with the wooden handle, that's before we understood bacteria.

Yes.

And so that was later replaced, it became all stainless steel.

So we see that that's probably circa 1850s, 1860s.

And then the saddlebag, which would have some medicines in it that he would carry around, again, right around that kind of mid-19th-century timeframe.

And the picture shows the Dr. Arnold, and then who are the other folks in the picture?

They're the two other Dr. Arnolds.

So it's a family of doctors.

It's a... three, three generations there.

To the right collector, retail value, adding everything up, I think we have at least $1,000 worth of items here, so... Really.

It's been in my family for only about 30 years.

It was given to my grandmother by a gentleman who apparently had an uncle who was a doctor... Mm-hmm.

And he was going to throw out all the tins and use the box as storage.

This is a student's cabinet made by the Park Davis Company... Mm-hmm.

Who's still in business today.

Probably made around the turn of the century: 1890, 1900.

And it is, going by the list here, little sample tins-- and they're handsome little tins-- of various medical roots, medical herbs, and all kinds of natural remedies.

And then there are more in the drawers, correct?

Yep.

So we have a whole drawer there.

And then, this drawer's full, and even this drawer... My goodness, look at all that.

And they...

They get bigger as they go down.

And it's a graduated set.

And the fact that it survived is amazing.

I've seen these tins from time to time at flea markets, in boxes, in medical bags, and they're worth, on their own, five dollars, ten dollars, $20 each.

Depends upon the condition.

I've never seen-- how many of them?

288.

All in very good condition, with a few exceptions.

And they're mostly full, aren't they?

Except for three.

Except for three.

And what ones are missing, do you remember?

I don't know of the other two, but I know that one was cannabis sativa, which my older brother got to.

Your brother got to the cannabis.

We won't go there.

(chuckles) They smell beautiful.

I feel like I'm in an exotic spice shop.

(chuckles) Because it's complete, excellent condition, I would give a rough guesstimate of $5,000 to $7,000 for the whole kit and caboodle.

Cool.

Great thing to find in the trash.

Yes.

MAN: I brought to you a painting by Zelda Fitzgerald.

She painted this while she was a patient in Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1930s.

And she painted this for a doctor who was the psychiatrist in charge of the John Hopkins Hospital.

I inherited it from the doctor.

APPRAISER: Everyone knows the story of Zelda, the beautiful young Southern belle who married F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rising artist, in 1920, and they became the quintessential sort of golden couple of the Jazz Age, of the '20s.

They knew everyone who was everyone in Europe.

Zelda encountered many of the Modernist painters and was influenced by them, and their storybook life began to come to a rather bad end when Zelda eventually succumbed to mental illness.

She was in various mental institutions during the course of the '30s and the '40s, first in Europe and then in America.

She died tragically in a fire in 1948 in a mental institution, and part of her therapy was painting.

She became a very accomplished painter.

We're looking at oil on canvas in what is probably a frame from around that period, and it appears to be in reasonably good condition.

Now, the rarity of these pictures does raise the question of authenticity.

I don't have an authenticity question about this picture because you brought us some very compelling documentary evidence supporting the provenance.

And this rather wonderful painting of nasturtiums also is convincing in its own right as her work.

But it would require consultation with some Fitzgerald scholars and experts in order to absolutely confirm the authenticity without any question.

The one picture which I have tracked down, from 15 years ago, sold for $4,000 at an auction in New York City.

In today's market, a conservative auction estimate on this painting would be between $10,000 and $15,000.

And I think for you to insure it, you should be thinking about perhaps $20,000.

Well, that's... very nice, thank you.

Well, thank you.

I'm very excited.

I got chills when you told me what you-- what you had in that box.

WOMAN: My father found it in a dump in Cincinnati, Ohio, when I was a year and a half old.

When my sister and I was ready to leave home, well, Daddy told us he wanted the oldest one to take it.

And my sister is a year and a half older than I am, and she said, "I don't want that ugly thing."

(chuckles) I said, "I'll take it any day."

Okay.

So he told me to take it that day.

Well, it's a very interesting and unusual clock.

It's called an optic clock, or an optic eye clock.

Uh-huh.

It was made by the William L. Gilbert Clock Company about 1910.

These clocks were actually made for opticians' shops.

Uh-huh.

Where they would use it for advertising.

And it's one of those interesting crossover pieces that appeals to different segments of the antique and, and collecting market.

This type of clock would appeal to clock collectors, as well as people that collect advertising pieces and folk art.

They've made reproductions of this form, and, in fact, I've never seen an original one in person.

I've only seen the reproductions.

Okay.

And it has the paper label on the back from the Gilbert Clock Company that helps to identify it as an original.

Now, it's not perfect.

It does have some condition issues.

The paint is flaking on the top here, and the pendulum rod has been repainted.

And also, the pendulum bob here, someone has put their monogram on it, where originally, this had another eye similar to that one.

Okay.

And it's very faint, but you can see the paint sort of peeking through.

The condition does keep the price down a little bit, but it's so rare to see an original version of one of these that it's still an interesting and valuable clock.

In today's market, in a retail store, you would expect to pay about $4,500 to $5,000 for this clock.

Okay.

Now, I'm aware of an original one in perfect condition that sold a few years ago for $15,000.

So condition is very important.

Oh, yeah.

Well, thank you for bringing it in.

It's a wonderful piece.

You're entirely welcome.

I said it'll stay in my house as long as I'm living.

WOMAN: It is a book from my father's family.

It has been in the family, I believe, since his grandfather.

We believe it's dated 1586... APPRAISER: Well, it certainly is.

It's right here on the cover.

And his grandfather was a pharmacist... And it was brought with a group of books from Europe?

Yes.

When was that?

We brought them over only about two or three years ago...

Right.

But they have been in the family for a very long time.

It's notable, particularly because of its binding with the date of publication squarely stamped on the blind-tooled pigskin cover, which is over... (knocks): Solid wooden boards.

Unfortunately, the front board has split.

And the book is a very popular text.

It's by Mattioli, who was born in Siena in 1501 and died in 1577.

Oh.

Okay.

And he was a herbalist.

His text was widely published, first of all, in Italy.

This is a German edition edited by a Nuremberg physician called Joachim Camerarius.

You see here, Nuremberg medicine, published in Frankfurt am Main... Mm-hmm.

In 1586.

And the beauty of this book is that it's among the earliest series of botanical illustrations using a woodcut technique... Oh, okay.

But making the illustrations from life specimens.

Okay.

From the plants themselves.

All of these, as it's called, a Kreuterbuch... Mm-hmm.

Were for herbalist purposes.

Remedies, nutrition, that sort of thing.

Is it done on the Gutenberg press?

This is nearly 150 years post-Gutenberg.

Okay.

This is a perfectly respectable printing outfit in Frankfurt.

Back here, we'll see the printer's mark.

Okay.

It's Frankfurt am Main, and it's printed by Sigmund Feyerabend.

Okay.

And there's the printer's device.

Okay.

And there's the date of the printing.

And it's seen some wear.

It's got some wormholes, it lacks its tabs and clasps.

But it's the most beautiful, nice, original old object.

Value-wise, Mattioli's works have been bringing quite a lot of money recently.

And I would value this at $25,000 for insurance purposes.

(gasps): Wow.

Wow-- that's great.

(laughs) WOMAN: This piece was my grandfather's.

It's ghastly... (laughing): It is.

But your grandfather was a doctor, so...

He was, yeah-- he's a physician, so.

It's appropriate.

Andy Anderson is a self-taught carver.

He was born in 1893, started carving in earnest in the late '20s, and got a job at Knott's Berry Farm in the early '30s.

He had a booth there, and he would carve all day long and make these, essentially, tourist gifts for, for visitors at Knott's Berry Farm.

Oh, okay.

And there is a collector's market out there.

APPRAISER: This is a "White's Physiological Manikin."

There are fold-out parts to this, so that you can show the patient or the medical student different veins in the body.

You can look at where the bones run through the leg.

It goes into the muscles and the tendons and the ligaments.

This is very detailed and wonderful work.

I would say that this one is worth somewhere in the vicinity of $1,000 to maybe as much as $1,500.

Very interesting piece.

Wow, I...

I'm just shocked.

(laughs) I'm shocked.

MAN: Well, I've got our family heirloom that my father received on his tenth birthday from his father.

APPRAISER: It's officially known as the Model 1840 U.S. Medical Officer's sword.

On the cross guard, we actually have the "M.S."

for medical service... Oh.

Or medical staff.

And we also have, on the blade, the "U.S.M.S."

Very pretty etched blade.

Original scabbard, original grip.

And medical pieces, in many areas of collecting, bring more than regular pieces.

Because it's a medical sword and because it's in very pretty shape, it's a piece that would retail for about $2,500.

Very nice, very nice.

Thank you.

Very exciting.

WOMAN: My husband's Aunt Bernice was an art student at Ohio University.

She had read an article about Nijinsky having an art show of the paintings that he did when he was having a mental breakdown, and she, being an art student, was going to write about some mentally ill artwork.

She wrote to Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and received a reply from both of them.

After Aunt Bernice passed away, I picked up one of her books to take home-- "The Writings of Sigmund Freud--" and inside the book was an envelope with these letters and the article inside of them.

It was kind of fun to find the surprise inside the book.

APPRAISER: The first thing you brought sort of sets the stage for the rest of it.

It's this news article called "The Mad Nijinsky," and basically it's a press release.

I mean, he was, of course, the greatest dancer, and he had a tremendous career, but he always had some mental problems.

And then, in around 1917, he had just about a complete breakdown and stopped dancing to a large degree.

Part of his recuperation was to do artwork.

Now, a few of the critics say his artwork started out with birds and insects, and then got darker and darker and darker.

What was happening here in this article is, there was a Leggett Gallery in New York at the Waldorf Astoria, and they were exhibiting some of his paintings.

They obviously wanted to sell the paintings.

Well, within it, they said these were so important that Freud and Jung had made comments and appreciated the paintings.

So your aunt, fact-checking, wrote to Freud, wrote to Jung, and said, "What's the story?

"Did you see them?

Did you like them?"

And Freud writes back, "I never saw Nijinsky.

"He was never a patient of mine.

I've never seen his artwork."

This is the original letter.

It's in German.

But someone in 1933, when these were written, translated it into English, and basically, he's saying, "You can never believe what you see in the press."

Jung, on the other hand, said that he believes that he saw Nijinsky as a patient during the war.

Now, of course, he was referring to World War I, which would have been the right date.

And he says he was schizophrenic.

He was essentially catatonic, and there was no way that he could even have a conversation.

And he never saw his artwork, so he has no comment to make.

But he's saying Van Gogh was a much better example, and maybe you wanted to study that.

So here are two letters-- Freud and Jung.

They wrote back, which is really wonderful, but they're talking about one of the greatest dancers of the time.

I would say a fairly conservative retail estimate would be, for the two letters, $15,000 to $20,000.

(no audio) Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness, I... Oh, my, that's wonderful.

I think I'm going to have to preserve these a little bit better than just leaving them folded in the envelopes.

WOMAN: This is a sign that was found in my home in Urbana, Ohio, back in, like, 1970s, when I was a kid.

And it was behind an upstairs wall, like, a knee wall space.

Well, after some research, I do know that there was a Dr. Jacob Leonard that lived in my home in the 1800s.

And he had a daughter by the name of Sarah, and she married a John Dupler.

And she might have been a doctor.

That's all I can tell.

This is a very, very rare American trade sign.

It's made of one piece of wood with a beautiful deep dish surround molding.

The lettering is gilt, and all around the sign is this sparkly substance.

People call these sand signs...

Okay.

But they're really smalt-- S-M-A-L-T. And smalt is crushed glass.

And they would actually glue that to the wood for these early trade signs, which made the wood almost impervious to the weather.

And that's one of the reasons this sign, this is in such wonderful condition.

The bracket is all original, early iron.

Probably dates to about 1830, 1840.

And a woman physician?

Pretty rare.

The sign would have hung perpendicular to the street.

And on the other side of the sign, it says, "Mrs. S. Dupler," and uses the word "doctress."

And a doctress is a female physician.

However, in the early 19th century, the term doctress was also applied to someone that had magical healing powers.

Ooh.

This is a very, very rare trade sign, and we're gonna put an insurance value on the sign of $2,500 to $3,500.

Okay.

WOMAN: It's been in my family.

My great-aunt owned it, and she lived in Palm Springs-L.A. area.

What I've been told about it is that her daughter was ill and in the hospital, and that her doctor gave her this photograph as a gift.

And then I was at a floral shop and I saw some greeting cards, and I saw the image on a greeting card.

So I bought the greeting card, took it home, and looked at the back of the greeting card, and it mentioned a gallery.

On the internet, I found a book that was pictures from the showing that was at the gallery, and this photograph was in the book.

And it's actually on the cover of the book.

Yes.

The name of the photographer is Dain Tasker.

He was a physician, a radiologist, at the Wilshire Hospital in Los Angeles.

Mm-hmm.

He became interested in photography in the 1920s.

And so here he is in his day job, using X-rays, and he has a kind of ah-hah moment, that "I'm going to look at flowers "as the subject matter, as the content of my pictures."

He'd already been photographing for about ten years.

And so the X-ray becomes his art form.

Mm-hmm.

Apparently, Dr. Tasker enjoyed gifting his photographs to nurses, to patients, to other physicians.

Mm.

And then he met a photographer in L.A. whose name was Will Connell.

And Will Connell was 25 years younger than Tasker, a very prominent fine art photographer, and he encourages the doctor to look at his work more seriously.

And he crosses over from being an amateur photographer to a professional.

At today's Roadshow, I've seen many other examples of X-rays of flowers.

Really?

Wow.

By photographers who apparently were local photographers, but who didn't have gallery exposure.

Oh.

And who didn't have their work reproduced in magazines and seen in salons.

So the value of their pictures would be a few hundred dollars.

Oh.

At auction today, a preliminary estimate for this photograph would be $6,000 to $9,000.

Oh, wow, that's great.

MAN: This is my third or fourth great-grandfather, William Perry, who sailed as surgeon's mate with Captain Cook in the Endeavour on his first voyage around the world, from 1768 to 1771.

Their mission was to sail to Tahiti and to observe the transit of Venus across the sun.

Then they were to sail on and verify the existence of the Australian continent.

So you can see here that the Endeavour is in the background.

Now-- but there's more to this story about Perry, correct?

He was the surgeon's mate, but what happened?

Well, the surgeon, Mr. Monkhouse, died, and William became the, the surgeon.

So he, he took over towards the end of the voyage.

1770, I think, Monkhouse died, correct?

That's right.

Yeah.

That's correct.

So, what I find remarkable about this is that your great-great-great- grandfather was part of one of the first long-distance voyages where scurvy was not a problem.

Scurvy was a terrible vitamin deficiency that afflicted sailors at sea.

Cook apparently was a big believer in feeding people fresh food, and he was involved with this, keeping the crew healthy.

The painting itself, I think, is also interesting, because it bears many semblances to the work of an early Chinese artist.

Now, we don't know much about this particular artist-- his name was Spoilum-- but he was known as the first Chinese artist in Canton to paint European subjects on canvas.

This particular painting is on wood, but this is very much in the style of Spoilum's paintings.

Of course, he wasn't in China on the Endeavour expedition, but he sailed on to four or five other ships and I would bet that he, he was in Canton at some point on one of those voyages.

You assume that to be the Endeavour because he sailed on the Endeavour.

But it could be one of his other four or five ships that he was on.

True.

The other thing that we have here are these great pistols by William Bond.

And you can see "Bond," with his London address, is stamped on the tops of the barrels of these pistols.

Bond is about as good as you can get for a British pistol maker.

Very desirable.

We assume that these are the pistols that he carried with him.

Yes.

You also brought this little powder flask; it contained shot and wadding and that sort of thing.

So it's a nice package.

Let's start with the painting.

In that present condition, it's probably an $8,000 to $10,000 painting.

The frame has been repainted.

That's hurt it.

My mother decided that it would look a lot better if she spray-painted it...

Right.

...with gold spray paint.

(laughs) The pistols themselves are worth about $2,500 to $3,500.

But since they're associated with this individual, we can, I think, bump the estimate up a little bit, to maybe $5,000.

So we're looking at a value of somewhere between $13,000 and $15,000 for an auction estimate for the package here.

It's a great story.

Thank you, I'm-- I'm very glad to know that.

WOMAN: My great-grandparents immigrated from Norway and settled in Wisconsin.

It's not from Wisconsin.

It's not?

It's from Arizona.

Arizona?

And it's made by the Apache Indians.

This is a medicine pouch, a very, very special bag.

It also happens to be very large.

I think it would sell for about $3,500.

Okay.

WOMAN: It's been in our family for so long.

I mean, generation after generation, and it's been at all of our drug stores that our family's owned, so... 1690, in this condition, you're probably talking in the $500 range.

Oh!

Okay.

Although probably half the medicines would kill you.

(laughs) BOY: It's for-- in case you get, like, a snakebite or something.

APPRAISER: Yeah, and who did it belong to?

My great-grandfather.

You know what's good about this kit?

Is that it's really complete.

It's even got the original directions on how to use it.

These are medical collectibles and they've become very, very popular.

Will you be surprised if I tell you it's worth about $100?

I don't know that.

No?

Isn't that great?

Yeah.

When I was younger, I used to always have an eye for looking for collectibles.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I saw these posters, and I knew that they were something.

And I didn't know what they were-- I didn't know the movie, I didn't know the actors-- but I knew that they were African-American movies.

So, that's the reason why I kept them.

I've never seen the movie.

I don't know anything about the actors.

Years back, I checked to see if the movie existed.

Mm-hmm.

And I probably had it framed about 25 years ago.

And so everybody just looks at it, and it's just like a piece of the furniture.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, hardly anybody asks any questions.

If someone new comes to the house, they, they're curious.

And... but, you know, I haven't been able to tell them a whole lot, except they see that, you know, "all colored cast," and that says a lot.

So, this is from a very... a very interesting sub-genre of movies-- we'll just call them race films.

And they were specifically films that were created for an African-American audience, and they were popular between about 1915 to about 1950 or so.

As a poster, it's interesting, but the art in it isn't terribly great.

It's only printed in two colors.

Whereas, for most other popular films of the time, they'd be full-color posters with fantastic art.

But these films were created on a very modest budget, and advertising is probably where they spent the least amount of money.

Right.

This is from the 1940 movie "Am I Guilty?

", which was re-released by Toddy Pictures as "Racket Doctor."

Yeah.

It's about a young African-American man who goes to, tries to start a clinic in Harlem.

Well, this is actually one of the few cases where the star was actually a star.

This fellow, Ralph Cooper, was the original emcee at the Apollo Theater.

Oh, see?

I didn't know that.

Toddy Pictures bought up a lot of the rights to a lot of these race films and re-released them under different names... Ah, I see.

To try to make a few extra nickels out of it... All right, okay.

Without spending any more money on actors.

Okay.

And the collectibility of posters and items related to these films has gone up dramatically in the last few years.

And right now, in this condition, we would estimate at auction, this would be a $400 to $600 poster.

Ah, okay, okay, okay.

I had no idea.

It's just been sitting on my wall in a frame, and...

So, I probably should get the other one framed, as well.

Yes, you should.

(laughs) WOMAN: My husband and I were in the liquor business many years ago, and one of his customers came in one day and said that her uncle had passed away, and he was an MD... Mm-hmm.

And that he had liquor at an estate sale that was from Prohibition.

So I went over, and among other things, purchased this liquor.

And for years, it has been put away, and it's never been opened.

How many bottles did you buy at the estate sale?

At the time, I think I had about 18.

Wow.

Yes.

And do you still have the others, as well?

I do, yeah.

And are they all different brands, as these are here?

Um, the ones I have now are the same brands.

Uh-huh.

I just bought-- I brought you one of each.

And how much did you pay for these?

I don't recall exactly, but it couldn't have been more than maybe ten or $20 for all of them.

What a great find.

I mean, I'd be thrilled if I went to an estate sale and I ran into these.

in the basement, yeah.

Well, this was probably at least 35 years ago.

Right.

We all know about the Prohibition.

It was a long dry spell for America.

Right.

It went from the year 1920 to 1933.

And there were a few select makers that were allowed to continue the production of liquor throughout Prohibition.

Oh, I didn't know that.

And first of all, you have the words "Bottled in Bond," which means that they were bottled according to the U.S. government standards.

Right.

But then also on some of these, you see where they're made for medicinal use, it says.

Right.

In the Prohibition era, you could go in to your physician, and it usually cost you about three dollars.

You could have bronchitis, or you could say you had bronchitis.

(chuckles) Right here, we have the Tom Hardy Whiskey Company.

Here, we have the Frankfort Distillery.

Over here, you have the Old Thompson by the H. Barton Company.

And then on the end, we have the special Old Reserve.

That's got to be the good stuff there.

And then back here, this wonderful red and green, which is from Old Taylor, which is a renowned brand that went back into the 19th century.

This one, in... for instance, has the original label on it.

It says 1917 is when it was made, and then 1933 is when it was bottled.

It has evaporated a little bit.

Right, I noticed that.

Yeah, and what it is is, there's not a super-tight seal on the cap.

These are very, very rare.

I've been in the business since I was 11... Really?

And I've never seen any.

And recently, there was a write-up on some bottles which sold at auction which had all this Prohibition "for medicinal use" on them.

Initially, I was thinking a lower value, but in talking to experts who have read some of these reports that have come out in the market lately, I believe a retail value on them would be $3,000 to $4,000 in today's market.

For the five of them?

For the five.

Yeah.

And you have 18?

Yeah.

Wow.

I am very, very surprised.

(both laughing) And pleased-- thank you.

WOMAN: It was bequeathed to me by a friend.

I believe it's a tansu, based on the design.

But what I love about this chest is all its secret compartments.

And I design and build contemporary furniture and contemporary tansu, and I build secret compartments into everything that I build.

The card that came with it said it was a 1740s Queen Anne apothecary chest, purported to be used for nobility.

One can pull out one of these and see that you've got this terrific little box, but it's really a visual pun.

Yes, it is.

Because most of these are not, in fact, drawers; they are other things.

They are other things.

They're sliding doors, or they are drawers designed to look like four small drawers, but in fact, they're broken up into compartments that have all kinds of other things going on.

Right.

And that's because this was made for someone who was a pharmacist.

What this does, it actually hinges together and forms a box, and you've got this wonderful plate here on the front, and the corners are reinforced with these metal plates that have this silvered surface.

These are in a Baroque, kind of Rococo design, which is a European design.

We're going to just look at the whole exterior, and what do we see?

The side that looks like it's one solid panel in fact... slides open.

You had said tansu, which is a type of furniture used in Japan and Korea.

This actually is made of a wood that is not teak, not padauk.

It's a wood called huanghuali.

Huanghuali was a wood that was used in Chinese cabinetry work.

Oh, okay.

From an early period of time during the Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty up into the 18th century.

It wasn't really used by any other cultures in Asia.

Okay.

That and this hinged box form is a Chinese form.

This was made by a Chinese cabinetmaker probably between 1720 and 1750.

This was made for somebody who was a well-to-do individual.

This was likely made in Southern China, probably in what was then called Canton.

Okay.

And it was made for someone who was working there or brought it back from there to Europe.

And stylistically, I think that individual is likely Dutch.

Really?

And I base that on the style of these mounts.

What a terrific object.

Wow, thank you.

This is so, so fun.

And the fact that it's miniaturized really makes it appealing, because it's portable and small.

Right, right, right.

It's worth, I think, conservatively, $8,000 to $12,000 at auction.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

(chuckles) That's amazing.

(voice breaking): I can't believe, such a gift!

If they were Chinese mounts, not these European mounts, this would be worth $50,000 to $70,000 at auction.

Oh, wow.

I actually moved here from Philadelphia, where I grew up, and this painting came into my family through my grandparents.

My grandfather was a surgeon in Philadelphia, and one of his patients was named Fern Coppedge, and I believe that this painting was something that Fern gave my grandfather in, in gratitude for the surgery that he performed on her.

Then my parents had it for some time, and then it came to me.

Hm.

So here we are.

You know, I have a theory that doctors actually have the best art collections, because so many impoverished artists end up paying their bills with paintings.

(chuckles) Do you know much about Fern Coppedge?

Have you... Not a lot.

We have another Fern Coppedge that my sister has.

It's much smaller.

The only thing that I know about this painting that my parents told me was that it was a scene in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, near where I grew up.

And that it was called "Goat Hill."

Well, Fern Coppedge is, she was originally from Illinois, and then studied in Chicago, and then moved to Philadelphia, where she had a studio.

She's best known, though, for her work done around New Hope, where she moved in 1920.

And she's associated with a group of artists known as the Pennsylvania Impressionists.

And of that group, she's probably the best known of the women artists.

She studied with Daniel Garber, who was probably the best known of them, along with Edward Redfield.

She was an en plein air painter-- she worked outside, out of doors.

She wasn't studio-bound.

Mm-hmm.

And she could be seen in New Hope, in the area, in the back of her car with her easel, sitting, doing these wonderful winter landscapes.

That whole market is very much in demand, and has been for some time.

Really?

She was very much someone who plowed her own furrow.

She was her own woman, and I really admire her for that.

Her sense of color was just extraordinary.

She was basically a Fauve painter, and very adventurous in the way that she chose to work and to portray the area.

Quite variable in terms of her output.

And I think this is an absolute gem.

The other thing that's interesting about it are the dimensions.

It's actually 30 by 36, which is unusual for her.

Really?

She often did 18 by 18, or she did 20 by 24.

The largest I've seen is 38 by 40.

And sometimes she'd work as small as 12 by 12.

I've never actually handled a 30-by-36 painting.

I have to ask you about the frame.

This doesn't quite go with the panting, in my view.

No.

I replaced the frame years ago.

The frame that was on it had pieces that were glued on, and many of them had broken off, and so I didn't think it was suitable to keep a damaged frame with it, and I don't know if that affected the value in any way, but... Well, it may well have originally had a frame by either Harer or Badura, who were the two leading frame makers in that area, and she often used those for her works.

It's maybe not the frame I would've chosen, but it looks after the painting and it presents it well.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the composition itself.

It really does lead your eye in here, with the road, and then over this bridge, and then up the hill.

I've seen her using this device before.

And it's very charming; it's...

It's just a wonderful compositional way of pulling the viewer into the painting.

Now, I've handled a lot of work by this artist.

And as I mentioned earlier, I think this is a particularly good example.

At auction, I'd feel very comfortable with an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000.

(gasps) How much?!

What did... And actually... $120,000 to $180,000.

Oh, my goodness.

(chuckles) I could actually easily see it making over $200,000.

You're taking my breath away.

You seem surprised.

I'm stunned, I'm totally stunned.

(stammering): I...

I didn't even think about bringing this.

This was a last-minute... "Oh, well, why don't we take this one, too?"

You chose well.

Oh, thank you so much.

Not at all.

Thank you so much.

PEÑA: Coming up, MAN: The cane was passed down to me after my grandfather passed away.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

It was given to him by his mother, and it was given to, I believe, my great-great-grandfather... Mm-hmm.

From Dr. Mudd.

Dr. Mudd set Booth's leg after he assassinated Lincoln.

Yeah.

And what's the connection between Mudd and your family?

He gave it to his cousin, I believe.

Yeah.

It's Sarah Mudd.

Mm-hmm.

Who would have been...

I'm not sure how far back to the grandparents' side... That's all right.

But our family, I guess, is somewhere linked to the Mudd family.

Henry Clark, who is, I believe, my great-great-grandfather, he did some legal work for Dr. Mudd after he was incarcerated, and that was given in appreciation for it.

Because he set his leg, therefore he aided and abetted a criminal.

Right.

And was tried in military court, and was sent to prison.

Yes.

And that was actually mentioned on this here.

It says to Henry A. Clark from Dr. S.A. Mudd.

And this says Dry Tortugas, which is where the prison, Fort Jefferson, was.

Right.

Which is on, off the coast of Florida, and the date is 1869.

While he was imprisoned for aiding and abetting Booth, he was in a carpentry shop.

Oh, okay.

He spent a lot of time, in addition to being a doctor, carving and turning wooden objects.

And he gave some of them to his guards.

Mm-hmm.

And he gave them to other people as a gesture of thanks.

And when there was a huge yellow fever epidemic in the prison, the prison doctor died.

And because he was a doctor, he volunteered his services to help and save so many people's lives.

Mm-hmm.

And actually, some of the soldiers wrote letters to the president... Wow.

To say, "You really should pardon this person, he's done wonderful things."

And he was pardoned by President Johnson in 1869, which is the date on the edge of the cane.

(chuckles) Interesting.

Now, if I just saw this cane, which was a very typical gift in the 19th century-- it's, you know, lovely tropical hardwood-- you'd probably be looking at maybe $150.

Okay.

But with the Booth connection, with the Mudd connection, you've got this fantastic artifact of a time for someone who had such an important role and still an enduring sort of question in U.S. history.

Value-wise, you're probably looking at $5,000 to $7,000.

Wow.

It could easily fetch $10,000, perhaps, at auction because of the Lincoln connection.

Okay.

And it's really-- this is a case where the story makes, gives it the value.

PEÑA: Thanks for watching this special episode of "Antiques Roadshow."

Follow @RoadshowPBS and watch us anytime at pbs.org/antiques or on the PBS video app.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."