Subaru. A proud sponsor of antiques roadshow. Its not about the things we have, but the memories we make with them. Liberty mutual insurance. Proud sponsor of antiques roadshow. And by contributions to your pbs station from its t welcome to antiques roadshow. Hi, im mark walberg. This week were in des moines. Lets play a little Word Association game. If i say iowa, what word comes to mind . Well, if you thought corn, youre onto something. Iowa is famously the largest producer of corn in the nation, harvesting almost 2 1 2 billion bushels of the crop in 2009. Lets see what treasures crop up in des moines. Appraiser howard, tell me about this football that you have right over here closest to you. This football i got in 1963, so i think its a 1963 season. I got it in october of 63 when i got married. I invited a girl named rhoda to the wedding and she worked for dr. Brusky. Dr. Brusky was a Team Physician for the packers at that time, and she gave me that as a wedding present. Tell me about this football now, too. That one there i got i think in 65 or 66. I knew a guy named prosky, he was the groundskeeper then for the packers, and i asked if he could get me an autographed football. And he said, well, go buy a football that you can write on easy. And he had them sign it and give it back. But i noticed when i got the box back it had howard on the top prosky and then somebody underneath wrote frank howard. And frank howard used to be a ballplayer. He lived in green bay, used to play Minor League Ball in green bay, and i wondered maybe they, when they signed it, they thought they were signing it for frank howard and not plain old howard. laughing well, how lucky for you to be able to have an in with the Green Bay Packers to get an authentic signed football. Thats wonderful. As old as they are, i mean, these signatures are about as dark as they could have been signed at the time, which is wonderful. And both footballs have essentially the same big names that became hall of famers. You know, you have vince lombardi, you have bart starr, jim taylor, willie wood these fantastic packers teams that really ruled the 1960s. And in this condition, they are just fantastic. Now, what did you think that the value might be . Well, i figured this one would be worth, oh, 500. And this one, because its a lot easier to read the signatures and the ball is made for signatures, i figured maybe 750, 800, maybe 1,000 tops. Okay. I wasnt sure about Vince Lombardis signature because rumor around town was that he had dad braisher sign all his footballs for him because he was too busy. Well, i can tell you that his signature, which is right up on the top panel here, it is authentic. Probably because he thought he was signing it for frank howard. both laughing well, this earlier ball is definitely a 1963 teamsigned football. This is a 1966. 66 . Okay. Signed team ball. And the great thing about this being a 66 is that its the first year super bowl. I never thought of that. Theyre very, very nice. I think that this 1963 football, in auction, would probably sell for about 3,000. 3,000 . Yeah. Even though its hard to read some of the signatures because of the ball . The contrast is a little bit tough on it, but the signatures are still very dark, and thats the important thing, is the condition of the signatures. This ball, being the first super bowl ball, probably would have a value, in auction, at 4,000. Thatd be 7,000 for the both. Wow, great. Woman my grandmother was an antique collector and also a dealer. I can remember her going on antique trips out east and grandma and grandpa would come back with a piece of furniture strapped on the top of their car. This is probably from the early 1800s. Okay. And its the last combination of a blanket chest that you see in the early 19th century that was based on the earlier form of what people called a sixboard chest. It was made from six boards, and the last incarnation had the drawers in it. And the great thing about this one is the paint. Back then, they would use pine or poplar or some other type of unadorned wood, construct the piece and then put the paint on it. The homes were very dark then, and when this was new, the paint was very exuberant. They were trying to basically brighten up their houses with it. And i was noticing when i was going over this earlier that it looked like even the pulls had been painted over. I had noticed the pulls, too. I thought that was odd, but. That they painted over the brass pulls, but you do think theyre original . Yeah, i do. And those are hepplewhitestyle pulls, and thats right for this time period. The whole thing probably was just a smorgasbord for the eyes when they picked it up new and put it in the house. Youre missing a foot. Right. And i think, originally, the feet might have been just a little bit higher. The top has wear and some of the paint decoration is missing on that, but thats common because thats the place it would have been touched the most. Otherwise, though, i think its a really nice chest. We talked about this at the furniture table, and we feel real comfortable that retail on this would be about 2,500. Oh, okay, thats wonderful. Its a fun piece to have, so. And its useful. Uhhuh. Think about this back then, all of your clothing would have fit in this. Not anymore, but yeah. No, no. laughter woman my daughter got it from her fatherinlaw. And, of course, its very heavy. And she put it on the floor under the Kitchen Cabinet right next to the dog food dish. And it was there for two years, and i kept looking at it because i thought it was so pretty. And she gave it to me. And do you know what its made of . I was hoping its marble; i dont know. Well, as youve learned today carrying it around, its pretty heavy. Yes. And it is made of marble. Oh, good. And the artists name is erastus dow palmer, who was american. Born in 1817, died in 1904. And is widely considered to be one of the most important american sculptors of the 19th century. He is one of the earliest in the american neoclassical movement. And this subject, while we dont know who it is, is really wonderfully carved. And on the reverse of the plaque, its signed 1864. Oh, my. So we know the date. While many of the neoclassical movement sculptors from america traveled to italy for an education, he was selftaught, which is another reason why hes considered to be such an important artist in the neoclassical movement. As we can see, we have a minor condition issue to the nose, which is a chip to the marble. And generally that would affect the value, and i feel that it has a little bit, but hes considered to be such an important artist that it doesnt bring it down as much as one might expect. If i were to see this at auction, i would put an auction estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 on it. And ive been carrying it around all afternoon. Oh, my. Eleven years ago, a similar plaque sold for 35,000. Now, the market has gone up and down and up and down since then. So we feel that 10,000 to 15,000 is a conservative auction estimate. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for bringing it in. Man my grandpas brother died and there were some boxes of books and some of the family members were allowed to, you know, take stuff; i got the books. I havent read the book, so. Dont ask me what its about. But he had put some of the books in protective plastic. Some of the books had writing on the inside, and so i chose those. Its an interesting thing. When you get collectors that are collecting the modern first editions and when i say modern, im almost talking the last 70, 80, 90 years their dust jacket is the beall and endall. You open the book up, and you have the title page. Its in good condition. Its a first edition. But, when you collect this type of book, the dust jacket is almost the whole value. So, one of the items i check for first is a lot of times someone will clip out the price. This has the price. Thats very, very good. Another thing that i did is i looked at the jacket, and its a little hard to see, but the book underneath this is green. And the color of the book bled through on this edge right here. And i opened it up and theres no color underneath here. Okay, so it didnt bleed through. It didnt bleed through. One of the things that you run into nowadays is where the dust jacket is 90 of the value, there are many people who, sometimes they do it purposely, and theyll copy a dust jacket. They can do it incredibly well nowadays, but its a copy. Okay. Or people bought the book and, not trying to defraud anybody, not trying to fake anything, but they just wanted a nice dust jacket on the book. Okay. One or the other of this happened on this book because if the color had bled through, it absolutely had to be on the other side of it. Right. So this is a highquality reproduction of the dust jacket. Also, the reproduction was taken from a library at some point because you can see that there was some type of Library Stamp here. So, the book, as it is, with a dust jacket thats not right, is worth, retail, 100 or so. Its not a terribly valuable book. But when you first brought this to me, and i looked at it and i saw this beautiful dust jacket, unclipped, i was saying, thats a 3,500 book. It was originally worth five dollars, it was free to me, so if its a hundreddollar book, you know, its a hundreddollar book. Man well, i ran across this very grimy painting at a consignment store. It was only priced for five dollars. I looked at it and i thought, well, despite the grime, it looks pretty good. I looked at the background, it kind of seemed to be maybe impressionist. I didnt know much about it, but for five bucks i brought it home. And my wife told me i overpaid. How much did she tell you it was worth . A quarter. Let me tell you what you found. Its inscribed, to gordon from alson clark. Alson clark was a california impressionist, but he didnt start in california. He studied under James Mcneill whistler in paris, and he was an accomplished impressionist artist. He came to california for health reasons, and he went out into the desert in a rebuilt dodge truck painting plein air paintings. And what i think you have here is one of those plein air paintings. I would place this painting probably 1930 or so. Okay. And your painting thats worth a quarter to your wife is actually probably, at auction, would be estimated in the 600 to 1,200 range. Very good, very good. Woman it was my late husbands, and he, i believe, acquired it from his father, who came from england in 1920. He was born in 1910. I didnt know that he had it, we never talked about it. We werent married for a very long time, and he died suddenly. And i went through his things and i found it and i didnt know what it was. The chain is 14karat gold. Well, thats good. Of course, we know gold is one of the highest prices that its been in years, and we expect it to keep going up. And right at the time were filming now, gold is at about 1,200 an ounce. Thats for pure gold. Now, this chain is 14karat gold. And that means its a little more than half gold. The other half is metals they added to make it hard enough to be for jewelry. Its not from england. Surprisingly, its american. So, somehow your husbands family ended up with an antique, latevictorian american vest chain, even though they were english. Theres a locket down at the bottom. It has a crystal on it, and this opens up. This part was the watch fob. The fob is what hung outside of the vest of the mans suit, and thats what they showed off. And this kind of locket, generally, if they could find one, theyd put a Fourleaf Clover in it and pressed it flat between the glass and it would magnify in that dome. The rest of this is a vest chain with very fancy links. And this is what the gentleman wore for his pocket watch. But im going to undo it. These are very desirable and hard to find with such beautiful links. Think about this im going to show you something. If we click this into this. And im going to reach down and get a necklace stand and do this. Ladies love mens antique vest chains to wear as a beautiful old gold necklace. Wow. In retail value, its between 4,000 and 5,000 for this necklace. Are you serious . If you were going to keep it as an heirloom and insure it, absolutely. Minimum of 5,000 insurance to replace this chain. Wow, i cant believe that. Its like. Wow. The medal was worn by my greatgreatgreatgrandfather and his son carried the signal book. He was an important man. What organization was he in . He was a Brigadier General. In the grand army of the republic. Right, right. The Union Veterans of the civil war were in the grand army of the republic. It was their organization after the war. And he was instrumental in the state of iowa for helping form the grand army of the republic. You had a National Organization and you had departments for each state or area. And he was actually the commander of all of iowa in 1874 and 1875. Years later, in 1886, the state department of iowa wanted to say thank you for all he had done. They gave him this medal. And on the back of it we have his name, the 1886 date that they gave it, and it was by unanimous vote. And it even says on the medal a unanimous vote to give it to him. And you can tell how much he loved this thing. He has that chest poked out and you can see that exact medal. A lot of the medals were made just out of a simple cast brass or cast bronze. This one is jewelermade. Your ancestor was 50 years old when he went into service. He rose all the way from captain. He was brevetted Brigadier General, meaning an honorary Brigadier General at the end of the war. After the war, in the veterans organization, he was a general again. And we have the stars on the rank badge. We also have the 40 rounds, which is the corps badge that he served under during the war. Because he was such an important man, thats why you have all of these extras on here. Okay. Now, this is out of this world. Twenty years i have been enjoying civil war artifacts. Ive never had a chance to lay my hands on one of these before. What is this . My dad always called it a signal book. Its for the signal corps. At the start of the civil war, there was not a signal corps. Now we think of radio operators and things like that. Back then they actually used flags they would wave the flags in certain directions, they would wave certain flags, or they would use lights or torches. This one was used mainly on the mississippi river. At the southern part of the mississippi river, you have port hudson, which was the confederate stronghold on the mississippi. It was one the confederates just couldnt afford to lose. There were 6,800 confederates in the fort there at port hudson. And 30,000 Union Soldiers lay siege onto there, meaning that they bombed it and they bombed it and they bombed it. For 48 days, they threw everything but the kitchen sink at these guys. Really . If we open up the book, if you notice, it was printed to be used in 1862. The battle was in 63; they mark out the two and put the threes. And its so cool because you have a twosection paper. You have one where when a signald come in, youd write down what theyre saying and youd sent it to the superior. And a few of these are actually to admiral porter, who was in charge of the union navy at port hudson. Theyre requesting shells, theyre requesting support. So the signatures in the book are actually the signalmens writing, not actually ulysses s. Grant and admiral porter . Unfortunately not. Its the order from general grant, not directly written down by general grant. Right, okay. And its going to admiral porter. Its by their command, not by their hand. Theres not a lot to compare it to. There might be others out there, but i honestly dont know of them. A regular message book from the civil war is a few hundred dollars. This one, i think, would easily bring 3,000. Really . The medal and the photograph, theyre priceless in iowa history because iowa played such a pivotal part during the civil war. The medal and the picture are probably another 1,000 or 1,500. Really . Id insure the three pieces for 5,000. Thank you. Thank you. Im excited. Woman this object i found in my mothers attic, so i brought it down and said, mother, what is this . She said, it was here when we bought the house in 1942. The house was built in 1911 and 12. I have no idea what it is, and im not interested. If you want it, take it home. So i did. And its been in my basement, wrapped up, ever since. And you dont know anything about it . I really dont. I know its very old. I can see the numbers on it, and the coin. What is the date that you saw on the metal mount . I believe it was 1726. Could you get the date off the coin . It might have been 1701. Very good, excellent memory. Now, do you know what its made of . Some kind of wood . It is made of birch. But its a special kind of birch. Its a kind of birch called burl birch. Any part of the burl of the tree is pretty resistant to liquids, which is why it makes the most sense to use it in a tankard. As we look at this, you notice its missing the thumb piece. And the thumb piece here would have been carved probably with a lion or maybe a flower. And this is actually called a peg tankard. This would have been to measure out even quantities. An extremely important tankard to a family. Ceremonial, very good, and it comes from norway. Really . I never would have guessed that. Theyre a pretty common form in norway. And its got this beautiful carved trailing tulip here. And theres that big, old coin sticking right in the middle there. We would date it probably to the first half of the 1700s. Its got nice carved lion feet here. These are all silver mounts, and we do have some silver issues here. Theres a big crimp. If you look on in the inside, you can see all the burls. Oh, for heavens sakes. Is it done by hand, do you think . Absolutely. Its actually very, very nicely done. And its got wonderful surface to it. Its really quite lovely. And i would say for replacement purposes, youd be talking a value of around 5,000 on it. 5,000 . That is just wonderful. Not bad for a leftover in an attic. For a leftover in an attic and residing in my basement for a long time. Thank you so much. The mystery is solved. Wait till my brother finds out. I know. laughing oh, thats just wonderful. Paint, pencil, metal, wood these are just some of the common materials artists have used for centuries to create their works. But what about sand . In the late 19th century, iowa artist Andrew Clemens took a local raw material and made masterpieces with every colorful grain. Expert wes cowan joined roadshow at the state Historical Museum of iowa to explore some of clemenss amazing sand bottles, now highly prized works of folk art. Mark, these were all made by a gentleman named Andrew Clemens, who was from mcgregor, iowa. Clemens was born in 1857 and died yo