Omni Mount Washington Resort, Hour 3

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" is here for all of the discoveries being made in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

This is from the golden age of illustration, though, and it's masterful.

(laughing): That's a great $20 investment.

(gasps, laughing): Oh, my God!

Yeah!

♪ ♪ PEÑA: The allure of the majestic White Mountains has brought many thousands of travelers to the Omni Mount Washington Resort since it started as a seasonal hotel in 1902.

Guests from the early 20th century would take a train from Boston or Portland to one of three train stations here, switching to a horse-drawn carriage for the rest of the way.

Though the mode of transportation has changed, the trip to Bretton Woods is still one of breathtaking beauty.

What antique beauties have captured our experts' attention?

Take a look.

Well, I brought a cane.

I bought it online a few years ago.

I'm not a cane collector, but when I saw all these fantastic creatures on it, I had to have it.

I think there are 35 of 'em.

They just jump right out at me.

I just collect things that appeal to me and, uh, aren't terribly expensive.

The first thing I like to do when I evaluate a cane is to actually pick it up.

Okay.

And I do that because of the fact I like to feel the weight of it.

Uh-huh.

That tells me a lot about the cane.

Okay.

And this is very, very light.

And it tells me that this is probably carved of white pine...

Okay.

...or possibly basswood.

Both woods are indigenous to North America and both are easy to work.

Okay.

So it was, uh, the carver's wood of choice, uh, typically.

Okay, makes sense.

And let's take a look at this marvelous piece of art here.

(chuckles) Starting with the top, where you have this wonderful, uh, crocodile or alligator.

Uh-huh.

You have rattlesnakes.

Mm-hmm.

You have several of these detailed horny toads.

Yeah.

All species that are indigenous to North America.

Mm-hmm.

And going down the cane, we see more snakes, more lizards.

We have this wonderful spider here.

There's negative space underneath the legs.

Right.

So he just didn't carve it as a lump on the piece of wood.

He actually got under the legs and delineated each leg.

Right.

You go right down to the bottom, the metal ferrule... Mm-hmm.

...is still intact, which would have been put on most canes to help protect the bottom so it wouldn't splinter.

When we look at a cane like this, we try to identify it as part of a body of work.

Mm-hmm.

Because someone who made this cane clearly wasn't an amateur.

Right.

We don't know who the carver is.

(exhales) That's the interesting thing.

You'd think that you wouldn't stop with just one.

He didn't, but I haven't seen one.

He probably was working in the trades, possibly in a carving shop... Mm-hmm.

...probably around 1890, 1900.

Mm-hmm.

It's very complex.

You see these snakes, it really looks and feels like the snake is wrapped around the vines.

Ah, yeah.

Is engulfing the cane.

We look at canes and we sometimes judge them as good, better, best.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I think, clearly, this falls into the best category.

Oh, wow.

Cane collectors, some of them like the idea that they're polychrome-painted.

Yes.

Yeah.

And cane carvers, it's my theory... Mm-hmm.

...my belief, that some of these carvers did not paint them intentionally.

Oh.

Because you had this thick lead paint back in the 19th century.

Yeah.

And all of this detail would just disappear.

Disappear, sure.

If it was painted.

In terms of valuation, do you have any idea?

No.

Um...

I didn't pay a lot for it.

And, uh... What did you pay?

I paid $250 sh, plus shipping, I think.

I noticed that it had horned toads.

Uh-huh.

And it had alligators.

And the alligators are more Eastern, Gulf U.S. Mm-hmm.

And horned toads are arid desert.

And they meet in Louisiana.

So I thought maybe it was a Louisiana cane.

It's hard to pinpoint it that way.

Some of these are the experience of the carver.

Yeah.

Where he grew up, where he is now.

Could have migrated.

Yeah, it's a combination sometimes.

I think in today's market, a fair retail valuation for this would be $6,000 to $8,000.

(chortling) (chuckling): Oh, my God.

I had absolutely no idea.

Oh!

Great.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

Thank you.

WOMAN: So I got it about 20 years ago.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

It belonged to my grandmother-in-law.

And when she passed, the family got to go sort of pick items that they wanted.

Mm-hmm.

And as I was a daughter-in-law, I was the last to pick.

(laughs) This is one of the things that I picked, and it was actually very damaged, which is why I think no one else had picked it.

Uh-huh.

And I had it probably for about five or six years, and it was not quite wearable, because the stone would kind of slip.

So I went and I got it restored and spent a little nice sum of money to get it restored.

And I was stunned when I got it back, how beautiful it was.

Mm-hmm.

And what do you think that the central stone is?

I believe that it was amethyst, and I thought that's what I was told it was when I got it repaired.

Mm-hmm.

How much did you pay your restorer to fix the ring?

I paid about $850 to have it restored.

Mm-hmm.

So this ring is from the Art Deco period.

The Art Deco period began in France right before World War I.

And then it really caught on in America in the '20s to early '30s.

This ring was most likely made in America, and I would guess you're more towards the 1930 time than the 1920 time, based on the style.

And the center stone is what really intrigued me, because you said that your jeweler had said it was an amethyst, correct?

Correct.

Now, I don't know if you noticed that when you kind of rock it back and forth, or maybe you, you take it from inside to outside, that it has a little bit of a color change?

Yeah.

It goes kind of from blue to purple?

And I put it on a jeweler's machine called a refractometer, which measures the way light travels through the stone.

And it's not an amethyst.

Oh.

Um, so it is a synthetic sapphire.

Oh, wow.

So part of the Art Deco movement was this embrace and love of modernity.

They loved science and new technologies.

And a synthetic stone, so a stone created in a lab, was really interesting to them.

And people really loved them in j, in, in jewelry.

So this is a synthetic sapphire.

It is chemically identical to a sapphire that's grown in the Earth.

It just happens to have been grown in a lab.

And I, and I love the fact that they change color.

There's a very, very rare amount of natural sapphires that change color.

But synthetics can do it more often, and I just think it's fun, when you're inside, it's one color, and you're outside, it's another.

This wasn't a cheap stone.

I think sometimes now when we hear synthetic, we, we think that's a bad thing, but it wasn't then.

Yeah.

The mount on this is an extremely expensive mount.

It's made of platinum, it has diamonds, the workmanship is absolutely incredible.

If it came up for, for auction, we would probably be looking at somewhere in the $1,500 to $2,000 range.

Lovely.

(both laugh) That's so exciting.

If the ring were an amethyst, you would probably be looking at a value of about $600 to $800.

Conversely, if this was a natural color change sapphire, you'd be looking at $30,000 to $50,000.

PEÑA: It's been said that the goal of this octagonal dining room was to prevent any guests from feeling they'd been placed in a corner.

During meals, performers would sing, and an orchestra would play from the balconies to entertain the dining guests.

MAN: My mom, growing up in the '50s and '60s, was a president of a lot of band fan clubs.

After she passed away, I found this photograph album of all different photos of the bands that she had taken over the years.

Hm.

What's really interesting is that she was a writer for Union College in her freshman year.

Mm-hmm.

She caught wind that the band the Who was going to be playing at her high school, which was Union Catholic High School.

Hm.

Mm-hmm.

And she somehow finagled her way to get tickets or access to the green room... Mm-hmm.

...uh, for the Who's performance that night in the high school.

Did you ever hear anything from your family about this particular concert?

I did, because my father-- they hadn't met yet... Mm-hmm.

...actually attended the concert and sat way up in the bleachers.

And he told me that, uh, towards the end of performance, when things were smashed... Mm-hmm.

...that the nuns were a little, little sheepish.

(both laughing) The Who was one of the greatest bands of the 20th century.

They hadn't quite made a big impact in the United States yet.

In 1967, they had just played the Monterey Pop Festival earlier in the year.

They had just kind of gone to the second part of a little mini tour.

They had just been on the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Show," blowing up the stage in an infamous incident.

And in November, Keith Moon and the rest of the Who traveled to a small high school in New Jersey and played this fantastic and legendary concert.

We've got all four members of the band in this picture: Roger Daltrey on vocals, John Entwistle, bass guitarist, Pete Townshend, the guitarist, and my favorite, Keith Moon, the drummer.

You notice in a couple of these pictures that there's a little bit of alcohol in there.

There was.

My mother even said that when she talked to them... Mm-hmm.

...at one point, they picked up the microphone and put it in their mouth.

(both laughing) And if you look here, you can actually see the, one of the most famous drum sets of the Who, the "Pictures of Lily" drum set, as it's called.

And it's got "Keith Moon, British Patent Exploding Drummer" on it.

And it's got pictures of a nude woman, which I guarantee you was a little risqué for a Catholic high school in the '60s.

The high school did let other bands come back in later on.

That, that's exactly true.

So over the next couple of years, they had Cream.

I think what kind of ended the series was, Black Sabbath came and played the high school.

(laughs) I think they kind of toned it down after that.

It might have been the... (laughs) And in this gym, they packed up 2,000, 2,200 people give or take?

Yeah.

And they raised a lot of money, and it was a very successful concert.

You've got some great signatures here.

You've got Roger Daltrey on the top, Keith Moon, and John Entwistle.

But you're missing somebody there.

Yeah, Pete Townshend.

I couldn't tell you the story of why he didn't sign it.

Now, did your mother take these photographs?

It's my understanding that she did take them.

And did your mother get the signatures the same night?

Yeah, this was the only time she ever met the, the band.

The story is legendary.

There's been books and articles published about it.

They didn't do anything particularly horrible to the building.

They didn't burn down the high school, or anything like that, or blow it up.

But it was still just an iconic moment, where one of the biggest bands who would go on to play Woodstock, and Shea Stadium, and all these major concerts, for a brief moment, they're just playing in a little teeny high school.

These are great original photographs.

They've got some good color to them.

They're very candid.

It's brilliant.

Between that and the, the autographs, I would easily put an insurance value of $3,000 to $5,000 on it.

Wow.

More than I anticipated, so that's awesome.

These are the kind of pictures that fans would love to have, but I, I'm sure you're gonna tend to keep those in the family.

They're not going anywhere.

Henry Gasser is a, a very well-known watercolorist.

He traveled all up and down the East Coast.

Most of his scenes were done in the Gloucester-Rockport area.

It's probably somewhat tropical because of the trees.

I do believe that it is probably along the Carolina coast.

This is probably the late '40s or the early 1950s.

So the set is actually Chinese export silver.

Okay.

And it's by a maker called Yok Sang, which there's very, very little information we can find on the maker.

But we do know that they were a Shanghai firm and they were in business at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

I believe that it's missing a couple of pieces in the main set, because it should have a large pot on stand, as well.

Coffee pot on stand with a burner underneath.

The tray is phenomenal, but you almost feel like why would anyone want to put anything on top of it?

MAN: This is a shotgun that my great-great-grandfather in the Civil War captured three days before the signing of the, the end of the war at Appomattox.

And who was your great-great-grandfather?

Charles Porter Mattocks.

He was a Mainer who fought with the 17th of Maine.

You could make a Hollywood movie about Charles Mattocks' military career.

He serves through the entire war with the 17th Maine, and in early 1864, he's actually transferred to the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters.

Correct.

Yeah.

Berdan's Sharpshooters, probably the most famous elite regiment to fight during the Civil War.

And he fights with them through the Wilderness.

That's where he's captured, and then of course, he gets back to the regiment, right in the closing days of the war and one of the last major actions, of Sailor's Creek.

There, Custer's cavalry captures over 300 wagons, and your ancestor leads a charge that not only won two Confederate battle flags, it also secured these wagons.

And among the wagons' contents were items that belonged to Confederate General James Longstreet.

James Longstreet is one of the most reviled and yet one of the most praised of Confederate generals.

Like so many Southerners of the time, when his home state seceded, when the South seceded, he resigned his commission in the Union Army and he went and followed the South.

Particularly after Stonewall Jackson's death, Longstreet was certainly the major lieutenant for Lee.

He was his most trusted general, his "Old War Horse," as he called him.

After the war, he became a Republican, he supported Grant, his old friend, in his run for the presidency.

And actually ended up having several different governmental posts, including ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey.

All because he was supportive of the Republican cause.

Mm-hmm.

But of, for, course, that meant that in the South, he was considered a traitor and a turncoat.

It's a high-quality Mortimer shotgun.

The Mortimer family was in the gun business for a very long time, based in London.

They also had offices in Edinburgh.

And based upon the Edinburgh addresses on this label, we know that this gun would have been manufactured between 1840 and 1854.

This is a much nicer gun than your typical gun.

Wonderful banknote scrolled engraving on the locks and the tang and the butt plate.

It's a high-grade gun.

Sometimes talking about the Civil War, its causes, and material that's related to the Southern Confederacy can be upsetting, disturbing, because it's sensitive.

It, it, it's a, a dark period in our nation's history.

But also, you get to see what the moral fiber of a person allows you to do to go forth and to fight for the rights of other humans.

As a gun with no history, with the case, with the accessories, it's probably a $1,500 to $2,000 gun.

The subjective part is, what is the value of the gun because of all of the historical associations?

In the summer of 2021, some very well-provenanced Old West guns sold for exorbitant numbers.

Far exceeded their auction estimates.

One gun that probably was only worth a few thousand dollars as a gun sold for $6 million.

Wow.

So that indicates there's an incredibly strong market right now for guns with strong historic provenance.

And this has, near as I can tell, ironclad, wonderful provenance.

The lowest number we came up with for a low estimate at auction was $50,000.

Wow.

We honestly cannot agree on a high number.

We think that very legitimately an auction estimate of $50,000 to $100,000 is conservative.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in the right setting, because of the provenance, it approached seven figures.

It's fascinating to hear all that and interesting that collectors would pay that much for it.

But, uh... Well, I'm...

I'm not surprised.

(laughs): And I'm not aware of any other directly-owned-by-Longstreet- type items that are available.

WOMAN: It's a silver water pitcher that was found by my husband's great-aunt Anstice on the beach in Galveston, Texas, following the Great Hurricane of 1900.

She gave it to her brother when he got married.

He married the girl next door.

They had some sons.

The eldest was my husband's father.

They moved to Alabama.

He married the girl next door.

They gave the pitcher to them, moved around, ended up in Delaware in 1965.

My family moves next door, and we get the pitcher for our 25th anniversary.

This year will be my son's 25th anniversary, and we want to pass it on to him.

In the latter part of the 19th century, Galveston was a growing city.

The port at Galveston was one of the busiest in the United States at that time.

And then they got slammed by the Great Hurricane of 1900.

It, it caused massive loss of life, and by today's standards, billions of dollars in destruction.

That's what I... As a growing city, there was a lot of wealth in Galveston at this period.

So it's not surprising you would see a, a piece like this.

And it, this would have been a very expensive water pitcher.

Oh.

The pitcher was made by Dominick and Haff, and they were a very prominent maker out of New York, and they made very high-end, very high-quality silver.

(chuckles) And they would have sent it to retailers throughout the country.

And you can see here the retailer's mark of "F.C.

Thompson" and a maker's mark.

And it probably dates to about 1870.

Okay.

And one of the things I love about it is the detail, when we see here the beautiful workmanship of all of those repoussé flowers and the engraving on the reeded edge.

A silversmith actually goes from the inside and, and pushes those flowers out.

Oh, really?

And then they finish it by hand on the outside.

It's, it's wonderfully made.

And the other detail that I just love is the handle with those beautiful cat tails.

That's my favorite part, too.

(laughs) I would say, if this showed up at auction, I wouldn't be surprised if you got in the $2,000 to $3,000 ballpark for it.

(gasps, laughing): Oh, my God!

Yeah!

Sorry.

(laughing softly) That's exciting!

Does that surprise you?

Yes, it does.

I had no clue, but I never would have guessed like that, no.

PEÑA: A time-traveling guest from the hotel's early days would be happy to find a familiar artifact was still ticking: this early-19th-century clock made by the Elliott Company of London, England, with a clock face that has individual 14-karat-gold pieces and a dial that shows 29 days of phases of the moon.

The treasured object was part of a time-honored tradition for nearly a century.

The first guest of the summer season would wind the clock and the last guest of the season would stop the pendulum.

The tradition stopped in 2001, two years after the hotel became a year-round operation.

These white lamps I saw at a thrift store over 15 years ago.

I wasn't really looking for lamps.

I thought they were cool and they're glass.

It wasn't until I moved into my recent place where somebody pointed out that, hey, they actually may be legitimately old and worth something, and it made me curious ever since.

So what did you pay for them?

Probably no more than nine dollars each.

What part of the country were you when you got them?

Uh, back in the Atlanta area.

I'd go to thrift stores all the time just to explore and treasure-hunt.

But I don't really collect anything particular, and these just stuck out.

Who do you think made them?

I don't know, there's no sticker, there's no mark.

There's nothing I could find.

They're designed by Lisa Johansson-Pape.

She was Finnish.

Mm-hmm.

She was born in 1907.

She was a pretty great designer, um, in terms of, uh, decorative arts, but particularly lighting.

It's funny, because I spoke to a colleague of mine here at the Roadshow who is a specialist in the period in which these were made.

And he said in the 1980s... Mm-hmm.

...these were the modern lamps that people were looking at.

Wow.

It was just sort of, they were kind of a signature thing.

Yeah.

She was trained, um, at the art, one of the art schools in Helsinki.

She actually made lamps, glass lamps, during World War II.

Hm.

And then in the 1950s, she started to collaborate with a very famous company called Iittala, which is still in existence today.

It's a Finnish company.

And as best as I can figure, she probably designed these in about 1954.

Mm-hmm.

And then I think that they were produced as late as 1969.

I'd say a circa date of 1960.

They came in two sizes.

Okay.

And yours is the larger size!

(laughs) They're in very good shape.

It's, you know, it's a, an opaque glass.

Are these a specific shape for the design?

I think that you could probably call them a mushroom.

She did other things.

There's another, there's a Finnish word for onion.

She definitely liked, um, a stylized, streamlined fruit and vegetable inspiration.

These probably did have paper labels on the bottom.

Mm-hmm.

And they probably said "Iittala."

Because they're the larger size... Mm-hmm.

...in a retail venue, these would sell for between anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000.

Wow.

For the pair or each?

For the pair.

Pair?

Wow.

Wow!

(laughing): That's a great $20 investment.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

(laughing) And, you know, they're so, the design is so interesting... Yeah.

...that I think already, even in the '80s, they were being copied or they were inspiring other designs.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow, that's... Great eye.

Great eye from a very good friend.

WOMAN: I purchased this about a year ago.

I paid $20, and I found it through, like, a local buy-and-sell app.

And the woman selling it was getting a divorce.

She said that her husband used to own a gallery in the Boston area, and I think it's the gallery that's listed at the, on the back of this piece.

But I'm not sure.

The only other thing that she said was that she thought it might be worth more than $20.

The funny part was that I didn't like it when I saw it in person, or I was a little disappointed, 'cause in the picture, it looked like a painting, and it turns out it's more of, like, a sculpture, like a 3D effect.

But it has grown on me a lot.

I do really like it now.

So you've brought in kind of an interesting, um, piece of, um, op art, so optical art, um, by an artist whose name is Mon Levinson.

And that is lab, you know, identified on the back.

Um, and it, you know, it sort of comes across as sculpture because it is, you're right, it is 3D.

It's made out of, um, plexiglass, probably an acrylic.

And it's interesting in that it's composed of a lot of lines on different layers... Yeah.

...that sort of have that, almost like a kinetic look.

When you, you know, walk by it or look at it from different angles and tilt your head, it's going to give you a slightly different view almost as if it's moving.

Yeah.

Mon Levinson was an, uh, American artist born in 1926.

Didn't start off his life, I think, intending to be an artist.

He want, had a, a Ivy League degree in economics.

He took an active role in creating all of these himself.

So he learned, um, the techniques for the materials and did all of the... Wow.

...sort of design and assembly, which was unusual for this time period.

Yeah, that's cool.

It's 1964.

"Black Quiet Plane 1a."

He started off in the early 1960s with a group of artists who, almost, most of whom are better known than he is today.

His work was included in a really important exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965.

Okay.

Yeah.

And he had probably close to 30 gallery and museum sort of solo shows.

Mm-hmm.

So I think he sort of worked less and less and sort of fell from view for a lot of years.

There are series very similar to this in design that were screenprinted.

Oh, okay.

So he had, um, a version that was included in a portfolio of prints.

You paid around $20.

Yeah.

Those screenprints, at auction, you can get for probably around $200.

Yeah.

And those are, you know, re, released in a series of 200.

Okay.

Yup.

This is a one of a kind.

Okay.

If you were to see this in a gallery, in today's market, you probably see it priced at around $12,000.

Okay.

(laughs) I'd say I did good for $20.

(laughs) I'd say you did really...

I was hoping it would be at least $40, so that's good.

Yeah, you did really well.

That's great to know.

Thank you so much.

WOMAN: I brought a thing from Aviation Day.

Amelia Earhart was the guest speaker and she signed it.

The little town that I'm from in New Hampshire originally, you had to bring our trash to the dump.

They had a little store there.

I called it the dump store.

Some people called it the swap shop.

One day I went and I found an old sea chest.

Mm-hmm.

It was really in bad shape.

At the very bottom of the chest, in very good shape, was that.

In 1934, she was giving a speech, she was the keynote speaker, at the Rotary Club, and this is in Boston.

I've seen several of these, and her signature is always right there.

I brought a, uh, Lalique lamp that was purchased in about 1960.

My grandfather won, uh, some money at the horse track and took my grandmother and my mother on a trip to Europe.

And when they were in Paris, they went to the Lalique showroom and bought this.

This piece was designed in about 1947 to 1950.

It's on the original base!

We, wow!

That's great!

A lot of times, these get changed out.

The family calls it the Naked Lady Lamp.

(laughs) ♪ ♪ I was only about six years old in 1930s, and my father was a military officer.

And at that point, there was some sort of relationship with the Chinese military, and they sent a, a delegation to Latvia.

And as a result, my father ended up with a present from them, and this was their present.

Later, in '44, the Soviets came, wartime, and we had to pack up and disappear.

And we ended up in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and finally Germany, where we spent four years in a displaced persons' camp before coming to the United States.

It's still here.

(chuckles) We call it the urn, but we don't know what its purpose ever was.

The holes here at the top... Yeah.

Right here, and actually up here, too, although these are not pierced through the body, have a purpose.

And that is to let the smoke or the vapor... Mm-hmm.

...rise from the interior.

Mm-hmm.

And there's vapor and there's smoke rising from the interior because this is a censer.

Oh, yes.

And what it was created to do is to have incense burn inside of it with a layer of sand.

Mmm.

You put incense sticks, and the incense smoke would rise through these apertures, and the kind of very complicated interlaced design... Mm-hmm.

...here is a mixture of cloud scrolls or smoke swirls... Mm-hmm.

...or vapor swirls and vines, and the vines and the tendrils you see echoed here on the cloisonné enamel, which is lotus plants.

Mm-hmm.

And you notice this is stylized water.

That's the blue, with a rippling effect of the surface of the water.

The idea is that not only is it a censer where the smoke is rising, because that's burning, but it's also to make you think about the vapor that rises from a lake.

Mm-hmm.

And that comes up rising... (chuckling): Yes.

...in the evenings or the mornings, you know.

Yeah.

And it has that wonderful, mysterious aspect.

From the Chinese perspective, it carries an essence to another dimension, to Heaven.

Mm-hmm.

And so the prayers that would be granted-- for instance, the desires of the heart... Mm-hmm.

...would rise with the vapors to be heard by the heavenly powers.

It would have been a part of an altar set.

And in all likelihood, this is part of a larger set.

Oh, I see.

There would have been other pieces, in my opinion, and it's got this marvelous kind of legs that are an elephant's head with this trunk... Mm-hmm.

...that curls down and supports it.

From the artistic standpoint, you've got gilded bronze, you have the cloisonné enamel.

It's in very good shape here.

I can see that there's a stress fracture here at the top of the elephant head.

Mm.

I see.

The gilding has been in, kept in great shape.

I think it probably dates to the late 18th century, early 19th century, and is emblematic of the wealth and power of China at that moment.

Mm-hmm.

That was one of the high points of Chinese culture and art, and it shows the esteem, the great esteem, that they had for your dad.

Mm-hmm.

That they gave something like this.

Yeah.

I've seen lots of diplomatic gifts, but rarely do you see something of this kind of importance... Really?

Hm.

...tied to that kind of spiritual connection.

So in an auction setting, this would sell in the range of, I think, $2,000 to $3,000.

Okay.

It's worth something.

(laughs) It is worth something.

And it certainly was worth the effort that your family took.

Yeah.

Took care of it.

Well, we have enjoyed it so much.

It's always a centerpiece on our, uh, coffee table.

MAN: These are a couple of horse racing trophies.

My grandfather raced horses.

He was an owner from about 1950 to the end of the '70s, and he had a good horse in 1966 called Amberoid, and so this is the Wood Memorial trophy, which is one of the prep races for the Triple Crown.

And this is the trophy that he won for that.

In 1966, he decided to enter Amberoid in the Triple Crown, and I forgot how he did in the Kentucky Derby.

I, I don't think he did too well.

Placed third in the Preakness, and then he won the Belmont Stakes, and this is the small copy that they're, uh, allow the owners to keep.

Mm-hmm.

One of three, I believe, that he had a few extra made, and I, this is the one I inherited.

This was the highlight of his horse racing career, to win, uh, one of the great signature races in the United States.

Mm-hmm.

As you said, the Wood Memorial is a prep race for the Triple Crown series.

Mm-hmm.

And he won that race.

Then on to the Kentucky Derby.

Kentucky Derby, comes in seventh.

Preakness, comes in third.

What I love about his story, though, is that he was a Triple Crown spoiler.

(chuckles) So he goes off at five-to-one in the Belmont against Kauai King, after Kauai King was lined up and ready to, the favorite to win the Triple Crown.

So in addition to winning the Belmont, seven lifetime wins, and almost half a million dollars in winnings... Wow.

...uh, he played Triple Crown spoiler that day.

He was introduced to this jockey, uh, that wanted to become a trainer, named Lucien Laurin.

They got along well and they had some winners in the '50s, and culminating in, in the highlight of, I think, Lucien's career at this point as a trainer... Mm-hmm.

...with Amberoid in 1966.

And then I think Lucien Laurin retired not too long after that.

He actually became a Hall of Fame trainer because of his work with Secretariat.

Bill Boland, who rode the horse... Huh.

...he was a Hall of Fame inductee.

Oh, really?

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

So yeah, there was a lot of success around that team.

So you have the craftsmanship on the trophy here in front of me, which is sterling.

It's marked on the bottom, made by Ensko out of New York City, high-end silver company, and this solid sterling trophy has the, the cup inscription on the back, and then what's nice is, it has the inscription to your grandfather, with "Amberoid" inscribed on the front.

Of course, the original one's much larger.

Right.

And it's the ones they can commission for the jockey and for the trainer and owners that are the smaller version.

Fantastic tray here.

What's nice is that they did the horse motif on the front, and then on the back, they actually have the award plaque.

And that one also is hallmark sterling.

It's a massive and heavy piece.

You have the trifecta here.

(chuckles): Really?

You got historical importance, fantastic craftsmanship, and scarcity.

Hm.

So, I would put the insurance value on the tray at $6,000.

Wow.

And the great trophy here, I'd put the value on that at $14,000.

No.

Really?

Absolutely.

I had no idea.

I, I didn't...

I thought it wasn't, because it wasn't the, you know, the ones, the original one, that it wouldn't be worth...

It's still one of only three.

Wow.

It's phenomenal.

(laughs): That's good news.

Glad I made the drive.

(laughs) PEÑA: Over 500 guests celebrated the hotel's debut in the Grand Ballroom under the glow of electric lights made possible by Thomas Edison's company.

The innovative company had designed the building's electrical system, and Edison himself was in attendance that night, just one of many celebrities who would stay at the luxurious hotel in its early years.

WOMAN: Well, this watch was inherited by my husband from his father and from his father before him.

It was our understanding when he inherited it that it had been his grandmother's watch, because of the small size.

So he gave it to me as, as a present to enjoy and, and wear.

It wasn't until sometime later that I came across some old family pictures, and I could see, in this picture here, um, my husband's grandfather wearing the watch, and that's when I realized it was his watch, not his wife.

What did he do?

He was a race car driver, and he, uh, traveled all over the world racing cars, starting in about 1912?

He won his first race in the Isle of Man in 1914.

So he did a lot of racing and he was an inventor.

I love this picture right here, looks like he's playing cards with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

He is.

They were close friends.

Where did he originally live?

He lived in London.

Anything else you know about the watch?

Do you know who made it?

We know that it looks like a Cartier, but, um, we've always dismissed that because it doesn't say anything on the face.

I love this center picture here, because you can clearly see him wearing the watch.

And do you know what year he got married?

Because we have a picture of him wearing the watch here, on his wedding day.

Right, that was 1927.

It is an 18-karat-gold watch.

It is a men's watch.

Mm-hmm.

Watches of that period of time in the beginning of wristwatches were much smaller than they are today.

It is a Cartier.

Oh, well.

That's good to know.

Okay?

It was manufactured in France.

We looked at the mechanism of the movement.

Mm-hmm.

And the movement was signed European Watch and Clock Company.

Mm-hmm.

Who happened to be a private label that Cartier imported watches into the United States with.

So I suspect this watch was purchased in the United States.

Really?

Probably on one of his trips to the States.

Oh, that's so interesting.

Or, we don't know if it was given to him as a gift or not.

Now, the design of this watch looks like a, a modern-day Cartier Santos.

Yes.

At this period of time, they referred to them as a, uh, a Santos-Dumont.

Mm-hmm.

Named after the Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont in approximately 1904.

(whispers): Wow.

The aviator was very good friends with, uh, Louis Cartier.

(whispers): Okay.

And he complained about using a pocket watch to fly with.

Right.

So he asked Louis Cartier if he would please make him a wristwatch.

Ah... And here we have an example of that watch.

Your watch, by the serial number, we date it about 1920.

They started manufacturing these watches about 1911, and then they have progressed over the years with different mechanisms.

Mm-hmm.

You mentioned you couldn't find a signature on the face of the watch.

No, no.

There is not one there.

I looked real closely with a loupe.

It probably, I'm sure it had Cartier on it originally.

Oh, you think it did?

Okay.

The face looks like it's been cleaned over the years.

Okay.

It is a silver dial that has printing on it.

Oh!

And so that-- it's either faded off completely... Mm-hmm.

...or it's been reprinted and so it's missing the signature.

You have Cartier's serial numbers here.

Mm-hmm.

There's also French hallmarks on there, which is the eagle's head.

Mm-hmm.

You have the original winding crown on here, too... Mm-hmm.

...that has a cabochon sapphire.

And what about the fact that it's not signed by Cartier?

Some collectors, what, that's going to bother them a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Of course, if they have the option, they would rather have the signature than without the signature.

Mm-hmm.

But due to the, how early this piece is, I don't feel like it's a deal breaker.

Do you have any idea of the value of the watch?

No, I don't think so.

(laughs) We spoke to somebody in, a while ago, but they said they couldn't authenticate it as Cartier, and then, so they told me a couple thousand, maybe.

Mm-hmm.

Cartier has been making this model for, uh, 100, over 100 years now, so it's a quite popular watch.

Bigger is always better in size when it comes to watches.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

But this was the size of the watches at that period.

I like the size.

Oh, well, it's perf...

If it was bigger, my husband would be wearing it.

There you go.

(laughs) Your watch today at auction I can say would easily bring between $12,000 to $15,000.

(softly): Oh, wow.

That's, that's more than I thought.

(laughs) That's wonderful, thank you.

And one day, I'll, I'll probably hand it down to my daughter.

WOMAN: This book was given to me by my mother, and it was given to her by a girlfriend when she and the girlfriend worked at Fort Devens in Ayer during World War II.

They would go down and work, and there were prisoners of war there from Italy and Germany.

The girlfriend was given this book by an officer.

But the girlfriend and my mother were both engaged, and their fiancés were overseas.

When the girlfriend knew that her fiancé was coming back from overseas, she gave my mother the book, and my mother said, "I'll keep it for you."

And she said, "Oh, no, I don't really want "to have to explain why I got a book from an officer.

It's fine, it's now yours."

So my mother had it in her possession since World War II, and my mother did tell me that Al Hirschfeld was an illustrator during the war and afterwards, and she said he's fairly well-known.

"Fairly well-known" would be an understatement.

He was sort of the king of the caricaturists of the entertainment industry.

Of all the books he illustrated, all the magazines, this is considered one of his absolute best works.

It was a limited edition, it was something special when it came out in the 1940s.

One of the things about caricature, caricature by its nature is exaggerated.

Mm-hmm.

And there are a lot of times when you're doing caricatures, especially in the 1930s, 1940s, and you're doing it of Black people, Harlem, it's very derogatory.

Hirschfeld was aware of that, and he made a point-- and it carries through-- that these are celebrating Harlem.

Let's look inside, and we'll go to the title page.

The text by, was by William Saroyan.

Yes.

Who was a famous author.

"The Man on the Flying Trapeze."

But when people think of the book, it's the illustrations.

It was limited to 1,000 copies.

This is number 295.

Let's go to the next page to just look at a few of these illustrations.

They're lithographs, they're original lithographs.

This is one of the Lindy Hop.

I mean, it's just a beautiful color illustration.

There's also...

Here's one on a jam session.

He was trying to always show people in their best.

He was trying to show the energy of Harlem.

This was done in 1941.

It's very much a collectible book.

I didn't even know it existed until my daughter was going to college, and my mother said, "Oh, you should look at this."

Have you ever looked into the value or the price?

Not really.

Someone did look at it once and said, "Oh, it's not signed, so maybe a couple of hundred dollars."

That was about it.

Why don't we get it back to the front?

This is also a lithograph in the book.

Yes.

It's in very good condition.

It did come out with, originally with a big slipcase.

I have it.

Oh, you have the slipcase?

Yes, I do.

There you go.

All right.

That explains an awful lot of why this copy was in such good condition.

It's fantastic you have it.

It does add to the value.

I was going to say probably $3,500 to $4,000.

Oh, my!

Uh, but, with the slipcase, I'd say maybe closer to $5,000.

Oh, my goodness!

That slipcase is rare.

That's exciting.

My mother would be thrilled to hear that.

If you're gonna have one thing of Hirschfeld, this is it.

This is it, good to know.

Thank you so much.

APPRAISER: The watch is signed on the inside cuvette, or dust cover, Patek Phillippe & Co. What makes this watch a little bit more special is that it's signed also on the inside cover PP & Co.

So during this time period, a lot of watches were imported as a movement and were cased in the United States.

So this watch was cased and made in Geneva by Patek.

This one is completely original.

MAN: George Washington came to me when I was nine years old, from my great-aunt.

She worked for the Chase doll factory for 50 years, and she was one of the main people who actually painted the faces and made a lot of the clothes.

He is one of the harder dolls to find.

Mm-hmm.

They do show up, but they're very rare.

He is in marvelous condition.

To think this doll belonged to a nine-year-old blows my mind.

(chuckles) Just before the pandemic hit, I, uh, spotted these chairs in a consignment shop and thought they were pretty fun, pretty neat.

Loved the whimsy and design of the artist.

They actually rock, and, uh, they rocked my world at the time.

Yeah.

The shop went into, uh, lockdown...

Okay.

...and wasn't open for several months, but when I went back a year later, the chairs were still there.

The price was a little high for me.

When I inquired about the best price, I paid $900 for them.

And do you know who made them?

She said that the artist was Alan Siegel.

That's correct.

From New York.

Absolutely.

She told me that the owners were wealthy patrons of the arts... Mm-hmm.

...that had owned the Union Oil Company in Maine.

Apparently, the husband had passed away and the wife was downsizing, and these happen to be some of the objects that were given to this dealer.

Yeah.

So... Well, they are indeed Alan Siegel chairs.

So Mr. Siegel was a, a fine artist.

He made paintings, and he was quite successful at it.

He had some immediate success, which is unusual for painters in general.

And sometime in the mid-'60s, he had some sort of personal notion that painting wasn't what he was supposed to be doing.

Something in his own mind made him want to stop, and he stopped, and he rented a house out by a beach.

He started doing some sculptures, and again, he wasn't satisfied with the sculptures.

So one day, he, he decided he needed some furniture for his beach house.

(laughs): So he tore one of his sculptures apart and built a chair.

And people really liked the chairs.

He had representation in New York to a couple of galleries.

Mm-hmm.

That might be where your chairs came from, if they're from wealthy patrons.

He did shows all over America.

He, um, uh, did chairs in all sorts of styles.

He did a number of metal chairs.

He did a series of metal chairs using gingko leaves as backs and seats, which are just phenomenally beautiful.

All right.

These chairs obviously borrowed from the Memphis movement.

Wow.

The colors, the designs, the shapes.

Jazzy, right?

Very much so.

Yeah?

Yeah, the Memphis movement definitely wanted to break away from anything that was, uh, conservative, or anything that was normal, or anything that was everyday.

And these certainly do that.

We know they were made in 1989, because they're both signed Alan Siegel, and they say 1989 on the bottom.

And these chairs are obviously made out of wood.

It's hard to tell what kind of wood they are made out of, because they have several coats of paint on them.

So I'm not sure.

Whatever the wood is, it's strong enough to hold people up.

And they're bent wood, I think, aren't they?

They are bent wood, yes.

Yeah.

His work is, is just now being appreciated.

I think from a investment perspective, you were very astute to buy these when you did.

Huh.

'Cause I, I assume that, that the market will continue, and it will probably go higher.

Mr. Siegel is still alive.

Wow.

He's a wonderful man, he's playful...

I mean, how could you not be playful and make these chairs?

Well, I, I love them.

At auction today, they're bringing between $2,500 and $3,500 apiece.

Wow.

Apiece.

Awesome!

Yeah, so you did really well.

It would be very easy to sell them separately, and no one would be the wiser.

Mm-hmm.

I, I don't think I'd ever separate them.

PEÑA: Since it first opened in 1902, people have marveled at the spectacular mountain views from the hotel's veranda, which, spanning 903 feet, is said to be the longest in New England.

MAN: This was given to my great-grandfather, I believe, in 1910, by the artist.

My great-grandfather was an editor for "Forest and Stream" magazine, which became "Field and Stream" magazine.

And I believe that the artist was also an illustrator, and that's about the only connection I can, uh, get between the two.

It sat in our basement on top of a player piano for most of the time when I was a kid.

My mother didn't particularly care for it, so it stayed downstairs and wound up with a little hole in it at one point.

When my parents moved out of my great-grandfather's house, I think my mother found out that the artist had a name, and she wound up taking it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to have it restored.

They had it until probably the mid-1980s, and then she gave it to me.

I did a little looking into your great-grandfather.

He was one of the co-founders of the New York Anglers' Club.

Yes.

And that was in 1905.

This painting is signed lower left, W. Herbert Dunton.

He's really known as Buck Dunton.

And it's dated 1909, and then there's the inscription to your great-grandfather.

Buck Dunton is famous for two reasons.

The first one was his illustration work, which he started very young.

He sold his first drawing when he was 16.

And he was in the mold of one of those people who wanted to, to live it.

He just didn't illustrate it.

So starting in, uh, 1896, every summer, he would go west.

He had adventures.

He, uh, spent a while with a grizzly bear hunter, and then wrote a story about it.

Uh, he was in Colorado, he was in Montana, he was in New Mexico.

He was also in Mexico.

He said if he had been alive during the time of Lewis and Clark or Audubon, that, his exact words were that, "I wouldn't waste my time painting."

(both laughing) He wanted to experience the West, and he felt like it was already gone.

And he had a great run as an illustrator, and he worked for everybody.

Uh, as we know, "Field and Stream," as you said.

But "Harper's," "Scribner's," "Century."

Uh, he did book covers-- Zane Grey, in particular.

Oh.

This is from the first part of his career, but then he is very famous for the second part of his career, where he ended up in Taos, and he's one of the Taos Society of Artists.

This painting is, uh, oil on canvas, and I did a little looking, and I wasn't able to find where this was illustrated, but this was certainly done as an illustration.

This is from the golden age of illustration, though, and it's masterful.

That red right in the middle of the painting is not an accident.

And you'll notice that there's a, like, a triangular notch of light in the top of the painting.

Yep.

And then that draws your eyes down to the light between the two figures, right at the center of the composition, which makes you, the viewer, you're right into the narrative, right?

He sucks you right into the center.

And then that little handkerchief on the back that he has tied around, the figure with his back to us, also in the triangular shape, echoing the light above, and reflecting the red in the figure in the center.

It's all meticulously planned out.

It's just supposed to look like it isn't.

So have you had it appraised before?

No, it's, it really is the first time it's ever been out of our house.

And you don't know anything about that hole in that painting?

Which is-- the repair, you can see it, it's up here.

Well, other than, uh, three young boys fooling around in a room with, uh, throwing things at each other, uh...

I don't know which one of us, uh, did that, but, uh, um, my mother did get it fixed, so... (laughing) At auction, a reasonable estimate would be $50,000 to $70,000.

Oh!

Now, the reason it's not more, a little bit, is the hole in the painting.

(laughing) Really, the big issue is that there's no animals in the painting.

Even if these guys were hunting out on horseback and the horses were in the painting, that would, that would get us into six figures, for sure.

Oh, wow.

Okay, well, we'll have to get some horses drawn on that or something.

(laughing) PEÑA: And now it's time for the "Roadshow" Feedback Booth.

I was a little surprised to find out the value of the lamp.

Uh, it turns out to be $800 to $1,200, uh, which is just enough that I still feel like I can use it every day.

When I heard the value, I was really surprised.

Worth a ton more than I thought it was.

I'm just going to hold on to it.

I may have to use it someday.

(both laughing) I was very excited, because I found it at the dump store, and I was just thrilled that it's worth the money that it's worth.

I say, "Thank you, Dad."

I'm sure that I'm gonna put it away again, like it has been for 50 years.

(chuckles) I paid, uh, $20.

I bought this from a woman who was selling her ex-husband's stuff.

It's worth $12,000.

I just hope he's not watching.

I can't wait to hang this on the wall now.

I can't wait to have it sold.

(both laugh) I felt validated by the appraisal.

It was terrific.

My, my family thought I was crazy to have brought these chairs home.

It was the best thing I ever did.

I'm so excited.

This is a bucket list, go to the Roadshow.

Wonderful time.

Just, sock monkey had a blast.

Yeah, we brought sock monkey.

Turned out he was worthless, which we already knew.

(laughing) But the pitcher turned out to be worth more than we ever expected.

We were really surprised.

PEÑA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."