Omni Mount Washington Resort, Hour 2

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: You never know what treasures will show up at "Antiques Roadshow," today in New Hampshire.

This is Leo and Reggie.

(laughs) I got them from my, uh, grandparents.

As you can see, I'm kind of a cat lady.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ PEÑA: The Omni Mount Washington Resort holds great importance in the history of New Hampshire, but its role in international matters really put it on the map when here, in July 1944, the World Bank was created during what came to be known as the Bretton Woods Conference.

It was World War II, and delegates from 44 nations met to come up with an economic system to aid struggling countries and foster global growth.

What emerged was an economic framework that helped to stabilize Europe after the war, including an international monetary system of currency convertibility centered on the U.S. dollar and gold, which lasted until 1971.

"Roadshow" history is being made today.

It's our first time filming in New Hampshire.

Let's check out some treasures from the Granite State.

This tricycle was in a house that my parents bought in 1958.

The house was built around 1900, and there was a wraparound porch, and one of my brothers was hiding his tricycle from the other.

Mm-hmm.

And he went all the way under the porch and found this under the porch.

Mm-hmm.

Did they ever ride this tricycle?

They rode it quite a bit.

This isn't your typical tricycle.

This is what is called a velocipede.

Sometimes they had two wheels like a bicycle, three wheels like this tricycle, or more.

You could have four-wheeled carts.

How old do you think this is?

1890 or so?

This probably dates from 1860 to 1880.

Oh.

In the 1850s and 1860s, there was an explosion of bicycle designs.

They were having, uh, ones with giant wheels, small wheels, chain drives, pedal drives.

This is just a really neat design for a tricycle, and it is one of the few that has remained pretty much unchanged for the last 150 years.

This one is in very, very good condition.

Um, it does have a little bit of paint loss, but you can still see remnants of the original... Yeah, I think it was red... ...pinstriping and red paint.

This seat-- so, nowadays, they would make it out of a bent piece of wood or leather.

This is actually one solid piece of wood that's just been carved, and you can still see, on the top, also, a little bit of the original paint, a little bit of wear from, you know, your little tushes riding on it.

Yeah.

Somebody's...

It looks like somebody's little bottom... Yeah!

...wore that off.

Exactly.

(laughing) The pedal has been replaced.

Yeah.

But it's almost identical.

That's the original on that side.

Yeah, it is the same size and probably the same type of wood as the original.

You've had a few washers put in, a few bolts replaced.

But overall, this thing is in very good, great decorative condition.

Most likely made in America.

Sometimes they'd have paper labels of the distributor, sometimes of the maker, but those come off pretty quickly with just a little bit of play.

It will-- kids, absolutely.

Exactly.

The antique bicycle market and restoration market has blown up over the last five years.

There are people who build larger, adult-sized version of these to ride around.

I would put an auction estimate on this of $1,500 to $2,000 in this condition.

Oh, good!

Great.

MAN: About two or three years ago, I was in the Connecticut area, and I purchased it at an estate sale.

I bought this and another painting and I paid about $3,000 for both paintings.

I just liked the look of it.

And also, I think several years ago, "Roadshow" had a painting on by this artist.

So that kind of provoked me to buy it even more.

I haven't cleaned it, touched it, or altered it in any way.

How about Bannister himself?

Do you know anything about him?

I believe he's an African American artist that was prominent in the Newport, Rhode Island, area in the late 1800s.

And that's about all I know.

Edward Bannister was born in 1828 in Canada.

Okay.

And so the interesting thing about, thinking about that is, that's less than 40 years after George Washington was elected the first president of the United States.

Wow.

And uh, he is in Canada, and that's a good thing for him, because imagine what would have happened to a Black man born in the South.

His chances of developing his skills as an artist would be minimal.

True.

As a young boy, his father died.

Then his mother died.

So he ends up coming to Boston.

And between Providence and Boston is where he spent most of his adult life.

And this painting was probably done while he was in Rhode Island, 'cause most of his work comes from his period in Rhode Island.

So this is an oil on canvas.

If you noticed, it almost is an impressionistic rendering, because of the way his brushstrokes are.

The overall appearance is a little muddy, and I think if you had it cleaned, it would improve its appearance tremendously.

In addition to that, if you can see, the, there's a little bit of cracking in there.

This is to be expected because I would estimate this painting-- it's, it's, it's not dated.

I know you said earlier that it might be dated 1888.

I thought it was, but it's hard to see that now.

Yeah.

It's probably from roughly around that period-- I would say 1885, somewhere in there.

So it's an old painting-- you would expect for it to have some problems.

And then finally, you can kind of see there's these little points where it looks like something got spilled on it or splattered on it.

Okay.

And that has to be removed.

Once a conservator works on it, I think it will greatly improve your chances of selling it at the best possible price.

Okay.

So as is, I think I would probably price it at around $40,000.

Wow.

But if you get it cleaned up, it could probably go for maybe $90,000 or $95,000.

Wonderful.

Retail, in both cases, yeah.

Wow.

Well, thank you so much.

Absolutely-- it's a great painting.

(exhales forcefully) And by the way, I would also keep the frame.

Okay.

I can't say for certain that it's original, but it looks like it's, fits the painting pretty well.

And it's pretty old, too.

It needs attention, too.

Okay.

Well, thank you for your time.

Of course.

Thank you, thank you for bringing it in.

It's a wonderful painting.

APPRAISER: This comb is a commemorative piece, so this would have been made in 1800, just after the time of his passing.

It's made of cast iron, and this was actually intended for a horse-- it was a mane comb.

Oh, gee.

(laughing) So it is not a comb for a person.

It's meant to be used on the farm.

Less than a dozen of these have surfaced.

Condition-wise, it is missing some of the teeth, but hey, if you're 200-plus- years-old, I'd be missing a couple teeth, too.

Right.

At auction, it would be in the $1,500 to $2,500 range.

It's just a really great piece of history.

Great.

Thank you very much for bringing it in.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you, Travis.

MAN: This was a painting that my grandparents were given by Marjorie Daingerfield.

The painting was done by her father, Elliott Daingerfield.

He's best known for his North Carolina views, his views of the Grand Canyon, and his religious pieces.

Venice, it's just a magical place to paint.

It's filled with light, and of course, it very much touches on that sense of spirituality for an artist like Daingerfield.

Were you to put it at auction, I would expect it to fetch $7,000 to $9,000.

(softly): Wow.

It's a wonderful little gem of a picture.

I'm so glad you brought it.

Oh, thank you so much.

It's a wonderful story.

Great to know more about it.

WOMAN: It's an incense burner, I believe.

A friend of mine was dying of brain cancer a few years ago.

And she insisted that I, uh, keep this for her.

Her mother-in-law was a world traveler, probably around 1910, 1920, and she brought it back from somewhere in Asia.

She wasn't close at all to her mother-in-law, and it was in a storage locker.

Only after her mother-in-law died did she find that this was in the storage locker.

This is a cloisonné enamel censer.

And cloisonné is a technique where you take a copper or a bronze base... Mm-hmm.

...and you affix it with wires and make partitions, which is what cloison means in French.

And this process came into China, 'cause this is a Chinese incense burner, around the 1400s.

By the time of the Qing Dynasty, which started in 1662, they had imperial workshops making things like this.

Because of the particular technique and the enamels involved, we can place it from the 19th century.

This piece is rich with symbolism.

What kind of fruit do you think this is?

Fruit?

Mm-hmm.

I have no idea.

It's a pomegranate.

Oh.

In this case, it's a ripe pomegranate, where you have these seeds burgeoning out from the surface.

Ah.

And pomegranate in Chinese is pronounced shíliú, and it's symbolic of having many children.

Mm.

And the fact that this is a ripe pomegranate with all of these seeds, which are multicolored stones, indicates that it's a wish for many, many children.

This symbolism here, which is cracked ice and prunus, means the coming and the welcoming of spring.

You have the plum emerging from the ice.

So it's of renewal.

An added bonus with this piece is that it comes with a complementary hardwood base, which is also carved in a series of ripe pomegranates.

Pieces of this fruit shape are usually smaller.

This is a big censer.

This is a tour de force object.

At auction, something like this would carry a pre-sale estimate of between $15,000 and $25,000.

Whoa!

(laughs) No kidding!

Yes.

What a gift from your friend.

Certainly is.

Thanks, Millie.

(laughs) PEÑA: History was made here, in the Gold Room, at this very table, when the final articles of agreement for the International Monetary Conference were signed and the International Monetary Fund was created in July of 1944.

Delegates were served their meals on plates like this one, with an M.W.

cipher for Mount Washington.

♪ ♪ We're looking at a hockey card of probably, my opinion, the greatest defenseman that I've seen in my lifetime, Bobby Orr.

Can you tell me how you got it and what you know about it?

Yeah, I, uh, definitely agree with you there, Phil, as far as being, uh, one of the greatest.

I, uh, in earnest collected baseball cards from 1976 to probably early '80s.

Not a hockey card guy.

Found this in my collection probably around 1980.

As far as acquisition of it, flea market, trading, which we did a lot of back then.

Did not purchase it.

Okay.

Did, it was not something that I consciously purchased.

It's a Topps card.

This is the English- language version, which was a test set done in 1966.

It was done just to test the market in the States.

Hockey was super-popular in Canada, and the cards would sell up there with no problem.

But they wanted to see how hockey cards were going to be sold in America when the expansion was coming through.

Once hockey expanded, expansion came in other cities, interest grew, the number of cards printed went up.

There's some great cards out there that have been printed in large quantities.

Gretzky rookies, Lemieux rookies, they're very valuable, but they did print a lot more than this card.

Well, I think Bobby bringing two Stanley Cups to Boston in the early '70s didn't hurt, either.

I'm surprised they didn't have every Boston fan in, in, in, in the state buying a card.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Bobby Orr is considered the Holy Grail of hockey cards.

The other thing I would point out is, they did reprints of these, and you have to know what to look for.

There are certain little key factors.

I looked at this under a glass, I had another appraiser look at it with me, we confirmed, it's authentic.

It's an original card.

Okay.

Have you had the card appraised?

Have you ever tried to sell it?

Had any offers on it?

Only had an offer on it, approximately in 1990, and I did have a gentleman offer me $500 for it.

When it comes to cards like this, the grade is everything.

And nowadays, with the market going crazy with graded cards, invest a little time and a little money, and have the card sent out and professionally graded by one of the grading companies.

Okay.

Because the price will increase exponentially the higher the grade.

And when you look at your card, it's got a little off-centering, but the corners are regularly nice.

There's a little bit of a crimp in one corner.

I would probably say it'd come back about a five?

With a little luck, it could come back higher.

The card, in that grade, for auction estimate, is gonna sell somewhere in the $5,000 to $8,000 range.

Nice, nice.

Uh, now, if it came back a ten-- which it's not, but potentially, let's say in a dream world-- it's about a quarter- of-a-million-dollar card.

Wow.

So it pays to get this thing graded, because again, the difference between a five, 5.5, or a six, it jumps up every single notch.

Okay.

It's a hot card right now in the market.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

WOMAN: My partner and I, we love antiquing, so we found it at an antique store right outside of Portland, Maine.

It has a button in it, so I, I assumed it had something to do with maybe, like, domestic staff.

It's a very high-style servant's bell.

Yeah.

19th-century.

Oh, okay.

And this wonderful gilded bronze hand... Mm-hmm.

...is sitting on a rosewood base, which is beautifully carved.

There is a little glass red bead on the top that you push, and on the side, there's a place for electrical wires to go in.

Yeah.

What'd you pay for it?

I think I paid, like, $65.

Oh, my gosh!

If I saw this in a shop in the $300 to $400 range... Oh, wow, that's cool.

...that would be a fair price to pay for something like this.

Yeah.

Wow.

Uh, it's, it's wonderful.

WOMAN: It was in the possession of my parents.

And when my father died and then when my mother died, we were splitting up the contents of the house amongst us, and I showed interest in the head, and then one of my siblings came up and said, "Oh, here's this letter that goes with the head," and I didn't even read the letter until I submitted it, um, to the "Roadshow."

Okay.

I just knew, "Oh, I better keep this with the head, because it's probably important."

All right.

It's titled "Farah the Beautiful."

"This marvelous piece of sculpture, "evidently a portrait head of the great "emperor of Egypt Ikhnaton, "the earliest monotheist, who reigned about 1300 B.C., "is equal to some of the best work of Phidias, "the famous Greek sculptor who came many centuries later.

"The material is a warm-colored limestone resembling marble, "and the beauty of expression and delicacy of the treatment have never been excelled by any sculptor of any age."

This is signed by a Mr. Parker, a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and came from Los Angeles on December the 15th, 1927.

The piece is not that early.

Okay.

Okay?

Ikhnaton was 18th Dynasty, which is about 1,000 years earlier.

This is absolutely typical of an early period of Ptolemaic art.

It's made from indurated limestone, and indurated limestone is very fine, and it doesn't crumble.

And so it was really a preferred material to make the sculpture out of.

The Ptolemaic Dynasty goes from about 305 to 30 B.C.

It ends with Cleopatra being beaten by the Romans.

And you see the Ptolemaic work here.

It's shown by these almond eyes and very finely defined outlines.

You've got a, sort of a triangular nose and a rounded chin.

You also get this sort of attention to detail on the sides here.

It's all very finely done.

Now, there aren't any obvious things on it to say who it was.

It's definitely not of a king.

There would be a uraeus on the front, which is the, um, uh, the cobra like that.

Okay.

And I think it's probably what they called a trial piece.

Now, a sculptor would do these and then present them to a potential client to show how good he was at doing details.

And they tend to be sort of half-life-size, but always fine quality.

As with all things, condition is important.

And even though this is 2,000 years old, they do come perfect sometimes.

Right.

But I think a conservative retail price for this would be in the region of about $20,000 to $22,000.

Okay.

(chuckling) I think it's really good.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much.

Oh, you're quite...

It's been a, a joy.

No, the pleasure is mine.

It's all right.

It's been a joy to hear about it.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: The Cave, on the lower level of the hotel, is a spot with some very interesting history.

Now a bar and grill, the space was first used for squash courts, and later operated as a speakeasy during Prohibition.

♪ ♪ MAN: I brought this pin in the shape of a butterfly.

I was asked by a friend to go to an estate sale.

The estate was from a prominent family in our area, and there were quite a few higher-end, nicer items and I was able to purchase this at the auction.

I bought it for my wife.

Huh.

And that's 2015.

Well, I've always wanted to start an appraisal with the two words "biogenic silica."

That's opal, silica from the oceans.

Over millions of years, plankton, algae, diatoms-- it compresses, and that's basically what opal is.

Now, opal is found in many, many places.

But this type of opal, where you see all this fire and these flashes most likely came from an area in Australia called called Lightning Ridge.

It has these huge deposits of this opal that they still mine to this day.

On the Mohs hardness scale, it's a relatively soft stone.

It's not like sapphires or diamonds.

So you have to be careful when you work with it.

It's delicate.

Delicate.

If you go back in history, the ancient Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians.

The whole tie-in between the magical powers of opal and then the metamorphosis and the just general free spirit that butterflies bring to people.

Hm, right.

And you have a great combination here.

It became very popular in Victorian period, the mid-1800s, especially insects and bugs.

Opals are sometimes, been said to be bad luck.

Oh, no.

(chuckles) Have you ever heard that?

No, I hadn't.

(laughing) I don't need any bad luck.

In 1829, Sir Walter Scott wrote that book "Anne of Geierstein," and there was a baroness of Arnheim in the book, and she was given an opal as a talisman... Oh.

And a drop of holy water falls on the opal, the opal loses its color... Oh, my, no.

She dies.

She dies.

Great.

So for a long time, people didn't buy opals.

And Queen Victoria said, "This is a bunch of nonsense."

She bought a bunch of it for wedding jewelry and she dismissed it.

I'm born in October, it's my birthstone.

So I'm with that it's, it's, it's all good.

Yeah.

You have two little cabochon ruby eyes.

Here you have an old European-cut diamond.

It's approximately one-fifth of a carat.

You know what you have here?

I'm gonna guess ruby.

Right.

So the first thing I did is, when I looked at it, I wanted to see if it was a ruby.

Synthetic rubies have been around since the mid-1800s.

And if you see, I'm gonna take this U.V.

light.

Can you see how it's glowing?

Yes.

Because of this reaction to the U.V.

light, man hasn't altered the state of the stone to make it better.

Great.

It tells me it's all original.

The frame is made out of 18-karat yellow gold.

We can look up inside and there's actually a mark up in there.

I've been looking for a mark since 2015.

(laughing) And I, I couldn't find the mark.

So it does say 18-karat.

Okay.

I didn't find the mark telling me it's English or French or American.

Right.

Looks English to me, looks Victorian, probably 1875 through the early 1900s.

In addition to the 18-karat yellow gold, you'll see the body in the center is, is this dark color-- it's actually silver that's been heavily oxidized.

Should I ask you what you paid for it?

There's some debate between my wife and I. I believe that I paid a little over $500.

She thinks closer to $1,000.

So we'll, we'll say some, we'll say she's right.

I'll say $1,000.

I'm gonna go with $750.

Somewhere in there-- $750.

Somewhere in the middle.

(laughs) In my opinion, it's like $750 per wing, easy.

Okay?

Oh, my, geez.

(chuckles) Okay, wonderful.

I'm going to go with, at auction, $3,000 to $5,000 today.

Great.

Wonderful, excellent.

Thank you, thank you very much.

This is a powder horn that has been in our family.

It was owned by my fourth great-grandfather Stephen Eastman, and he in 1775 went to Bunker Hill and was a drummer for Moses McFarland's regiment, and was in the Revolutionary War.

So he was in Captain Moses McFarland's company...

Okay.

...of Colonel John Nixon's regiment.

Okay.

Now, Colonel John Nixon's regiment was a Massachusetts regiment.

A lot of guys from that area right over the border into New Hampshire...

Yes!

...joined Massachusetts regiments.

He enlisted on April 30, 1775, and yes, he was at the siege of Boston, he was at Bunker Hill.

Now, he was out of service in Nixon's regiment by the end of October 1775.

And you said he was a drummer.

Mm.

Well, a drummer had a specific task in the company and that was to play the drum, which gave orders to the troops-- it wasn't just for music.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Um, so he would not have had this.

He would not have had a powder horn at that time.

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.

But after October, he goes back to New Hampshire and he joins Captain Benjamin Sias's company...

Okay.

...of David Gilman's regiment.

They were New Hampshire troops-- a lot of guys did that.

Oh, yeah, okay.

That's when he got the horn.

Oh, okay.

So he was listed as a private at that time.

So he would have been carrying a musket, not playing a drum.

Hm.

The carving would have been done only a couple of months after he re-enlisted in Gilman's regiment.

Hm.

So he ended up in service for quite some time, not just the siege of Boston, which is great.

Oh, okay, yeah.

(chuckles) Um, now, the horn is a little bit different than normal.

A lot of times, you see those carved horns, and they're carved through the entire horn.

This one, you've got kind of this lower third where you've got all the carvings.

Yeah, yeah.

I've not seen a lot of siege-of-Boston-type horns with dotted patterns like this.

Yeah.

A lot of times, they're straight carvings.

Mm-hmm.

So you've got pinwheels, which are typical... Yeah.

...and, and show up in a lot of furniture... Uh-huh.

...and other things in the 18th century.

Okay.

And if we look here...

Okay.

...we can see his name.

Mm-hmm.

Starting over here, Stephen.

With the backwards N. With a backwards N, right here.

(laughs): Yeah.

And then we have Eastmen.

Yeah.

With an E instead of an A. Yeah, and another backwards N. Yeah.

And then what looks like December... Yeah.

...1775.

See this lobe right here with the two holes in it?

Yes, yes.

A lot of times, that lobe is broken off, because it's the weak point of the horn.

Sure, yeah, exactly.

It's a great horn, typical New England form, plain New England form, except with the added carving.

Great pine plug, it's in wonderful condition.

I would say, given the amount of carving on it, an auction estimate would probably be in the $5,000 to $7,000 range.

(gasping) Excu... Now, if it had more carving on it, it might be worth more.

But like I said to you a little while ago, I've not seen one that has this dotted style pattern before.

Yeah.

And he has such a great service record.

Yeah.

So he probably carried this horn a lot longer than 1775.

Oh.

And it's great to have it in your family.

Love it, yeah.

And thank you so much for bringing it in today.

Well, thank you for all that information.

Oh, it's great.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: The Conservatory, formerly called the Hemicycle, has an eye-catching glass dome that was used to enhance acoustics for musical performances.

The 1882 Steinway piano was once in the home of the hotel's founder, Joseph Stickney.

It's still played today.

(piece ends) MAN: My grandmother Marguerite was born in, uh, Paris.

This photograph is of her in, uh, 1929.

She was 25, 24 years old.

It's part of a series of photographs by Man Ray.

The photo was given by my grandmother to my mom and then my mom gave it to me.

In 1921, Man Ray moved to Paris and he immediately became an integral member of the Dada and then the Surrealist groups.

He was fortunate enough to be exhibiting very early upon his arrival.

But commercially, he wasn't as successful as he would have liked.

So this led him to open a portrait gallery in 1922, which allowed him to have an income, but then also could practice works to express his own artistic endeavors.

Here we have a perfect example of Man Ray's artistic expression coming through in a portrait, and we can tell that he meant it to be a final work of art because he really beautifully mounted it, and then has his signature below.

It's a complete dreamlike state that is emphasized by her eyes being closed, and additionally, this defying gravity motion of her hair.

Women at the time during the Surrealist movement were often used to be seen as opposed for them to see.

And again, this is exemplified with her eyes being closed.

It's really not about her seeing and a documentation of her likeness.

It's more about his artistic expression.

In other places this work has been displayed, the picture usually inverted, so it's usually, her portrait is at the top, with her hair flowing downward... Mm-hmm.

...which almost makes a little more sense, 'cause it goes along with gravity.

But in here, we have this totally Surrealist idea of her face at the bottom and then her hair flowing upward.

This brings us to the book.

In 1934, Man Ray put together about 100 images and sent them to the publisher James Thrall Soby to create a book that he was hoping to have published in America and show the public what he was doing in Europe.

Now, what's exciting about your book and makes it very special is, we have this great inscription, which says, "For Guite, who helped make this book with her golden hair, Man Ray."

The book is titled "Photographs by Man Ray: 1920 Paris 1934."

And what's really special is, within this book, we have Guite.

The orientation is inverted.

So how wonderful for the concept of Surrealism to be able to have a single work in either orientation, kind of a totally different and exciting meaning to it.

And also to allow people to experience it in a different way.

If you see this book on the market, you often do see the cover falling off.

It has this plastic spiral spine that wasn't really well made.

This book in really good condition, I would estimate at $3,000 to $5,000.

The book has an added value because it's signed by Man Ray.

But having said that, the condition is really rough.

In the current condition, I would estimate it at $1,500 to $2,500.

Now we come to the print.

The image is quite special.

We do have some foxing on the mat, and additionally some silver mirroring, particularly in the darks around the print.

There also are some emulsion chips throughout.

An estimate to have this work conserved would be anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000.

I would have it conserved.

And then if you were ever to offer it at auction, I would estimate the work at $25,000 to $35,000.

Wow!

(chuckles) In the current condition, I would estimate this print at $20,000 to $30,000.

(chuckles): Wow.

I had no idea.

This is Leo and Reggie.

(chuckles) I got them from my, uh, grandparents.

Uh-huh.

Me and my cousins used to always play with them and sit on them and ride them.

So how did your grandmother come by them?

After they got back from safari in Africa... Uh-huh.

...uh, I think, in the '70s...

Okay.

...uh, she saw them and really loved them.

I think the time frame is right.

The history of them goes back much earlier than the '70s.

Hm.

It's a little unclear what the inspiration was originally, in terms of creating these animals, other than whimsy, but they are sturdy and traditionally have been used as ottomans.

The company that makes them now is called Omersa, and they're a U.K.-based company.

Dimitri Omersa was a Yugoslavian émigré who ended up in England in the 1950s.

He was a leather worker, and, uh, in his travels, he met, uh, a luggage maker named Old Bill.

Old Bill worked for Liberty of London, which is a luxury goods store.

He worked in pigskin, and he ended up having all of these scraps in his workshop.

He used what was at hand, which was pieces of wood and metal, for the interior armature.

He used something called wood wool.

It's basically a packing material.

So that's what these are stuffed with.

His first animal made out of pigskin was a pig.

(chuckles) And Liberty of London, he presented it to them.

They kind of liked it, they're known for their quirkiness, and suddenly they were selling them, so... Huh.

I think he generally abandoned the luggage business and just made pigs, which he did for Liberty for about 25 years.

Hm.

So, Dimitri Omersa meets him in the mid-'50s.

Old Bill is ready to retire, and Omersa takes over the production of the animals.

And one of the first animals he expands the brand to is the rhino.

Hm.

The popularity of the rhino is so much for that company, it's now their logo.

In the early '60s, someone from Abercrombie and Fitch, the outdoor outfitter in New York, saw these, loved them, and Omersa contracted with them now.

So he's supplying now Liberty of London and for Abercrombie and Fitch.

This is the large version.

It came in a, a standard size and a large size.

The lion is the standard size.

Condition-wise, they're in pretty good shape.

This one has-- are these spur marks from when you were... Quite possibly.

(laughing): ...spurring him along?

(laughs) The condition on this one, the, the tail is a bit loose.

Mm-hmm.

I think, in fact, if I gave it a little tug, it might come off completely.

(laughing): Yes.

Um, I've noticed also that he's missing an ear here, as well.

Oh, I didn't even notice that.

Yeah, the mane covers that.

Yeah.

Any idea in terms of value on these?

I think my grandmother bought them for a couple hundred apiece.

So if she bought this new retail in the '70s, the original retail price on this was $125.

Oh, well.

Um, the original retail price on this was $95.

Okay.

Omersa still produces these animals today.

Hm.

If you were to buy this new from the Omersa company, this would run you about $1,400.

Wow.

And the lion would run approximately $800.

(chuckles): Okay.

But people want the old, they want to see this wear, so in this condition, for this age, you're looking at about a $3,000 retail value.

Leo here would run, in the condition it's in, probably less, probably in the $1,200 to $1,500 range, like that.

Okay.

Wow, I had no expectations.

They've just been living in my living room.

(laughs) And with fond memories of my childhood, big animals.

Yeah, they're really, they're really fun objects.

I smile every time I see them.

They, they are fun.

They are fun, definitely.

As you can see, I'm kind of a cat lady.

I got it, was shipped from Belgium.

It was $20 for the picture and $80 for the shipping.

The Dutch have a long relationship with the cat... Mm-hmm.

...and they particularly like to put them on their tiles.

The scale of it and the quality of the painting indicates that it's sometime during the second half of the 19th century.

If it came to auction today, and with two or three cat people going for it, it should certainly bring over $600 and perhaps as much as $900.

Oh, nice.

Beautiful thing.

Thank you.

WOMAN: I was shopping at an antiques consignment kind of a store one day with my sister, and they were quite a bit out of my normal price range for something that was not practical.

I had just gotten my first bonus from work and I said, "I'm gonna do it."

The Tiffany floral is a wonderful pattern.

They're from about 1890, and it's just a really spectacular example of American Art Nouveau silver.

(chuckles) What did you pay for them?

My memory is not as good as my sister's.

I seem to think I paid around $575.

Okay.

She thinks it was more like $675...

Okay.

...which was a lot of money for me 20 years ago.

I don't think you'd be able to buy these for any less than $2,000 right now.

Really?

So they weren't so impractical after all, I guess.

(laughs) I certainly don't think so, Wow, that's great.

WOMAN: This brooch belonged to my grandmother.

She always called it the Phoenix, and, you know, it was, like, forbidden to touch the Phoenix.

Mm-hmm.

But I would go and touch the Phoenix, and I looked at it, and it's a stork, but it, all the time I was growing up, it was the Phoenix.

My grandmother died in 2012.

It came to my mom and to me.

In 2018, our house burned down.

Oh, my.

I had time to get my dogs out, thankfully, but I couldn't grab anything.

Everything was flattened.

But this we found in the rubble.

I was lucky to have it in an old dental cabinet.

It has the metal...

So that's how it was protected.

It is a piece that would date from about 1890 to 1910.

Okay.

And during that time, they were doing a lot of animal brooches.

And what is really lovely about this piece is to see all the beautiful engraving and how realistic it is.

Mm-hmm.

The piece is made in 18-karat gold, but then along the edges here, it's beautifully crafted with platinum and diamonds.

You can see the burn damage.

This damage can actually be restored.

It affects the value a little bit...

Okay.

...but not too much.

We would put an auction estimate on the piece of $2,000 to $2,500.

Okay.

Wonderful, well, thank you so much.

Thank you.

MAN: It was originally purchased by my grandfather somewhere between 1920 and 1970.

He was an avid collector, and he had a large home, where he just, it was like a museum.

He died in 1972.

My father at the time wanted a bunch of things, so he bought a variety of antiques from the estate.

He passed away in 2017, and I inherited it from him.

I told him if he ever decided to sell it, I want first dibs at it, just like he did.

This is a bronze by the Russian artist Evgeny Naps.

It was cast in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Woerffel Foundry, and it's believed to have been cast circa 1882.

That's one of the earliest known castings and believed to have been reproduced over probably a ten-year period following that, so 1882 to 1892.

He was an elusive artist, and there is no biography for him.

Because there's no information, there's been some speculation that it was another artist, Lanceray, who was very well-known.

Mm-hmm.

He was in a, purportedly a very restrictive contract with the Chopin foundry.

And there are some suggestions that possibly he was working under a pseudonym at a different foundry, um, to be able to...

Okay.

...produce more varied works.

So this is a really well-defined scene here.

We've got this bear coming on a child, the mother, presumably, standing, wielding an ax to protect her young.

Mm-hmm.

And really, everything about it is just really finely done.

The title for this bronze is a little unclear.

There's no written record.

It's sometimes called "The Bear Attack."

Mm-hmm.

And it's sometimes referred to as "Defending Her Child."

In the 19th century, there was a real interest in sort of a national style.

You see lots of winter scenes.

Mm-hmm.

Troika sleds, Cossacks on horseback, animals.

These sort of scenes that were really helping with the folklore of what the, the Russian culture was like.

And St. Petersburg at the time was a very cosmopolitan and international city, producing these, and much were going to the West.

So do you have any sense of what a value might be?

In 1980, there was an appraisal done for $5,000.

The size of this is really large.

Most of the bronzes that we see on the market are smaller than those.

For Russian artists of this period, tend to sell about between $1,500 and $5,000.

Mm-hmm.

If I were to estimate this for auction, I would say between $20,000 and $30,000.

Wow.

Unfortunately, I'll never see it.

This is never leaving the house.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ PEÑA: The Omni Mount Washington Resort was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

And in 1986, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

In 2007, a $1.2 million renovation project was carried out based on historical photographs and postcards.

And there are still some old pieces remaining, like several of its original crystal chandeliers.

MAN: My uncle gave it to me for my 13th birthday party.

He plays for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra; he plays standup bass.

I know it's a Guild Starfire, and I'm, I'm pretty sure it's from the '70s.

And you do play it?

Yeah.

What we have here today is a, a rare Guild Starfire model 302 guitar.

This guitar was made in Westerly, Rhode Island.

The serial number is 63,000-- zero-zero-four, which indicates 1972.

Westerly, Rhode Island, Guild guitars are considered to be the cream of the crop for that company.

They really made wonderful guitars there.

The Starfire was their flagship guitar, and this is a double sharp cutaway.

All of their other double-cutaway Starfires are rounded.

So they didn't make many of these guitars.

Probably less than 200, maybe even less than 100.

The Starfire is a really well-known Guild model guitar used by lots of famous people.

But you don't see this one very often.

So it's a, a pretty rare bird.

It's a beautiful translucent red, which is probably their most popular color.

Have you ever had it appraised or do you have any idea?

Uh, no.

I've, I've, I've heard that it's probably around a couple of thousand dollars.

There'd be people out here that would probably pay, at retail, $3,000 to $3,500.

Wow.

A nice gift from your uncle.

Yeah.

A great 13th birthday present.

Yeah, I love it.

MAN: This is a collection of autographs that I acquired from my father.

He was born in 1920, lived just outside of Boston, and, uh, was able to go to the, the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves baseball games.

And when he was a teenager, early teens, he decided he wanted to create a collection of autographs.

So he wrote a handwritten letter to the player.

The letter said, basically, "I'm collecting autographs "of all the greatest players of, of all time.

And would you mind sending it back to me?"

What he was most proud of is that every single player that he sent a letter to returned the autograph to him.

He only has 12 autographs in the book, but, uh, eight of the 12 players made it to the Hall of Fame.

Right.

So...

So his list of who he considered the best in the game or one of the best in the game was a pretty tight and factual list.

Exactly.

Tell me about the baseballs.

The baseballs, I don't have a whole lot of background on that other than, he did get to Florida occasionally in the wintertime.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm guessing that that was probably spring training, and he corralled a bunch of players in the lobby of a hotel they were all staying at.

Mm-hmm.

When Babe Ruth was playing his last year in Boston with the Braves in 1935, he went to a game with a baseball glove and actually caught a foul ball from Babe Ruth, and that was tucked in this shoebox with all of the, the other collectibles.

Yeah.

And, uh, I'm, I'm one of five boys in the family who loved to get out and, and throw and bat baseballs in the backyard, and somehow that baseball is missing today.

Oh, no!

So I'm, I'm afraid to report that that's probably one of those balls that, uh, are sitting in the field someplace near our home.

Incredible.

Well, it's incredible the condition that you kept these in.

You just don't find the signatures in a condition like this.

On the baseballs, the closest one to me here is a 1930 Boston Braves partial team-signed ball.

There's about nine signatures on that one, with Rabbit Maranville on the panel that we're showing there.

The next one, it is the Philadelphia A's.

It's considered a full team ball with 19 signatures.

It's 1928 to 1930.

Okay.

Can't pinpoint the exact year, because everybody that's on this ball played several years on the team.

Yeah.

And the last ball, the most important one, is a really rare 1933 Washington Senators team-signed ball.

Huh.

Okay.

In beautiful condition.

They won the A.L.

pennant that year, and lost the World Series to the New York Giants.

Interesting.

It's a real important baseball, and there's only been maybe one or two in that condition I've ever seen.

Wow, okay.

We have the Cy Young, incredible condition.

Absolutely zero fading whatsoever.

Babe Ruth in the center there, and then the Honus Wagner, or he wrote "Pirate 1934."

Right.

And the one we have shown here is Tris Speaker, Hall of Fame center fielder, played for four different teams in his career.

Do you have any idea of the values on these?

I'm, I'm guessing all in, maybe, I don't know, $3,000 or $4,000?

I, I, I don't really know.

The partial team-signed 1930 Braves ball, I'd put the value on that one for insurance purposes at about $1,000.

Okay.

The 1928 to '30 Philadelphia A's ball, you're talking, for insurance purposes, $4,000.

Wow, okay.

And then the Washington Senators ball, tough ball to find in that condition, I would put the insurance on that at $6,000.

Wow, okay.

On the signatures: Cy Young, easily insure that for $1,000.

Wow.

The Honus Wagner-signed album page, easily insure that one for $1,000, as well.

And then the Babe Ruth.

They just don't get much nicer than that for an album page.

I'd insure that one for $8,000.

Eight?

Wow.

Okay.

Hm.

And then lastly, your album, with what we didn't take out of there, of course, we have Tris Speaker, we have Mordecai Brown, and about six or seven others, I believe?

Mm-hmm.

On that album, you'd want to insure that for $4,000.

Wow, terrific.

Okay.

So, in total, I would insure this group here today for $25,000.

Really?

Wow, that's unbelievable.

Terrific.

Thank you.

WOMAN: It is a tablecloth that was originally owned by John Hancock, first governor of Massachusetts and president of the Continental Congress, and his wife, Dorothy Quincy.

It was given to her niece, who is my five-time great-grandmother.

Dorothy Quincy married John Hancock in 1775, a year before he made his fabulous big signature on the Declaration of Independence.

I did a little bit of digging, and it's not a tablecloth.

It's a cushion cover.

Because it has this great provenance, and in all likelihood is a New England piece, it's probably worth between $30,000 and $50,000.

I'm thrilled.

I never would have known.

That's great, thank you.

You brought in quite a collection of swords, all related to one individual.

Who is he to you?

This is my great-grandfather Captain John Hetherington.

He was a Berdan sharpshooter in the Civil War.

This sword is kind of the family legendary sword.

He was wounded, and this is a picture of how he was carrying the sword when he was struck by the bullet.

All I was ever told was that this saved his life.

When the bullet hit his hand, a piece of the sword lodged in his hand, and that's why he had to leave the Army.

And eventually, it crippled his hand right up.

He was one of the original guys that enlisted in one of the four companies that they recruited up in New York.

You couldn't just sign up to be a Berdan sharpshooter.

They had a test.

Those guys had to hit a target that was about ten inches around at 200 yards, and they had to put ten rounds in that consecutively.

And if you could pass that test, you could be a Berdan sharpshooter.

So they weren't employed like regular infantry.

They were sent out in company-size elements and in smaller groups.

These guys were the designated marksmen of their era.

So they would be looking specifically for Confederate officers, the members of artillery crews, they were important as skirmishers, and doing all this work, they had a very, very high casualty rate.

It was a dangerous business to be a Berdan sharpshooter, as your relative found out.

(chuckling): That's right.

So when we did a little digging into his history, we find that he enlists as a private, he's promoted to sergeant not too long thereafter.

In late '62, he ends up being commissioned a second lieutenant.

He was recommended specifically to be elevated to captain of the company by Berdan himself, which is wonderful.

Oh.

(murmurs) So what we see here in his sword collection are three of the swords that we typically see for Civil War officers, but it's unusual to have them all together for one individual.

This is a private purchase sword made in Germany-- this is kind of, if you go to the corner store and buy the cheapest sword you can get... (laughs) ...and still be an officer, that's what you would end up with.

And then this, by regulation, he didn't have any business having.

This is the 1850 Staff and Field, but they're private purchase swords.

There's nothing stopping you from buying one and getting it.

This is an 1850 foot officer's sword.

This is not a pretty sword, but as we learn here, this sword is a lifesaver.

On Jerusalem Plank Road at Petersburg, he's carrying this sword, and we can see on the back end where the bullet has actually wrecked the thing.

And it probably never left the scabbard after that day.

Absolutely incredible stroke of good fortune.

This is a photograph that was taken after the war.

Mm-hmm.

It's a cabinet card image.

From a collector's point of view, there are certain things that always rise to the top.

If you're going to find something out in the world that relates to the Civil War, boy, you'd be very lucky if it's something from Berdan's.

You also have a nice framed document that gives us a, a history of his service.

You've got the photograph which puts it all in context, and these three swords.

If I was cataloguing this for an auction, I would put an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000.

(softly): Oh, wow.

In the spring of 1995, I, I read an article about the Rolex Daytona, and I'd always been a car enthusiast, and I could appreciate that it had a great history around car racing, and I just love the look of the watch.

And so I went to a Rolex dealer, and they basically laughed at me and said, "We get one or two of these a year, so, pretty much forget about it."

So I started looking in the classified ads, and sure enough, a gentleman about 100 miles away from me was advertising two of these watches, a white face and a black face.

I called him immediately and said, "I'd like to purchase the white face."

And he said, "Well, I think I'm gonna "keep that for myself, but I'm willing to sell you the black face."

I spoke to my wife about it, and she was pregnant with our second baby, and she basically said, "Are you sure you want to invest "this kind of money on a watch at this point in time in our lives?"

And I said, "Well, I, I think it might go up in value."

And she was nice enough to say, "Sure, go ahead."

And, and, uh, we met at a local shopping mall.

I paid him in cash and, and I had got the watch.

How did you know it was real when you were buying it from him?

I, I really didn't know.

I mean, I, I knew it was in the box, never been worn, and I went through the paperwork, I felt comfortable with it.

And I think this was before the counterfeit watches were a thing.

Um, it was prior to the internet.

It, it looked like the real deal, and, and so I went for it.

I've worn this watch almost every day for 25 years.

I've laid bricks and painted and built fences.

And a matter of fact, this watch has been left on a picket fence more than once just because we were working around the house, and I needed to set it down, and then in the middle of the night, I'm, I go, "Oh, my gosh, the watch is on the picket fence."

(laughs) I went out in the middle of the night, grabbed it.

It's got a lot of wear and tear on it.

Well, as you know on "Roadshow," having all the documents really helps a piece a lot, and you're not the original owner, but you only bought it less than a year after the original owner purchased it.

Right.

And even though the warranty only lasted for a year, collectors want to have that piece of paper.

So, you have all of that.

You've got the original booklet on it, and you have the hang tags, with matching serial numbers.

Usually, watches that are unworn, as you know on "Roadshow," are worth a lot more money.

And if this watch was mint, yes, that's gonna definitely help it.

But in your case, the fact that you've worn it so much outside may have helped the value on this watch quite a bit.

Interesting.

Between 1994 and 1995, Rolex used an organic varnish on the face of the watch and on the black dials.

So luckily, you didn't get a white dial.

(laughs) You got a black dial.

They have the white subdials, and your subdials are starting to change color.

That is now a good thing, and that's only because of the ultraviolet light is affecting that organic varnish that's on the dial.

The more it's going to be outside, the darker those rings are gonna get over time.

Now, you have one of the newer versions of the Daytona Cosmograph, which used an automatic winding movement manufactured by Zenith.

It was the El Primero movement.

They were the only people making an automatic chronograph movement at the time.

So, Rolex finished the movement.

It's got all of Rolex's features in it, it's signed Rolex on the movement, but it was actually made by a different company for Rolex.

I see you paid $5,700 for it, which your wife was worried about you making a poor investment... (laughs) ...with another baby coming into the family.

What do you think this watch is worth today?

I, I'm thinking in the $20,000 range, maybe?

Well, this model today, the Zenith Chronographs right now, are really trading around $20,000 to $25,000.

Right.

Right now at auction.

Add the paperwork to it.

Now you've got it up to $30,000.

Wow.

Now... (laughs) Add the fact that you wore it outside and hung it up on the fence.

Right.

And let the U.V.

rays do their number on that dial, almost doubles the value.

This is $50,000 to $60,000... Wow.

...at auction right now.

Wow, I would not have thought that at all.

Wow, that's surprising to me.

So, you know, it's not every day you get ten times on your investment, okay.

Yeah.

For sure.

And if you had the white dial, I think it's going to go back down to the $30,000 range at auction... (laughs) ...so it was a good thing that the guy did not sell you the white.

Wow, yeah.

Just... Yeah, I've been very, I've been very happy with the black dial, actually.

It's, it's worked out really well with you.

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

I liked it yesterday, but I really like it today.

They appraised it for $1,500 to $2,000 and he didn't think it was worth anything.

(chuckles) Yeah, I didn't think it was worth much, but my wife was right again.

(chuckles) What a great time this has been.

I learned so much about this incense burner.

I had a sneaking suspicion it might have been a tourist item, but it wasn't.

We plan to put it right back in the cedar chest, where it's been... (laughs) Where it's been for the last 50 years.

I think we'll make sure that it's not living in a plastic bin in the basement.

(chuckles) Um, where it goes from there, I'm not sure yet, but it will be, um, displayed more prominently than it has been of late.

WOMAN: I love it even more now because it survived the fire, it is a true phoenix now, and now it's been on "Antiques Roadshow."

So it's lived its full life.

When I learned the value of the object today, I was happy.

It was a lot more than I paid for it.

(chuckles) But it's not ridiculously valuable, so I can keep it.

I don't think I'm gonna let my grandkids play with them as much as my daughter did when she was little.

Yeah, and I probably won't let the cats, um, anywhere near this now.

(both laugh) PEÑA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."