Green Bay, Hour 1

MARK WALBERG: "Antiques Roadshow" found cheese, cheeseheads, and tons of great treasures in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

A lot of the fans rushed the field, and they took down the goalpost.

We have very industrious women here in Wisconsin.

♪ ♪ WALBERG: Football legends Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi are the towering sentinels outside the heart of Green Bay Packers country, Lambeau Field.

This stadium complex, where the 13-time NFL world champions play their home games, is also the home of the Packers Hall of Fame.

These pre-1950s helmets made of leather are just some of the amazing sports items that track the franchise's storied history, as well as the evolution of professional football.

Back at the Roadshow, there's a green and gold helmet that's hard to miss.

Well, we've always been big Packer fans in my family, and my parents had first-row seats at the Ice Bowl, about the 30-yard line, and after the game, my dad brought this home.

He brought it home.

It was his souvenir from the Ice Bowl.

Yes.

So to set the scene, the Ice Bowl was played on December 31, 1967, and it was the Green Bay Packers against the Dallas Cowboys, and this was the NFL championship game.

So it was a really big game.

Yes.

In fact, many considered it the most important of the year, even though the NFL winner would go on to play in the Super Bowl against the winner of the AFL.

Now, what does your dad... what does he remember about the game?

It was very cold-- it was 13 below zero.

And it was very exciting, because it came down to the last play of the game, and Jerry Kramer blocked for Bart Starr so they could get that touchdown.

This is not only considered, you know, one of the greatest games of all time, but one of the coldest games.

So the temperature was minus 13 degrees, and with the wind chill, it was minus 48.

Now, I know Green Bay fans are hardy fans, but how do you handle 48 degrees below zero?

Well, I think it was hardest for my mom, because my mom didn't have long underwear, and of course, you dressed up to go to these games.

So it was very, very cold.

And I just remember her coming home, just frozen to the bone.

Well, exactly.

In that game, the band actually had their mouthpieces frozen to their lips, and even the officials had their whistles that froze.

They couldn't use their whistles-- they had to yell during the game, it was so cold.

But beyond that, it was one of the most exciting games ever, because with 16 seconds left in the game, you've got the Cowboys up 17 to 14, and what are the Packers going to do?

And you're on this... and what's known today as the Frozen Tundra.

Yes.

They've described it as like a hockey rink, like a sheet of ice.

And what do they do?

They go to Jerry Kramer, who signed right here, one of the great offensive linemen of all time, and they go to a quarterback sneak.

And Bart goes right behind Jerry, sneaks into the end zone, and they score the winning touchdown, 21 to 17.

So does your dad remember what it was like right after the game, what it was like when they won?

Because, I mean, it's a last-second win, it's pandemonium.

What was going on on the field?

A lot of the fans rushed the field, and they took down the goalpost.

So while they were doing that, my dad went and got tools so that he could bring this home.

He got tools?

Yes, because they were screwed in around the stadium.

Right.

And no one stopped him.

No.

Were other people taking the other signs, as well?

Yes, but most of them were just ripping it off.

Right.

Whereas he went out to his car and got tools so that he could take it off in one piece.

He was very well prepared.

Yes.

You've got Kramer signed here.

And by the way, Doug Hart was a great defensive back, also.

Did your dad get these signed?

No, my husband and I and our son took it to a signing, and Jerry signed it, and also Doug was there.

And this is the play that was called.

They were quite impressed that we had it, and were very delighted to sign it.

Stadium artifacts are extremely collectible.

And in the 1990s and 2000s, there have been a number of stadiums-- the Boston Garden, Busch Stadium-- that had been torn down-- Tiger Stadium.

And collectors go and buy these artifacts at auction.

And I got to tell you, I think it would be at least $3,000 to $5,000.

Oh, wow.

And I just want to thank you for bringing the coolest piece possible in to the Roadshow.

Thank you.

My parents' first landlord, Joel and Dorothy Pick... Joel owned Club Madrid, which was...

I don't want to say a speakeasy, but it was a club.

It catered to professional football players, it catered to gangsters-- Al Capone was there.

It had some black-market booze at the time.

It also had some gambling.

Hattie McDaniel, who was part of the "Gone with the Wind" cast, she got her start there, singing, as well.

But my parents' first landlord, they owned the club, and so what happened was, as gangsters and people who would come through there need a little bit of money, they'd come up to Joel Pick and ask for them to purchase their particular... whether it was jewelry or whatever.

And so Joel bought this set for his wife, Dorothy.

And then, as my mom and Dorothy's relationship grew in friendship and whatnot, shortly before Dorothy died, she gave this set to my mother.

And what year would you say this is, about?

I'm guessing 1920s, 1930s, somewhere in that area.

The jewelry does, in fact, date from that period.

Excellent.

Your story's starting to hold water, as we say.

Oh, thank goodness.

(laughs) So it's a set.

And what's nice, first of all, is that you have everything here.

You have the necklace, the earrings, the bracelet, and the ring.

So many times in families, or the way things go with jewelry, it gets split up, so it's nice to see everything intact.

The whole set is 18-karat yellow gold.

What I love about it is that it's American made.

I looked all over this for a hallmark.

Mm-hmm.

Or for a stamp to tell us who made it, but there isn't one.

It has approximately a little more than three ounces of gold in it.

Okay.

A rough estimate on the amethyst, about 200 carats.

Wow.

Now, they're Brazilian, South American amethysts They're not the greatest color on the planet.

It's a pretty hue of purple, and it works for this piece.

And you can see we have this nice little border with a twisted wire-- it's all hand-twisted.

And then over here, they put the little seed pearls.

Mm-hmm.

So the pearls being white really offers us a lot of contrast and makes that amethyst pop.

You can see more twisted wire over here on the joining links.

All, again, twisted by hand and then wrapped around the sections.

And it's repeated again on the earrings and on the bracelet.

What I also find interesting, though, is this.

and this is a little personal for me.

On the side of the ring, you'll see these leaves.

Now, I grew up seeing things like this that my grandfather made, and that my father made.

And when I was kid and I used to go into the shop, they had a big old foot press.

Okay.

And they used to have me punch out these leaves when I had nothing to do.

Oh, cool.

Right?

And these would've been stamped out, so what that leads me to believe is that this was, in fact, probably made at least in the United States, but most probably New York.

I would say that at auction, this would be $4,000 to $6,000.

Really?

Really.

Wow, that's excellent, it really is.

WOMAN: This was my mother-in-law's.

and of all the things she had, this was the one thing I couldn't find any information on.

And I just thought it was a very odd shape.

WOMAN: My grandpa picked it up out of the dump, and he was going to cut it in half and hang it on his wall.

And instead, he decided to give it to me, because I was playing saxophone.

I was in, what, seventh grade.

I played it all the way through high school.

It's an American earthenware transfer-decorated dinner plate trying to look like a European-- French-- porcelain hand-painted dinner plate.

This might be 50 cents to a dollar.

MAN: Well, this was my dad's watch.

He got it for 35 years of service at Rocker Screw Products.

He was one of the first seven people that started there in 1929.

It's a Hamilton Electric, made by the Hamilton Watch Company.

The model is called a Pacer.

Their idea in creating this was that you would never have to wind a watch again.

This was modern, this was innovative.

This watch was produced between 1957 and about 1966.

The one problem they had is, the watch movement itself was never fail-proof, and in fact, it did kind of fail.

Yeah.

They didn't work really well.

That's what makes them, today, really collectible, but is what makes this watch very collectible is, Hamilton was known for letting companies put their logo on the watch face.

It's very rare, though, to see one that has... All the numerals around the face of the watch are screws and bolts, which were the product of the company where your father worked.

Correct.

When I saw it today, you pulled this out, I was blown away, because I've never seen one.

And today, the collectors, particularly the Hamilton Electric collectors, will go crazy for this.

Retail, this watch will bring, easily, $2,000.

Ooh.

Maybe $2,200 for a watch like this.

Well, when I pass on, it's going to my son, so...

In 1986, my wife gave me the book by Nakashima called "The Soul of a Tree."

And the philosophy of that book was, if you do something beautiful with a piece of wood, it lives forever.

And after reading it, I said to my wife, "I'd like to buy some of his furniture."

She says, "You're not buying anything unless I find out it's comfortable or not."

So in 1987, Valentine's Day, we went out to New Hope, Pennsylvania, and met George Nakashima.

And he sketched out all kinds of furniture that we might be interested in, and we ended up with 12 pieces.

And we got them in 1988, and of course, he passed away in 1990.

Yeah.

Well, you met probably one of the 20th century's finest furniture makers.

Right.

Without a doubt, George Nakashima led the way as far as 20th-century furniture design was concerned.

He was a warm, charming man.

He had a fascinating life.

He himself was an architect, trained at M.I.T.

He traveled around the world, all through the 1930s.

As you probably know, he was interned during the war.

Right, right.

He left the internment camp and came to New Hope, where he started from scratch this furniture business.

What you've got here is a conoid bench.

And the conoid bench is considered by most collectors to be the finest piece of the finest line that he ever did.

Good.

It's a gorgeous piece.

The grain is excellent, it's very curvilinear, you have several great things-- you've got knots and curves.

Butterflies add value to George Nakashima furniture.

You've got a free edge along the front, you've got a free edge along the back.

All those details add value to a piece of Nakashima furniture.

The other thing that you've got on this piece that I think really adds value is the fact that this piece is signed by George Nakashima.

Having it signed by George Nakashima certainly adds value to it in today's present market.

However, it's my opinion that in the future, that signature that you have on the bottom will add even more value to it.

Whether it's ten percent or 20% or even more, I don't know.

Everything that you would want in a piece of Nakashima, this piece has.

The walnut is very expressive in this piece, it's just gorgeous.

You did a wonderful job of picking this piece out.

Do you have any idea as to what this piece might be worth?

Well, I do follow it a bit, and I would guess maybe $20,000.

What did you pay for this piece?

All 12 pieces, we paid less than for $12,000, for all 12 pieces.

Yeah, yeah.

Table, chairs, all of them.

Well, I would say, at auction, in today's market, this conoid bench, this wonderful conoid bench, would bring between $35,000 and $45,000.

Really?

Yes.

So in this piece, you've already tripled your money on everything.

I should have bought more.

You should have bought more, absolutely true.

1987.

(chuckling): Absolutely.

WOMAN: My mother must have bought these candlesticks at some kind of a sale, I believe in 1981.

My father really liked blue-- it was his favorite color, and he really loved blue-green together.

So, but they were never displayed in the home, and when I cleaned out our house after their death, I found them in a box in the vegetable pantry in the basement.

APPRAISER: Really?

That's cool.

And actually, I almost threw them out, because they were stuffed into an old blender box.

Wow.

Then I opened it, and I found them.

I'm glad you didn't throw them out.

That's good.

(laughs) So you know what they are.

Well, I know they're Moorcraft, which I know is a very nice form of pottery, but I really don't know how old they are or what they're worth.

They seem to be kind of different, because they're both ceramic and metal at the same time.

I know hammered aluminum was very popular in the 1950s, and my mom had a lot of it around the house, but the coloring and the way the trees are, I know that can be much older than that.

So it doesn't seem like they fit together, and I didn't know how old they were.

Okay.

Well, they fit together very nicely.

The company is actually Moorcroft, C-R-O-F-T.

Okay.

And these are a combination of Moorcroft Pottery and Liberty and Company pewter.

Oh, okay.

Hammered pewter.

So it's not aluminum, it's pewter.

No, no.

Okay.

It's better than aluminum.

These probably date from around 1930.

Okay.

And the ceramic itself is a pattern called "Moonlit Blue."

It's a beautiful blue with green.

There are several landscape patterns that Moorcroft made that are very popular with collectors, and Moonlit Blue is one of the more popular.

It's just very beautiful.

It's beautiful, right.

These are interesting in a way because they're actually slightly different.

The trees on this one are a little shorter.

Okay.

But nonetheless, that gives them a little more individuality.

But they're really, really very pretty.

Moorcroft used patterns to make these pieces, and usually, you will see similarities in the pieces, but they can be somewhat different because of the application of the color.

And what we know about Liberty, we can look on the bottom, it says "Made in England, Tudric."

That's the name that Liberty used on their pewter products.

Oh, okay.

And they made a lot of hammered pewter.

Very collectible in the United States and in England.

There's a possibility that they would bring more in the United Kingdom or in Australia, hard to say.

I would say, in a retail setting, these would be about $3,000 for the pair.

Oh, my gosh.

(laughs) Well, they're very nice.

Right-- oh, my gosh.

I'm definitely glad I salvaged them from the basement!

I'm glad you didn't throw them away.

That would've been bad.

It actually is worse with the mark.

If it had a real mark of a real company, it would be what it is, but it's trying to be something that it is not, and that makes it kind of like a pretender.

So it's Ansonia Clock Company, Royal Bonn, German case.

Retail for about $1,000.

WOMAN: Thank you!

APPRAISER: Thank y'all for bringing it.

MAN: There are some of those Santa ones and things in there that are pretty cool, and I don't know if they're... APPRAISER: Yeah, that's a beautiful.... WOMAN: I just love the artwork on them, I think they're so pretty.

WOMAN: When I was about 16, I went to see Elvis, a couple of months before he passed, in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Dane County Coliseum.

He threw out a scarf and I caught it with another woman, and she and I were going to cut it in half, and this man jumped out of the second row and he went to punch me to take my scarf away.

And it startled me and I let go and he hit her, and I'm not quite sure what happened with the scarf, who got it.

I'm not sure if Elvis saw what happened, or what, but he just walked over to me, he bent down, he handed me that scarf, and I grabbed it and shoved it down in my pants.

You put it in your pants?

(laughing): I put it in my pants!

And I ran back to my seat, and my brother was asking me, "Did you get one?

Did you get one?"

And I said, "Yeah," and he's, like, "Let me see it," and I'm, like, "No."

Well, these actually do come up a lot.

Elvis gave these out regularly.

And when they do come up for sale, despite the fact that this is actually a facsimile signature-- it's kind of printed on the scarf-- they still for anywhere between $800 and $1,200 whenever they come up for auction.

No!

That's exciting.

Yeah.

Within an hour of me talking to you, I saw another person that had almost the exact same story that you had, and you know what, for a split second, I was afraid it may have been that woman that got punched.

Oh, my gosh, yeah!

So I'm actually going to bring someone out here and can you tell us-- what show did you go to?

Oh, hi.

Well, I went to the April concert right next door at the Brown County Arena, April 28, 1977.

And which show did you go to?

It was in June of '77.

June 24, 1977.

How did you get your scarf?

When I got to the front and he started handing out scarves, there was a big girl next to me, and I wrapped my scarf around my hand, and she wrapped her scarf-- the other half of the scarf-- around her hand, and somebody said, "Why don't you cut it in half?"

And I thought, "I don't want to cut it in half."

So someone else, then their girlfriend said, "Well, let her have it, "we'll get the next one, because he's right there handing them out."

So I shoved it down my shirt and I climbed back over to my seat, over all the seats, and I just never moved again.

So I already spoke to her about the values, but what I told her is that although these scarves do come up a lot at auction... Yeah.

they're still very popular.

And they routinely sell anywhere between $800 and $1,200.

Oh, okay.

And you two have eerily similar stories about how you got your scarves.

She shoved them down her pants, and you shoved it down your top.

We have very industrious women here in Wisconsin.

What I do know about it is that my great-uncle Bill purchased this item probably in the late 1920s to the early 1930s, I believe in Chicago.

His sister operated one of the stores called The Bigfoot Indian Curio Store, downtown Lake Geneva.

And this Indian, my aunts told me, was outside the store for probably 40 years, and I remember it as a child, going to the store and seeing her-- or it, I don't know if it's male or female.

I always thought male, but some people in the family told me female.

It was in the window at that time.

But my aunt told me that they actually for many, many years had it outside the store and people would take their pictures with it.

She said there's generations of families that took their pictures with this Indian.

And then they would wheel it in the store at night.

So it was at her store from probably the early '30s to... At least 30 to 40 years.

So it operated right through the wartime?

Yes.

Wow.

Stylistically, when we look at this, first of all, we know that it's carved wood.

And the wood was white pine.

Oh, really?

And that was the go-to wood for most carving shops in America.

It was a clear wood, it was soft, it was easy to carve, and it took paint very well.

And then they polychrome-paint decorated it.

So when this was made, this would've been a very bright red, green, yellow paint.

Yes.

And the reasons it's darkened is that people, when they put it outside, would varnish it to protect it from the weather.

Oh, yes.

And over the years, the varnish darkens, especially when the sun bakes it.

And you can see the surface on this, it's baked on there, the paint.

Yes, yes.

We know by this hair, the way it's carved and the way it flows down, we know by the hands, and how beautifully they're carved.

They're not clunky, they're very delicate.

And we know by this decoration...

Yes.

on the side of the legs that this was carved by John Philip Yaeger out of Baltimore, Maryland.

Really?

He was a German.

German?

Came to America in the late 1840s, he was already somewhat of an adult, opened up a carving shop.

Really?

Made ship's pieces, molds, and tobacco store trade figures.

By this time, which I suspect is about 1870, 1880 on this piece...

Okay, okay.

He was running a pretty large operation.

Okay.

And we're going to spin it around to show that the back is not as complicated as the front.

Right.

And the reason for that is, these were up against doors, so the carver did not have to get as detailed in the back, because the backs were rarely seen.

Now, you notice how much brighter it is?

The color is fantastic in the back.

Fantastic-- and the reason for that, also, is, it didn't bake in the sun as much.

Right.

But you see this beautiful hair.

I know.

Wonderful.

I know.

You see this over here?

Yes.

This is a make-do repair.

Okay.

Someone broke the arm off.

(gasps) So they put a bolt through there and repaired it.

It looks old, so it must have been quite a long time ago.

Probably happened early on in its use.

Early on, okay.

What's wonderful, also, about it, is this negative space.

So this hand is reaching out to beckon you for the figure.

This metal band was an add-on at some point in time.

Oh, really?

So the band and the feather were added, probably, when they made into this tourist stop.

And at some point in time, the nose was knocked off.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and you can see if you really look, you see the crack there where it was reattached, or possibly, this is a newly carved nose at that time.

Okay.

Which could have been in the late 1800s.

Very desirable carver, a rare form.

Wonderful early surface, if not original in most cases.

I would put a retail value of $20,000 to $25,000 on it.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

And I think with a little attention to the nose, I think it would look more like an original Yaeger, and I think that would help the price immensely.

WOMAN: I got it from Minnesota, actually.

I usually go to estate sale.

We went to an estate sale in one house, and that house is full of art.

So I loved the first art that I saw, which was very huge, in the living room.

(laughing): But my husband said, "It won't fit in our car."

(laughing) So my daughter saw this one in a corner, and she told me that, "Mom, that one will fit our car."

(laugh) So I look at it, and then I look at the thick paintings of that one, and then notice the name underneath the other one.

It seems like, it's ringing my ears that Yektai, it seems like I've seen that one already in your "Antique Roadshow."

Can you tell me about how long ago you purchased it?

November of last year, only.

Okay.

Can I ask what you paid for it?

It's $100.

Okay.

And that was the asking price?

No, it was $300, but it was the second day of the sale and it was too late already in the afternoon.

I was able to negotiate.

Excellent!

Well done.

As you noticed, the piece is signed here in the lower left, signed and dated, Yektai.

Do you know his first name?

It's Manoucher, right?

Manoucher Yektai, very good.

And it's dated 1964.

What do you know about the artist?

I know that he is an Iranian artist.

Uh-huh, and he was originally from Iran, but he was sort of a world traveler.

So he studied in Iran, and as he was finishing up at university, it was right in the middle of World War II.

And he was fascinated by the modern world, and decided he wanted out of Iran.

He wanted to go to Paris, which was sort of the center of the art world, but World War II was still going on.

So he went to New York to sort of wait out the war, and didn't think he was going to love New York, but actually really enjoyed it.

But then, it was time to go to Paris.

That was his game plan, he was going to Paris.

So he goes to Paris in '45, he stays there for a couple of years, and he's fascinated by some of the great, early French modernists of the 20th century.

So Matisse and Braque and Picasso.

But as he's working in Paris, he realized he missed the energy of New York, because New York after the war was just burgeoning with art energy.

And so he went back to New York in '47.

And in 1947, that's when Pollock and Newman and the Abstract Expressionists are just really getting started.

So this is a wonderful oil on canvas.

One of the things I love about this is that thick, heavy paint.

You used a term when we first talked, "impasto."

Yeah, that's what I heard, yes, impasto, yeah.

Yeah, it has heavy impasto, but when I see paint like this, I had my own word for it, which is, it's "goodgy."

Ooh... goodgy.

It just, it's goodgy.

Which doesn't actually-- it's just a made-up word-- but you look at the texture of this, and it is.

It's goodgy.

And it's expressive.

And so it has a kinship with those Abstract Expressionist painters, and yet he remains attached to the real world.

So even though we don't look at this and say, "Oh, this is clearly a persimmon tree," we're very aware that it has a branch-like structure to it, with these leaf and fruit-like structures, and he never completely abandoned the figurative world.

He's very much an individual.

He's not just doing what everybody else was doing.

So he, sort of, is his own man, and invents his own style, to a certain extent.

Well, that's good.

Do you have any idea what it might be worth?

If that is really authentic, then probably it's more than $10,000, based on the website that, you know, about his paintings.

It's, like-- that's the price of it.

I do not know, because this one is a smaller version of what I've seen from the internet, so... Could be.

I think it's right.

I think it's absolutely right.

The artist is actually still alive.

I know!

His son actually operates his website, so if you want to be 1,000% sure, what I would do, if it were mine, is I would actually contact the artist and his son and show them pictures.

And I would be flabbergasted if they didn't agree, but that is what I would still suggest you do just to be certain.

Assuming it's right, at auction, you'd reasonably expect this to fetch $15,000 to $25,000.

(laughing): Oh, Lord-- thank the Lord.

Oh, really?

My goodness.

My husband will be, "Huh?!"

(both laugh) Good.

Is it fit to restore?

I mean, to... Yeah, somebody... Somebody could play this very easily.

It doesn't need a lot of work to make it a useable violin.

Yeah.

Needs a new bridge, a new set of strings, a little cleaning.

G.I.

Joe, which started in 1964-- Yup.

Started by Don Levine, actually, with Hasbro.

And I'd say for the whole group, with what you have going on, you're probably looking at $500 to $800.

Full retail, at least.

The detail on these things is unreal.

But it is a reproduction of a cannibal fork.

They would have had human flesh with the original ones.

Okay-- oh, is this interesting.

And from Fiji.

Fiji.

What did you pay for it?

Two dollars.

Oh, I think you're ahead, don't you?

(laughing): Yes!

Story-wise, even more!

MAN: It's a prototype helmet that Ron Wolf had made when he was hired as the head of the Green Bay Packers.

He was going to change the colors to Notre Dame gold back from the yellow that the Packer helmet is now, because it's called the Packer green and gold, and he thought it was yellow, and he wanted to bring it back to gold.

So he went to the board, and he had the board okay everything, but when news leaked out about it, there was a backlash from the fans and he really got cold feet, he never pulled the trigger.

But this was a prototype he had made.

Yeah, and even as an outsider, I'm fascinated that they would even toy with the idea of changing such iconic colors.

At that time, a lot of teams were changing colors, and the teams that seemed to change colors were having success, so...

So we have today a prototype of that helmet, that he was this close to, perhaps, getting changed.

Yep, yep.

And then tell us about it being signed.

Actually, I found it at a thrift store.

And I thought it looked weird, and I didn't know what it was, and after I bought it, a friend of mine had this newspaper article that he showed me, and it explains everything, how it came to be.

And it's a one-of-a-kind thing.

Years later, I was at a gas station and I ran into Ron Wolf and I told him I had it, and he offered to sign it for me.

My sister worked at the gas station, and she says, "Oh, Ron comes in here all the time."

So I left the helmet with my sister while she worked there and he signed it-- came back his next visit and signed it for me.

How much did you pay for it?

$25.

What do you think it's worth?

No idea.

No?

Because of the rarity of it, the great story that goes with it, even toying with the idea of changing such iconic colors, I'd put an auction estimate on it of $2,500 to $3,500.

Wow.

I would have never expected that.

And I'm glad they didn't change.

APPRAISER: You brought along a diary of your relative going from New York to California by way of Hawaii in 1849, as part of the Gold Rush.

Can you tell me something about where this came from and what you've read on it, so far, yourself?

Yes-- this book was written by my great-great-great- grandfather's brother in 1849, as he was making this amazing journey.

And we found this book in our basement, in the trunk that belonged to my great-great-grandmother, and was fascinated to find this book with this amazing story inside.

Well, let's open it up and take a look at it.

You've bookmarked a few pages here that you think are particularly interesting.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk about some of these sections?

Yes.

There's one portion right here where he's talking about having to spend the night asleep on a little bench, adjacent to another woman.

And he writes, "Were it not "for exciting suspicion of my own dear Cornelia, "I might perhaps have been induced to make "the tender confession that circumstances are such "that I am compelled to lie every night "at the feet of this woman, with nothing to separate us "but my own innate and cultivated sense of morality."

So he thought about having an affair behind Cornelia's back, but he didn't, because he was a good guy.

Well, some sort of tender confession.

Yeah, yeah, I like that-- canoodling of some sort.

And here, on this page, he has a list of the ship's passengers?

Is that right?

Yes, there seems to be 205 passengers, and he feels the need to document their names, where they're from, even their profession, their age.

A lot of the ships went around the coast of South America, up the other side, and then landed in San Francisco, deposited their passengers, and they went off to the gold fields, which were discovered-- you know, Sutter's Fort, and all that-- in 1849.

But this ship, instead of going straight to California, went to Hawaii first-- the Sandwich Islands back then.

Right.

So he goes prospecting and has various adventures, but it's not very encouraging in the gold fields.

And after that he decides pretty quickly to return home.

He doesn't spend too much time, it seems, trying to make his fortune there.

Right.

He arrives back and is reunited with his wife, who has just come from-- with his sister-- from posting a letter to him and trying to see if there's any response from any letters waiting for them.

And instead, they find Mr. Dylan himself, and... What a reunion.

And he actually writes, on the last page of his journal, "Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home."

No place like home.

The value of this depends on its content, really.

It's unpublished, so there's not going to be any other comparable copies of this thing, but there are a lot of diaries and journals that were written about that voyage.

A lot of people went from the East Coast all the way to California.

Because of the Hawaii factor, and because he was such a good writer and a strong personality... Yeah, he was.

At auction, this would undoubtedly fetch somewhere between $25,000 and $35,000.

Maybe more.

Well, that's... that's really amazing.

WOMAN: These were my grandmother's.

My grandfather was a jeweler in Chicago, and these are a couple of pieces that she had.

And when she passed away, they went to my mom.

About ten or 12 years ago, my sister and I went and went through some of the things that were my grandmother's, and I ended up with the watch, and my sister and I sort of share the ring.

Do you wear either one of them?

I actually do wear the watch quite a bit.

When it first came to me, I took it to get the watch fixed, because it wasn't working, but the ring is too big for me.

Okay, well, the ring is a lot of ring.

Yes.

But the watch is wearable, and I see why you like to wear it.

It's streamlined and lovely and feminine.

It dates to around 1950, although I can see why they might have been worn together-- they kind of speak to that same Art Deco aesthetic.

Right.

With the strong geometry and these baguette-cut diamonds.

There's actually about six carats of diamonds in the watch.

Okay.

And it's set in platinum.

The ring, by comparison, is actually a 50-carat star sapphire.

This is a cabochon star sapphire, and it's set in this really lovely platinum and diamond setting, which is typical of late Deco style.

It's sort of getting into the '40s, and that sort of retro look, but not quite there yet.

So this is a six-pointed star sapphire, and you can really see the strong star when I shine a flashlight directly over the stone.

How does the stone reflect these points?

They're actually needle-like inclusions in the sapphire that reflect the light in a way that creates that star.

Neither piece is signed, although I'm fairly certain that both are American make.

And I know you mentioned that your grandfather was a jeweler in Chicago.

Yes.

Chicago was a manufacturing hub for jewelry at this time, and it's possible that they could have been made in Chicago or New York City.

If either one of these things were to come to auction, in the case of the watch, I would give it an estimate in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $7,000.

Wow!

And in the case of the ring, I'd give it an estimate in the neighborhood of $8,000 to $10,000.

Oh, my God, wow-- that's incredible.

MAN: What is that thing?

A Christmas tree stand that my grandfather made.

I would say early '50s.

We were going to throw it away, and I grabbed it and we've had it for a long time.

It's been clearly made as an export item for the United States.

Yep.

And look at it-- it's a little heavy elf.

Oh, I would say made in the late '50s Okay.

Or early '60s.

Chances are, the value would be in about Okay.

the $40 to $60 range.

Probably a piece of Georgia or South Carolina pottery.

This tradition of making these face jugs is an old and continuing tradition down there.

Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: But it's a nice jug, and very collectible.

MAN: I have a bugle from the Civil War era.

It belonged to my great-great-great-grandfather who was General Grant's escort bugler during the Civil War.

And this is the bugle that he had with him and blew "Taps" on at the surrender at Appomattox, when Lee surrendered to Grant.

This is an article that appeared in the "Saturday Evening Post" that he wrote.

It's his account of his time in the Army.

And the article is written 1940, so he was an elderly man.

And it's got a picture of him blowing this bugle at the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Yes.

The bugle itself has the maker's mark of a Philadelphia firm that was in business approximately 1840s to about 1860.

It's nice, because a lot of bugles that we see don't have that marking.

Did you put these bumps and bruises on here?

No, I did not-- those are battle scars.

Not allowed to play with it when you were little?

Nope.

Maybe a "show and tell" every once in a while?

Oh, yes.

It's a beautiful bugle.

That wear a collector loves.

This is a piece, without knowing whose it was, would sell between $500 and $1,000.

Because we know whose it was, and we actually have a picture of him blowing it at one of the most famous reunions, I would insure it somewhere in that $2,000 to $3,000 range.

All right, cool.

MAN: Well, this is a Pairpoint lamp that was brought into my family a long time ago.

There are a couple of different stories as to how this lamp got into our family.

Not really sure which one is true.

But the first story is that it was brought by my great-grandparents who settled in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

And my grandparents, who took over their house, didn't really care for the lamp, and it was in their attic for decades until my mother found it, at which point my grandmother said, "If you like it, you can have it," and then it eventually worked its way to me.

The other story, which I think is far more interesting, is that my grandfather was a commercial fisherman in Sheboygan, and was known to be a little bit of a gambler, and that he actually won this lamp playing poker out on the Great Lakes somewhere.

Oh, great story-- you know it's a Pairpoint lamp.

I know it's a Pairpoint lamp, but that's really all I know about it.

I see a date on there from 1907, but that's really all I know.

Well, Pairpoint started in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

New Bedford, of course, very well-known as a whaling town.

Herman Melville spent time there.

They started in the 1880s, and then in the 1890s, early to mid-1890s, they merged with the Mount Washington Glass Company, so, and that became the Pairpoint Corporation.

So here, we have... as you noted, there's a very small mark that says "Pairpoint Corporation," and it's dated 1907.

So we know when it was made.

This is what's referred to as a Pairpoint puffy lamp.

The sides are puffy, actually, and they're floral.

The shape of them...

So this panel here, with the mark on it, is a wonderful garden scene with steps and urns.

And then on the opposite side... let's see.

Carefully turning this around.

We have a very nicely dressed 18th-century courting couple, dancing couple.

They're a very appealing look for a shade of this type.

And then we have, on the sides and the top, floral and striated decoration that's just gorgeous.

This is actually a very rare form of shade.

I think it's called a Roma form, R-O-M-A.

While the market for generic puffies is sort of slow right now, I think something for this level, the higher level, with all of the wonderful gilding and interior painting of it, I think the market is still very strong.

Any idea, for you, what you have?

You know, I did some research, minimal research.

I did find some puffy... puffy Pairpoints, and based on what I saw, something around $1,000, $5,000.

Anywhere in that range, but I really have no idea.

Okay, actually, the more generic puffies used to be fairly high.

This one, now, is again, is sort of more toward the top-of-the-line puffies.

I would say is, basically, at full retail for insurance, you could say $15,000.

Wow.

And that even might be a little low.

You could...

I mean, you could really stretch it, if you wanted to, to $20,000.

The money is in the shade.

So if you have a crack or a big damage in the shade, it's really... the value goes-- just plummets.

MAN: I got it from my wife, who is a teacher at West De Pere High School in De Pere.

They were renovating the high school about 15 years ago, and this was in one of the science teacher's rooms.

He didn't want it anymore, so he was just going to, like, get thrown out with all the other old furniture that they weren't keeping anymore.

And my wife came home and told me, and I'm, like, "No, that's a piece of history-- we got to save that!"

And it's been in my basement ever since.

Well, you're a man after my own heart.

Big, heavy, clunky, hard to display.

Thank you.

That's... that's the stuff.

What do you know about it?

The story that I was told was, there was a doctor in De Pere who had bought a decommissioned PT boat.

He planned to use it on the Fox River and take it into the Green Bay.

Once he got it, he decided that he wanted to restore it, so he went around trying to find everything that he could to put it back to its original condition.

He apparently got ahold of the electronics and the radar unit, and was going to have them installed, but either while they were on their way to him or shortly after they arrived, he passed away.

And his widow decided that she didn't want all this junk around, didn't want to restore a PT boat, and decided to donate the electronics and the radar unit to the high school.

And over the years, all the electronic components were scavenged by the A.V.

club and radio club and that kind of thing, and... until eventually, this was all that was left.

Well, this is the key component.

If you were going to do a museum exhibit or a display, this is what you would want to have.

The other electronic components that are missing, important if you're restoring a boat, but not so much if you want to put an artifact on display that is visual and catches the eye, and this certainly does that.

What we've learned about it is that it is an SD-3 long-range air search radar.

Oh.

They were developed for small craft, which would include your friend's PT boat, but more importantly to the collector market, these were used on American submarines in World War II.

Really?

This would've been mounted on top of the radar mast on the conning tower.

And if you were a collector who collects World War II Navy stuff, specifically submarines, which is where the bulk of the excitement is in World War II Navy collecting, or if you're a museum that's wanting to do a display and tell the submarine's story, this would be a key component, because the primary enemy of submarines in wartime are enemy aircraft.

Yep.

We tend to think of submarines in the modern terms, as a vessel that leaves the pier, submerges, and they're gone for however long it is underwater.

In World War II, they're really more of a submersible.

It's a surface vessel that is capable of submerging.

And so when they're running on the surface, which they did primarily at night, they would have lookouts in the periscope shears, and they also ran the search radars.

Depending on the unit, this is going to give you between six and 25 miles' worth of warning on an enemy aircraft.

Okay.

That sounds like a lot, but traveling at 300 miles an hour, six miles' warning gives you about a minute to get under.

Okay.

And when that happens, submerging is not all of it.

You have to get deep enough to be safe from depth bombs and other threats, so these were very critical.

It's not something that we're able to find a lot of comparable values for, because these don't come up for market very often.

But I did discuss it with a number of like-minded dealers and collectors.

A retail value for this today, I would expect to see in the neighborhood of $3,000 to $5,000.

Wow, okay.

Nice!

I...

I'm....

I'm tickled.

I can't believe it's worth that much.

Holy cow.

Very cool, thank you.

WOMAN: We purchased it at auction in early 1974 in Chicago.

APPRAISER: And do you recall what you paid for it back in 1974?

$1,000.

The title of it is "Christ Before Pilate."

Yep.

It's one of Rembrandt's largest etchings.

You're absolutely right.

It's an etching by Rembrandt, it's "Christ Before Pilate," and he started this large etching in 1635.

Yeah.

And completed it in 1636.

Now, you can see down here, etched in the lower margin is the name, the artist's name, Rembrandt.

And then you have the date, 1636.

The cum privile.

Yes.

It's my understanding that Rembrandt often wrote things in Latin.

You're referring to the inscription down in the center here.

"With privilege"?

"With privilege."

It was a tradition for print makers from the 15th century onward to put that on their etchings, their engravings, basically in honor and deference to the ruler of the area.

It was an early form of copyrighting.

If you put that on your image, on your etching...

Okay.

"With the privilege of so and so," or dedicating something to so and so, it was thought that that... the local ruler, the monarch, would then protect your image.

This is one of Rembrandt's largest etchings, and up to this point, it was the largest etching that he made.

There's actually a painting by Rembrandt in the National Gallery in London of this very scene.

So he was essentially reproducing himself in this etching from a painting that he'd made a year earlier.

He chose to depict one of the more dramatic scenes from the Bible.

It's Pilate deciding Christ's fate, basically.

Yes.

And it's very theatrical.

Here you have Pilate.

You have Christ standing up right there in the center of the scene.

All these figures onlooking.

And it's believed that Rembrandt worked on the central part of this composition, the figures in the center, and the outlying work was done in his studio by workshop assistants.

By friends of his who were also talented etchers.

So it's a collaborative etching, if you will.

Yes.

That's how scholarship lands on this print.

Look at this figure right here, with the plumed cap on.

That's Rembrandt himself right there.

Oh, that doesn't surprise me.

It's a portrait of Rembrandt.

Putting himself...

Right smack in the center.

...right in the center of the composition.

The dating of this is important, because there were impressions pulled from the plate after Rembrandt's death.

We're able to look at the back of the sheet.

And if I shine the light on it there, you can see those letters-- that's a watermark right in the center.

Yeah.

The letters are "IHS."

It's the name of Christ watermark, and that's a 17th-century watermark.

It's a 17th-century paper, which tells us that this was printed in Rembrandt's lifetime.

Really?

I'm happy to tell you that if this came up at auction today, it would be estimated in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $90,000.

And impressions like this have sold upwards of $100,000.

Oh... wow.

Oh, my goodness-- that's wonderful.

Yes.

Gives me the goosebumps.

(laughs) WALBERG: You're watching "Antiques Roadshow" WALBERG: And now it's time for the Roadshow Feedback Booth.

And I had brought in this picture of my great-great-grandfather, and had it appraised with this ring he carved during the Civil War.

He always told people it was the bone of a Confederate soldier.

Luckily, it's just a soup bone, so we can sleep safe at night and display this with pride.

And we've been so excited to watch the Feedback Booth, and here we are, in it, and it's the best thing yet!

Our country was colonized by Spain...

BOTH: And all we got was this lousy painting.

We brought my engagement ring.

He got it for me about two years ago.

We didn't really know anything about it at all, so it was really fun to learn about the type of stone.

And it was made in 1915, I think.

Yep.

And it's a pretty rare sapphire, and it was about double what you paid for it, so he did really good.

So it was a lot of fun.

♪ Oompa loompa, oompity doo ♪ ♪ We love the Roadshow, how about you?

♪ Hi, I brought in Minnie.

Minnie's on a trapeze, here, in the original box, from about the 1930s.

And she's worth about $250 to $350.

And I had a good time today.

Her grandmother couldn't make it, so I brought my able-bodied assistant, and we had a great time at the Antiques Roadshow.

Right?

Yes.

Okay.

Anything else you want to say?

No.

No, that's it.

WALBERG: I'm Mark Walberg-- thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."