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Proud of his family heritage, he shows off the heirlooms during dinner parties. >> i'm crazy about history and this was a resource that i wanted to share with people. >> he brings them out to the thanksgiving table. so this thing giving dinner literally between the gravy bowl and the turkey you bring the map out and put it on the table? there table? >> that's true. it was the end of dinner so it was mostly messy plates and that probably made it worse sfrs danger to the map. at the time, its value was the joy it would give you looking at the thing. >> but by 2013, patrick wonders if he might re...

>> the credit card debt is monumental. we have a small home equity loan that this potentially could pay of off. >> patrick notices an auction house is holding an appraisal fair in birmingham. >> i thought i'll throw a box of stuff together and see if anything is worth anything. >> at the fair, patrick cautiously breaks out the old family war stuff. did you feel like one would be worth more than the others? >> i thought the muster book was going to be of more significant monetary value. as it turned out, he says he thinks the muster book would be a couple thousand dollars and i thought, well th...

>> which war sea most come about what the vet ans go on, so which warsaw the most combat veterans go on to become u.s. president? it's, c, the civil war. five future presidents -- grant, hayes, garfield, harrison and mckinley saw combat during the civil war. in birmingham, alabama, in may, 2013, patrick martin visits a traveling appraisal fair hoping some of his family's old military artifacts can pay off his growing debts. it's not going well. that is until he pulls out an old map of texas for heritage auctions appraiser joe fay. >> i had seen this map before, but i had only seen reprints...

Cordova, who commissioned the first maps in 1849 after the u.s. won the mexican-american war. decor d decordova used the map as a tool to lure immigrants into the state. >> he wanted a document that showed them the vastness of the land that was available for them to settle. >> decordova obtained signature endorsements from famous texans including sam houston to further his cause. >> sam houston on the floor of the u.s. senate referred to this as the most accurate depiction of texas that anyone had ever compiled? >> with patrick's copy, joe is excited but skeptical. he knows such a famous map h...

Texas once stretched as far north as wyoming and as far west as santa fe. over the years, those boundaries are chipped away. the biggest land transfer comes in 1850 when texas gives up vast tracts of western land to the federal government in exchange for debt relief. come to think of it, that's the same outcome patrick's aiming for. the end result, the texas shape we know today. so what version of texas did patrick's map show? >> just north of the state line of texas is an area referred to on the map as indian territory which we know today as oklahoma. there's a strip on the left side of the m...