Santa Fe’s Museum Hill, Hour 1

♪ ♪ CORAL PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" is wowed by the beautiful landscape, people, and items at Santa Fe's Museum Hill.

Well, we're standing in the heat, and it still has that cooling feeling.

(pounding) That works.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: "Roadshow" has set up today at Museum Hill, home to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden and four first-rate museums, including the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

In these public spaces, visitors find the art, history, and culture of the Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest, the Spanish colonial past, and folk traditions from around the world.

Curious collectors from all over New Mexico and beyond have ascended Museum Hill to find out more about their prized art and antiques.

Will the news for our first guest raise their spirits high or bring them down to Earth?

I have been a thrifter since I was 15 years old, and I'm considerably older than that now.

I went to a thrift store one afternoon, one blazing-hot afternoon, and I found this picture of snow, and it called me.

It called you and it cooled you.

It called and cooled me.

(chuckles) And it's still doing that.

And you know who made it?

Uh, Gene Kloss, a woman who lived in San Francisco and she lived in Taos.

And this is clearly something that's from New Mexico.

So Gene Kloss was a Bay Area artist, and she and her husband first visited New Mexico in 1925.

And they loved it so much that while they remained in the Bay Area until 1945, they kept coming back to Taos, where she had a studio set up, and she started making etchings like this in the late 1920s.

Now, this one is called "Snow and Adobe," and it dates from 1934.

It's a super-scarce etching by Kloss.

It's known in only 35 impressions, and I have never found another impression up at auction.

She signed it in pencil, lower right, and titled it lower left in pencil.

Well, we're standing in the heat, and it still has that cooling feeling.

And I think the thing that was so compelling was the light.

Now, she had a, a career that spanned more than six decades, and she made more than 600 etchings.

But this is certainly in the top five.

So one dollar at the thrift store on a very hot... One dollar on a hot day, and I debated whether or not to buy it.

It was in this cheap little metal frame, and when I took it out, it was backed by a piece of cardboard, and it had Scotch tape on it.

So I took it to, um, a gallery in Santa Fe to find out, "D... Can you tell me who can clean this for me?"

And when I went to pick it up, the gallery guys offered me $2,000 for it.

And I really felt that this was a gift, how sometimes things are just given to you... Sure.

...because that's where you are and that's what you need.

And that's where I was, and that's what I needed.

So you said, "No, I'm not taking it."

And I said, "No, thank you so much."

Yes.

"I'll keep it.

I think I'm supposed to take care of this."

And that was 30-ish years ago?

Okay.

Yeah.

Would you, would you guess on what its value is today?

He offered me $2,000 for it, and at that time, Ms. Kloss was alive.

It's got to have doubled since she's past, but beyond that, I have no clue.

I would put a replacement or insurance value on this work at $10,000.

One dollar?

$10,000?

This is working for me because I love it.

It's not going anywhere.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, that's amazing.

$10,000.

Seriously, I love this.

Uh... (laughs) Thank you, it's far beyond my wildest concept.

I actually used to be very scared of this doll.

(laughs) Um, it was in the hallway of my parents' home, and I had, would have to walk past it at night, and I was always, like... (inhales) Is it going to come alive?

This is fascinating, because it tells you not only where to use it, but what each color does.

Arterial stimulant in scarlet, and then you'd stand in front of it till you, till you feel arterially stimulated.

♪ ♪ Uh, it came from Chino Mines Company, which is a mining company down in, uh, uh, Silver City, New Mexico.

MAN: And how did you get this?

Uh, that's a really long story.

I'll save it for the TV screen.

(chuckles) This is a photo that I got in the late 1990s, early 2000s in Silver City, New Mexico, when I lived there.

I actually found it at just a local antique store.

I've always been very intrigued by just baseball in general and the early baseball.

How baseball is so, so romantic in those kind of days, so to speak.

But I always was very interested in the fact that this, this trophy was in this photo.

And I always wondered, what the heck happened to this trophy?

Well, fast-forward probably 15 years, and I get a call from my dad in Tucson, and he had mentioned that, "Hey, I, I see this trophy that says 'Chino Mines' on it."

But he didn't realize it was this exact trophy.

Right.

So I got in touch with the gentleman that had this trophy, and I eventually purchased it.

Mm-hmm.

So I had this photo, Right.

...many, many years earlier than the actual trophy.

The items originated in New Mexico, and then you brought these items from where?

All the way from Raleigh, North Carolina, uh, uh, over the last two days.

Hm.

Because I wanted to bring 'em to the "Roadshow" in New Mexico.

I've been waiting for years and years for the "Roadshow" to come back to New Mexico.

Tell me a little bit more about what you know about the, about the Mining League.

Well, just from local historians, they had mentioned that the mining companies during this era would hire people to work in the mines based on their ability to play baseball.

Yeah.

At the time, they were very small.

Yeah.

So this one was Santa Rita, New Mexico, which, Santa Rita isn't even a town anymore.

The only other thing that I know is that a local historian, again, said that whatever team won the trophy three years in a row... Mm-hmm.

...got to keep the trophy.

Mm-hmm.

But I didn't know if that was true or not.

It was common all around the country for industrial league baseball, from the mining companies to even, to the railroad leagues, that the teams were full of what we call ringers.

Oh.

Sometimes they didn't even actually have a real job.

There's not a lot of recorded history for the Mining League here in, in New Mexico.

There's one player on here that has a minor league record, and that's Jack Dempsey.

It's not the Jack Dempsey.

Mm-hmm.

But a gentleman by the name of Jack Dempsey.

He did play in 1922 for Hutchinson in the Southwest League.

Okay.

And then you said you did find some information that Joe Pate, the pitcher here, also did, or did play in the majors.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the trophy.

This one's called the MacNeill Cup.

In the photo, we have the Santa Rita team in 1916.

This had the Santa Rita against Hurley, and it said they would play annually for this cup.

And I believe you are correct that when they won it for the third time, they got to keep it.

And that's why we have one more line at the bottom of this trophy than we have in the photo.

The bottom line is, we have Santa Rita winning the 1917 MacNeill Cup.

The only other difference in the photo is, it's lacking the wood base-- that's not uncommon.

Hm.

I'm completely blown away for an industrial league baseball team to have been able to afford, uh, to procure a trophy like this.

Mm-hmm.

The trophy is Gorham sterling.

And in my career, I've seen very, very few baseball trophies that were sterling.

And the craftsmanship is fantastic.

This is the finest sterling baseball trophy that I've ever held.

Wow, okay.

So now let's talk about value.

How much did you pay for the photo?

Probably maybe $50?

Didn't have a whole lot of money back then, so... (chuckles) Okay.

Well, that's a fantastic collage.

These are actual real photos of the ballplayers on that 1916 squad.

With the quality of the photos and the presentation in this era, I'd put the value on this one, at auction, at $2,000 to $3,000.

Okay.

With an insurance of $3,500.

Excellent.

And how much did you pay for the trophy?

I, it was, it was $5,000-- I actually had to take a loan to be able to, to buy this trophy, so...

I'd put a value on this one at auction of $12,000 to $16,000.

Wow, wow, that's great, that's great.

For insurance, $20,000.

Okay, fantastic.

Fantastic-- well, I appreciate it, thank you.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: On display at the Museum of International Folk Art, wycinanki, the Polish word for paper cut design.

This mid-20th-century paper cut by an unknown artist from Lodz, Poland, shows a harvest festival, Dozynki, with musicians and dancers, and a rooster symbolizing fertility, strength, and vigilance.

This art form is also found in Belarus and Ukraine.

WOMAN: This was a gift from a former mother-in-law.

She thought I would like it.

And she brought it to me from Italy.

And it's by a sculptor named Vistosi.

I don't know much more about him.

So what year was that?

Was in the mid-'60s sometime.

His name is Pulcino.

Ah.

And pulcino means young chicken or chick.

Ah.

And if you look at him, he really does look like a, a cute little 1960s chicken.

Vistosi was the company that made this, but it was actually designed by a young designer named Alessandro Pianon.

And he came to the company in 1956, and he didn't design this until about 1963.

When he was hired in 1956, he had already attended school to become an architect and designer, and he was hired to join the firm to design their company's logo, and to produce designs that would be made in glass.

This piece is not signed, and that actually is to be expected.

They, they shouldn't be signed.

Um, I'm sure there are ones out there, but as a rule, they're not.

This was probably the most successful line of designs, the designs of birds.

And there were other ones, but I think this one is particularly charming because he almost has his own little feathers.

(both laugh) If you look at the surface of the glass.

So the material is murrine, which is gl, refers to the glass.

The way that, um, you got this textured surface is, when the glass is molten, you actually have little bits of glass on what they call a marver, which is an iron, uh, marble table.

And you roll the glass across those little bits, and then they adhere to the surface of the glass.

And these spindly legs, they're metal.

Some people have said that they're copper legs or they're iron legs or brass legs.

I'm going to go with copper today.

Okay.

The main thing is, they're holding him up.

And they've got to hold a pretty large chicken there.

(laughs): If you look at it.

The proportions are interesting, aren't they?

They are-- very 1960s, very whimsical.

In a retail venue, this would sell in the neighborhood of $7,500.

Oh, my goodness, that's a real shocker.

Aren't you glad you held onto it?

I am, I, I didn't...

I threw away the husband, but I kept the, the statue.

I think you won.

(chuckles) (chuckles): I did.

Every time I look at this piece, I just, I just want to smile.

Me, too.

I bought it online about, uh, probably around 2018.

Actually, I was shopping for jewelry-- I'm a jewelry nut.

And it caught my eye.

It just was, like, "Look at me.

Buy me"-- I'm not kidding.

(chuckles) And I looked at it, and I thought, well, it's beat up, like, kind of like I am.

(laughs) It's got some age, kind of like I have.

It's kind of dull in color-- I probably am that, too.

(laughs) And then I did look at the name on the bottom, and I did a little research, and I just learned a little bit about him.

But I don't know, I just, just was attracted to it.

So you, you clicked buy?

(laughs) Well, it wasn't buy, it was a bid.

Okay.

Frankly, no one else bid on it, so I got it.

Okay.

Do you mind my asking what you paid for it?

$499 plus shipping and tax.

(laughs) Excellent.

Do you know what it's made out of?

When I looked up the artist's name, apparently he does copper stuff, I believe?

And so I, I assumed it was copper, and I shouldn't assume, but I assumed that, or bronze.

I don't know.

It is copper.

Okay.

So it's a layer of, of copper that's been hand-hammered, and then it's been enameled on the surface...

Okay.

...um, for this design.

And it's a very sort of, it's a very delicate surface to it.

The design is quite simple, it's made up of just a series of, of red and metallic sort of dots and, dots and bars of different densities, but it's really very effective in the patterns that it creates.

Do you have a sense of where it fits into sort of a style dictionary of, of period?

No, I do not-- that was one of my questions.

Okay, questions.

Yeah, so, I think very much Art Deco.

Okay.

I would say probably 19-teens up through the '20s.

If we look underneath the base here, it's signed, um, Jean Dunand, the artist's name.

It has a, a number, which is probably a model number or series number, and it's marked "Made in France."

And we can also see here from the surface that it's got a copper base.

He was born in Switzerland.

As a teenager, he immigrated to France from Switzerland.

So born in 1877 and he died in 1942.

Uh, he started off studying in Geneva, sort of an industrial school of design, um, went to Paris.

He exhibited, he seems to have worked in all different kinds of metalwares.

He worked in copper, in steel, he made jewelry.

So that may, that may be what was the draw to you.

Oh, wow.

You could sense that synergy there, um...

Interesting.

He's probably best known for some works that this is not necessarily indicative of.

One of his best-known commissions was the smoking room on the Normandie, on the luxury liner.

Oh.

Um, and exhibiting in Paris in 1925 at the International Exposition that really sort of set Art Deco's position as being the dominant design.

Oh, interesting.

It's got a little bit of wear, it's got some wears to the surface.

Copper is very soft and malleable.

One of the properties that makes it very easy to work with is also something that makes it kind of a detractor as far as condition.

Okay.

Because it's susceptible to sort of knocks and dings.

His works range in price, like, really dramatically.

Some of his best-known works are very large, uh, panels and lacquer screens, like room dividers, but also quite a few sort of vases of this type of form.

At auction, I would expect an estimate somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000.

But for insurance, you could probably look at somewhere in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.

Really?

Oh, my gosh!

That's awesome!

(laughs): Good.

Wow!

Well, that's terrific.

I was looking for a Buddha.

We were doing a home renovation project, and, um, it was not very Zen at our house.

(laughs) And so we were, like, "We'll get a Buddha."

And when I saw the picture of it... (laughs): It looked a lot smaller!

Yeah.

My late husband, he carried this all the time, wherever we move.

MAN: Is that what killed him?

No!

(all laugh) WOMAN: I brought my mother-in-law's book of hours.

She started out collecting medieval manuscripts, and then she found some pages, small pages from books of hours.

And she became interested in finding a whole book.

A whole book of hours, which is what we have here today, which is very exciting.

(chuckling) Medieval manuscripts have been collected for hundreds of years.

And I think this binding is probably around the late 17th century, kind of 1680s, probably French.

Oh, wow, mm-hmm.

It was very high-end work.

That is real gold.

So this is a Morocco leather binding, which is goatskin.

Usually they're red, and the reason they're red is that they're tanned with sumac.

We have the privilege to look at a medieval manuscript that contains hymns.

It's called an antiphon.

It's handwritten completely throughout, and it has illuminations and miniature paintings inside.

The pages are not paper, they are parchment.

Which is an animal skin, usually sheepskin.

These would have been made in a scriptorium by monks.

And a small book like this, with music in it, is meant to be a personal devotional book, to be held by a person who is doing prayers throughout the day, singing throughout the day.

The, the music in it is a plainchant or a Gregorian chant.

What we're seeing is an illuminated border with a gilt-washed background and flowers all around it.

And up on top, we have Jesus's entry into Jerusalem.

The process of making a medieval manuscript like this requires, uh, several very skilled people, from the parchment maker to the production of the manuscript.

All of the text is written by a scribe in a scriptorium, working with no artificial light, of course, and a feather pen and ink made by hand.

Wow.

Do you have any idea about the time period?

No, I don't.

So this is, I think this manuscript is from the 1470s, probably, likely French.

Oh, wow-- wow.

There are little clues-- it doesn't have a title page.

One of the ways that I can tell a clue about this little precious guy you brought here today is this illumination here.

So we have a Benedictine monk with his tonsure, this shaved bald spot that they do.

He's wearing black robes, indicating that he's a Benedictine.

And then there is a lamb, and he's holding a, a white lily, as well.

The Benedictine monks were not like the Franciscans, who wore sackcloth and took a vow of... Mm-hmm.

Well, I mean, they all took a vow of poverty.

Mm-hmm.

But the Benedictines also liked expensive things.

(chuckles) So this manuscript is, is kind of perfect for that, too.

And the presence of that tiny miniature of the Benedictine friar...

Okay.

...gives us a, a sense, and there are also some prayers in here to St. Benedict.

Okay.

Medieval manuscripts like these were often made for a patron whose coat of arms would appear at the foot of the first page of text, and that's the case here.

Do you have any idea what your mother-in-law paid or when she purchased the book?

I believe she bought it about 30 years ago.

Mm-hmm.

And family legend is it's around $20,000.

Mm-hmm.

Well, that, I don't think that that's an unreasonable amount.

Okay.

It's obviously a jewel-like, precious object.

For a retail market, I would expect it to sell for more like $40,000 to $60,000 on a retail market.

Hm, wow.

And it's very well preserved, so it's a treasure.

Wow-- wow!

Oh, thank you so much.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: Clem "Pop" Shaffer created this root monster sometime between 1920 and 1930.

Shaffer was a former blacksmith-turned-hotel-owner- turned-artist who was inspired to carve animals from the natural forms he saw within trees.

This piece is carved and painted piñon pine and antler, and resides in the Museum of International Folk Art's collection.

WOMAN: These belonged to my grandmother.

They're actually a set of six, my sister has the other three, and I've recently rediscovered them in, in a closet in my home during a remodel.

Uh-huh.

And I've had them since my grandmother passed away in 1999.

These always sat in a special cabinet.

Mm-hmm.

We were not allowed to touch them.

Right.

We never got to eat out of them.

Ah, okay.

(laughs): So...

But she did eat out of them.

Oh, yes.

These were her special dinner, dessert... Uh-huh.

...for people that, that came to her home.

So what kind of dessert did she serve?

Knowing my grandma, probably ice cream.

Okay.

She was from Texas, too, and she never had less than three kinds of ice cream in the freezer.

(laughs) They're, uh, footed dessert dishes.

Each one has a different color.

And, I assume, does your sister's?

Are hers all different colors, as well?

Yes.

She has, she has three different colors than these.

Okay.

We'll take a look at the mark on the bottom, and we see that there's a gold painted flower on the top of the mark.

And if we got a sharp object and we scraped off that gold, we would find the name of the manufacturer of the porcelain.

Okay.

So one company made the porcelain, and another company decorated it.

And at the bottom, there's a picture of a sheep or a lamb and the word "Dresden" and the word "Germany."

So people would say this is Dresden porcelain.

But actually, there's no such thing as the Dresden Company.

Dresden is a city, it's not the name of a manufacturer.

This particular company is, uh, called Ambrosius Lamm, L-A-M-M, which in German means "lamb," L-A-M-B.

These are all completely hand-painted with these wonderful scenes, and they're called Watteau scenes.

And Watteau was an 18th-century French painter, and they're not exact copies of any of his paintings, but they show usually a man and a woman in a garden setting.

They're talking, playing musical instruments.

They have lots of richly raised gilding and gold designs.

Now, this particular one has a design in the center of the bowl, which is just overkill.

(chuckles) But interesting enough, the other two do not.

These sherbet's cups always originally came in sets of 12, most likely.

Now, normally, in any kind of antique object, a set, a complete set, is always more valuable than the individual's parts.

But this is one exception, because there's so many people who collect them, and they're trying to get every color that was made.

And I don't know how many colors, but there are more than 12 colors.

A long time ago, these were highly collected in America.

The company started in 1887, Ambrosius Lamm, and these were probably made around 1900.

And my grandmother would have probably bought them in the early 1950s.

That would be my guess.

Okay, and then they would, so they would have been old, or secondhand at that point.

They were still, they were always a luxury object.

Now it seems to me that most of the, many of the major collectors of these are in Europe and in Asia, including Japan, Korea, China.

Collectors there love this Dresden porcelain, and they particularly love Lamm porcelain.

And they have driven the prices of these up.

So in today's market, when, when they're sold at a retail price, they usually sell for between $1,500 and $2,000 each.

Each?

Each.

(chuckles): That certainly is a big surprise.

I can assure you, my grandmother didn't pay that.

So the, the combined value for your three would be between $4,500 and $6,000 retail price.

I'm shocked, I really, I'm truly shocked.

I, I think it's a little shocking myself.

This came from my father.

He brought it back from Africa.

He was there making a film in 1929.

What was the title of the film?

Uh, "Trader Horn."

It was the first talkie made in Africa.

They traveled on safari for, I think, 30,000 miles all through Africa.

They were there about nine months.

Was it a studio film, or...

It was a big film with MGM.

Okay.

It was directed by W.S.

Van Dyke, and it starred Harry Carey, Edwina Booth, and my father.

We had many, and still do, African artifacts.

But this one always attracted me because when I was a child, I thought it was a car door.

My father passed on some time ago.

And, uh, I don't know about its, well, price, but its value.

It is hugely valuable to me because it represents my father.

Okay, well, tell me a little more about your father.

He went on to be...?

Well, he went on to become the Cisco Kid.

Right, so the drum.

I think it's extraordinary.

And, in fact, I've never seen another one exactly like this.

There are a number of slit gongs.

I'll show you what I mean by a slit gong.

It's, as you can see, extremely narrow, the drum.

But they've managed to gouge out a huge area inside.

So that's a real tour de force to do that.

It comes from a tribe called the Tetela tribe, and they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Kasaï province.

They're, a, a large tribe, and they're known for their drums.

They have, uh, these wonderful slit drums, uh, very much like the Mangbetu tribe who are nearby.

But the Mangbetu do a different sort of shape.

This is the only one I've ever seen like this.

We know the collection date of it.

Yes.

So it's 1929, and so it's got to be before that.

It's got some significant wear on the top.

And being the sort of hardwood that it is, that takes time to achieve, for sure.

So this could easily be the end of the 19th century or the very beginning of the 20th, uh, 1890s, 1900.

I'm not sure what the wood is at all.

It's, uh, very fine-grained, uh, which gives it this wonderful sound.

Uh, would you like to play it?

Well, I'll give a try.

This is the way I saw my father play it.

(drumming rhythmically) That works.

These were probably used in ceremonial rituals.

I've noticed there's no sort of carving on this area because that probably would have affected the tone of it, when you start disrupting the surface of the drum.

But I have noticed this fluting on the side that goes all the way to the top and some really sort of strong, almost architectural elements in the piece.

I think it also probably had a band that was worn, 'cause it's a very heavy object.

And if you're wearing this for any particular time for ceremony, it's too heavy just to hold like that.

So I think it was supported by a band and held.

Well, it's, I do have an inventory of artifacts my father brought back from Africa.

There's a drum listed as a, the telegraph drum.

Okay.

So I presume that's this.

Right.

Have you any idea what your father paid for it?

I'm not sure-- I have a customs receipt, and it was admitted to the country with a value of ten dollars.

It's very rare.

It's one of those sort of "find me another" moments.

And I'm really conservative with my prices, and I think probably between $4,000 and $6,000, retail.

I am astonished.

My father would be very, very pleased to know he had good taste.

Well, this belonged to my grandfather.

When he was younger, he played in mandolin bands around the turn of the century.

It's really fascinating, 'cause there was no TV, so there was nothing to do but play these things, but they had a great time doing it.

MAN: What I brought in was a Sam Gilliam.

It's titled "Nile."

Sam Gilliam is an African American artist based out of Washington, D.C. My father purchased it.

He has purchased previous Gilliams.

Unfortunately, they got burned up in a fire, so he lost all of them except for "Nile" and one other piece.

Ah, so, and, and how much did he pay for it?

Do you remember?

He thinks somewhere between $275 and maybe $350.

About when did your dad obtain this piece?

It was in the early '70s, so not long after it was produced.

Where did he obtain it?

Was he in Washington, D.C.?

Washington, D.C., yes, sir.

Ah, okay.

I love it, I've always loved it.

It's, it's hung up in our house ever since I was a little kid, so... You've been looking at it for quite a while?

I've been looking at it for a few years, yes.

(chuckles) This is a color lithograph by Sam Gilliam, uh, that he created in 1972.

It's from an edition of 67.

It's actually also on handmade paper.

Sam Gilliam was born in 1933.

It is with, uh, deep sadness that I have to say that, uh, in June of 2022, Sam Gilliam passed away.

So this work is dated, '72, and numbered, 58 over 67.

In 1972, Sam Gilliam had work displayed at the, uh, Venice Biennale.

Oh, nice.

He was the first African American artist to actually display there.

He was with a group of other artists, but, uh, it was a pretty significant year for him in 1972.

And the other interesting thing and cool thing about this particular piece is that the Museum of Modern Art in New York City actually owns one of these.

Oh, cool.

So that's, that's kind of nice to, to, to know.

That's very cool.

Yeah.

I did not know that.

How much do you think it might be worth?

I'm thinking, with inflation, probably $1,000?

Ah, well, actually, I would put a retail value on this of $8,500.

Oh, nice!

Awesome!

WOMAN: It is my great-aunt's necklace.

We think it was made in Paris.

She wore it back and forth to Europe on ships, and we know she went on the Lusitania in about 1912.

They were from New Orleans.

Uncle Henry, who probably bought this, was the first Jewish cotton broker in New Orleans, and I suppose that was pretty lucrative.

(chuckles) He and his wife, Virginia, whose necklace this was, were special people to my Aunt Sue, for whom I'm named.

Most of their possessions came to her.

And...

Here it is.

Wow, it's, it's beautiful.

It's a beautiful necklace, and you said it sailed on the Lusitania.

Well, we know she sailed on the Lusitania.

I'm assuming, you know, they dressed for the evening.

She would have worn it, I'm thinking.

She would've worn it on the ship.

Yeah.

And maybe in Paris, um... Well, it's the right time frame for that.

It looks like it would've been made in the Belle Époque era, around 1910.

It's set in platinum.

Belle Époque style, it's a very delicate, very pretty, airy, way of setting diamonds.

And if you notice these bars, they look like the edge of a knife.

Very thin, very seamless.

Mm-hmm.

And what it's doing is showcasing these beautiful collet-set diamonds.

It's really meant to showcase this design of these beautiful tendrils, and just this sort of ongoing motif that you have graduating up into the neck.

You've got some old-mine-cut diamonds in here.

The bigger ones, they're about a carat 25 to a carat and a half.

They're very clean stones.

They have a little bit of body color to them, which is typical from that time period.

Mm-hmm.

The old-mine-cut stones are a little bit larger, and then we have some more old-European-cut stones that are graduating in the back, which is getting to around 25 to 30 carats.

(chuckling): That's a lot of carats.

Yeah.

There's one thing I want to mention.

The chain in the back, that's an addition to the piece.

That would not have been original to the piece.

That's an extender.

The marks on the back are gone with that new chain.

So there's no hallmarks on the back.

Okay.

But it possibly could be French or Parisian.

Diamonds, especially old-cut diamonds, were really meant for candlelight.

They were dining by candlelight.

Yeah.

And so the diamonds reflect better in candlelight.

They just come alive.

When they're in bright sun like this, they flatten out a little bit.

Have you ever had it appraised before?

I think we did, sometime in the '80s after I got it.

Mm-hmm.

I was just on a trip to New York, and I think I went to one of the big places in New York.

And at that time, it was about the value of my first house.

Okay.

(laughing): Which was maybe $30,000 or $32,000.

Okay, well, outside of the chain in the back being added, it's original as to its time period, which is great.

I would say in this condition, you'd be looking at anywhere between, conservatively, $40,000 to $60,000 for insurance replacement value.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

That's... And that's conservative.

That's, it's conservative, but it's, it's such a beautiful family piece that I'm, I'm thrilled with the family value, and the dollar value is not bad.

I love it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I would wear it if I were you, once in a while.

Give it on.

Maybe not in the bright sun.

(both laugh) Let me go find some candles.

Okay.

MAN: This is a, a puppet from the early days of television.

It's part of the Bil and Cora Baird collection, and I got it at an auction in New York City in 1987.

When I was a kid, I loved puppet shows on TV.

The first TV show I ever saw was "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie."

Do you remember them?

I remember.

Oh, yeah.

And I thought television was a puppet show.

(chuckling) I, I didn't realize it was other stuff.

And I loved the Baird puppets, in particular, because they had so much character and animation, and...

Uh, so I watched a program called "Whistling Wizard" and "Snarky Parker," and, uh, one day, as an adult, I was going through "The New York Times," and there was a picture of Snarky Parker.

They were talking about an auction that was upcoming, and I said, "I gotta go to that auction."

And I did.

I wound up getting this character, who, uh, doesn't have a name.

He's not a famous, uh, actor or anything, but I think he has a lot of charm and I could afford him.

Yeah.

What did you pay for him?

He, he cost me $500.

Well, I was really excited to see this...

Yes?

...because, uh, I like Baird puppets, too, and I liked, uh...

I remember seeing the same shows.

Well, Bil Baird, as far as I'm concerned, was the greatest American puppeteer.

He was to puppeteering what Fred Astaire was to movie dancing or Walt Disney was to, uh, animation.

He was, to me, the, the ultimate.

And like you say, he was not a main character, but the minute you put him on the table, I said... (blows out): "This is, this is Bil Baird."

I'll let you operate him.

He has a little bit of action.

He can wink and blink.

I was at that same auction, and I've been to a lot of auctions over the years.

That was the most exciting auction I've ever been to.

I've only been to that auction, and it was exciting.

Baird puppets are highly desirable.

Most of his puppets have, are in several, are in museums, and so there's not many out there on the market.

Condition is astounding.

All original clothing.

Um... (exhales) I gotta show you something.

(laughing): Oh, wow, "Macy's Men's Store."

How cool is that?

The named characters: Snarky Parker and Oilcan Olly.

Slugger Ryan was the, my favorite.

They're the iconic ones.

They're the ones that really step up there.

I think you did all right at $500.

At auction, I think it would bring $1,500, so... Really?

You did all right.

That's nice, that's nice to know.

Thank you so much for bringing it in.

It just brought back a magical moment in my life.

My great pleasure.

♪ ♪ PEÑA: Art is a family affair for the Aguilar family of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Their matriarch, Josefina Aguilar, is best known for her clay muñecas, or dolls.

Everyday activities, religious traditions, and sometimes famous figures are depicted in her work and the work of her family members.

These christening and wake scenes are on display here at Museum Hill at the Museum of International Folk Art.

WOMAN: Well, I know it's a Raymond Jonson painting.

I went to an estate sale about six months ago, and I saw this on the wall, and I just, I loved it.

So I asked the lady what she wanted for it, and she said she'd like $40 for it.

So I went ahead and paid the $40.

What, uh, what drew you to the painting?

Well, I'm a native New Mexican, and I, uh, just recently moved away from New Mexico, and wanted to purchase it so I'd have something to remind me of New Mexico.

As you say, the artist is Raymond Jonson, who's an important American artist.

Born in 1891, died in 1982.

What do you know about Raymond Jonson?

I know that he was a UNM art professor, but other than that, I, I don't know much.

He's an interesting artist.

There are, like with many artists, different periods within his career.

Later on in his career, in the 1930s, he was part of a group called the Transcendental Painting Group.

He was a founder of this group, actually, and this group was concerned with art and spirituality.

Earlier in his career, in 1922, he first visits Santa Fe, and he has a liking for Santa Fe.

So much so that two years later, he moves here.

What's the title of this painting?

Do we know?

On the back, it says "Arroyo Number Three."

And the painting has the artist's device at lower left, almost a shape, which is used by the artist rather than the spelling out of the full name.

And it's also dated 1922.

It's an oil on board.

We believe that the frame is probably original.

We also believe that the inscriptions on the back showing the title, also probably in the artist's hand.

Another painting, also from 1922, depicting arroyo, is in the collection of the Smithsonian.

What can you tell a guy from the East Coast about arroyo?

Well, arroyo is, is kind of a piece of land in between two high areas, and when it rains, the, the rain just flows through the arroyo.

And, uh, in a desert... Mm-hmm.

...it's, it's a sight to see.

Mm-hmm.

I love the colors.

I love the depiction of the work.

I'm fascinated by the fact that you were able to acquire the work for $40.

Do you often find other paintings or, or things that you like to collect at, at...

I've been going to garage sales since a little kid.

Ah.

A little kid.

And I've been buying things that I like.

Mm-hmm.

And that I can afford.

Mm-hmm.

It's a great example of an early work by Raymond Jonson.

Great because it's a New Mexico theme.

Do you have any sense what this painting might be worth, and is the painting currently insured?

It's not insured.

We had no idea until we took it home and I looked at the back and it had the title.

We saw that there was one in the Smithsonian.

Mm-hmm.

So we assume that there's some value to it.

Mm-hmm.

I think today, conservatively, for auction purposes, $30,000 to $50,000.

Wow.

Wow.

That's amazing.

That's amazing, that's a pretty good investment for, for $40.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I think it's, it's terrific, and...

I love it.

I would insure this painting for $80,000.

That's amazing, wow.

(laughs) That's... That's...

I've, I've had to stop working, and, um... (voice trembling): It's really hard when you can't work anymore.

And, uh... To buy something that's worth something that I can contribute back, um, means a lot to me.

I, I completely understand that.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, thank you.

Yeah, well...

Thank you, and, uh...

I, I'm going to really cherish it.

This is a 1929 autographed baseball of the New York Yankees, with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig.

My mother's grandfather, uh, was a judge in New Jersey, and he did something for the, uh, trainer of the Yankees.

Probably got him out of jail or something.

So he, the trainer went into the clubhouse and got this signed.

Well, this is a teaching slide rule that I got from my high school math teacher in the late 1970s.

Calculators had come in, they were getting rid of all the slide rules.

So I bought it from him for five bucks.

(chuckles) And I've been carting it around ever since.

(laughs) This is a rifle from my grandfather.

He was from Montana, married a woman from Cincinnati.

He was a competitive shooter, and his wife had a friend who had been recently widowed.

Mm-hmm.

And she didn't want this in the house, along with another gun.

She was going to toss them off the bridge into the Ohio River.

(laughs) And my grandfather stepped in and said, "I'll take them off your hands, if you don't mind."

So these guns are referred to as Turner rifles, because they were used by the Turner societies, which were, uh, German athletic societies.

But it wasn't just calisthenics and, and gymnastics, as we think of it normally.

It also involved things like target shooting.

And then the American Civil War broke, and these immigrants decided that it was very important to them that they support the Union and that they help fight for individual freedoms and individual rights for all the people that lived in their new adopted country.

So they took their Turner rifles that were civilian target guns, and many of them they had modified.

The primary adaptation was the addition of the bayonet bar on the side of the barrel near the muzzle, which allowed this large brass-handled, Bahn Frei-style saber bayonet to be added to the gun.

Two of the most notable regiments were the Ninth Ohio, which was raised in Cincinnati, and the 17th Missouri, out of the St. Louis area, which was actually nicknamed the Western Turner Rifles.

What's interesting about your gun, it came from the Cincinnati area.

Even though it's not marked, I would guarantee you this was made by Henry Seibert, who was a German immigrant gunsmith in the Cincinnati area during the 1850s.

As a matter of fact, he actually ran a shop from 1856 to 1858 in Cincinnati called the Buckeye Gun Shop.

This is just typical of the kind of work he did.

Your bayonet is also very special.

It's got the Turner motto on it, "Bahn Frei," which colloquially, essentially means, "Get out of the way, clear the way, here we come."

And most of those are not marked in any way to know who made them.

This one, however, is marked.

On the blade, in very, very small letters, it says "Hug."

And Rudolph Hug was a Cincinnati-based cutler and dental instrument maker.

And when the Civil War broke out, he also produced bayonets for these rifles.

These men marched off to war, many of them in these regiments that not only were entirely German-raised, but actually drilled and fought and gave orders in German, with German officers, German men.

And eventually, they did get better weapons.

They got the guns that were being issued to the balance of the Union Army.

But we do know that these guns were in use with at least some of those Ninth Ohio guys as late as the very end of 1862, beginning of 1863, 'cause one of those bayonets was recovered at the Battle of Stones River, which was actually fought over that, that New Year's period, between '62 and '63, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Incredibly scarce gun, wonderful story.

As a grouping, I would put a very conservative auction estimate on this set at between $4,000 and $6,000.

The fact that the bayonet is maker-marked makes it much more desirable.

Hug bayonets are not particularly common.

As a matter of fact, the last time I had one, which was about a dozen years ago, at that time, there were only nine or ten known.

Wow.

It's such a really cool part of Civil War history that most people don't know about.

They don't know about these German-language regiments that fought for the Union.

That's amazing.

A few years ago, the market was a little hotter.

Maybe ten years ago, this would've been $8,000 to $10,000?

WOMAN: All I know is what my mother-in-law told us about it.

She said that her great-grandparents had a trading post up around Luna Canyon in Mora County.

And these Indians came in one day for supplies.

And they didn't have the money to pay for the supplies, but they had a, a boy with them that was wearing this jacket.

He was reddish-haired and, uh, blue-eyed.

So they figured, "Well, you know, he probably came from some settlement somewhere."

But anyway, they offered the boy in exchange for the supplies.

And so they took him in, and they raised him and educated him.

And then in later years, when he was grown, he, uh, married one of their daughters.

Well, this little boy's shirt comes from a time when the world, especially this part of the world, was in great change.

This was probably made around the time they got it, which was s, about 1850.

If you looked at a map in 1840, ten years earlier, Mora County was into the Republic of Texas.

Oh, okay.

If you went back 30 years before that, it was Mexico.

Oh, okay.

If you went back 30 years before that, it was the Spanish frontier.

And there was something called the Santa Fe Trail, and it went from around St. Louis to here.

One of the biggest stops on the trail was in Mora County and was where all the trading operations were located.

Oh, okay.

And it was also a time when all that land was disputed.

There was constant conflict.

There were captives taken on both sides.

Captives were exchanged.

And this little boy was probably one of those captives.

They obviously thought a lot of him.

Yes.

Or they wouldn't have put him in this beautiful shirt.

Yeah.

And you know, he must've been pretty strong, too, because that thing's heavy.

(chuckling): Well, it's a lot... (chuckles) Well, all of this is glass.

Oh, it's glass?

It's all glass beads.

And if you flip it over, you see where they're stitched it out... Mm-hmm.

And you flip it over again, And it's fully beaded on the back, too.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, it has some weight to it.

Yeah.

These beads are called pony beads.

They're a larger bead, and they're the first beads that were traded in North America.

This is all sewn with animal sinew.

These beads were strung, an awl poked a hole, and it was stitched.

So it took a significant amount of time to do this.

Yes.

Another thing that's very telling about this is, if you look up here around the neck, this is bison hide.

So this was when the buffalo were still here.

Oh, okay.

And all these tribes were subsisting off bison.

Oh, okay.

It was before the big shoot-offs and, and when they annihilated the herds.

Yes.

Now, this is deerskin.

Ah.

So it's a combination, but the main body of it is bison.

Oh, really?

And that kind of helps date it-- after 1876... Yeah.

...there were very few bison left in North America.

Yeah.

So this is in the early days piece.

Yeah.

One of the things you asked me about was who would've made this.

And I talked with one of my colleagues.

Our primary thinking was, well, who, who was in that area?

The power tribe were the Comanche.

Okay.

They controlled everything up there.

A possible group would have been the Apache, because they were in competition, and they were a little bit further south, but they were all over that area, too, especially the Mescalero.

Okay.

But then we got to looking at these...

These look like arrow points or spear points, down here at the bottom.

And that is very characteristic of the Kiowa.

Oh, really?

And the Kiowa were, they're a very small tribe, but they were from the Northern Rockies, like the Comanche.

Uh-huh.

They spoke a, a different language, but they were very close, and they worked together a lot, not only in, in war, in battle, but also they were connected socially.

The other thing is, these cranberry-colored pony beads were something the Kiowa love.

And so we can't be sure, but we do think that it's possibly a Kiowa shirt, mm-hmm.

Kiowa?

Okay.

There's very little that survives from that time period or from those people.

Yeah, my mother-in-law had it in a, uh, chest, and then when she got sick, she decided to give it to my husband.

We bought a table with a glass top and a drawer, and we had it in there.

And then Forrest Fenn gave us an appraisal.

I mean, he offered so much money for it.

What was his appraisal?

He wanted to give us $10,000 for it.

That was probably around 2000, 2001?

2001, I think.

Things have changed.

Yeah.

I would expect a retail price on this of around $150,000.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Wow.

If you were to insure it...

It's hard for me to say the words, even, "replacement value."

There is no replacement.

Yeah.

This is a one-of-a-kind piece.

Yes.

But I would say an insurance value, reasonable, $200,000.

Really?

Yes.

It's a story of the country in conflict.

Yes.

But that's okay.

Yeah, mm-hmm.

That story needs to be told.

Yes.

Just like every other one.

Yes.

PEÑA: You're enjoying "Antiques Roadshow" PEÑA: And now it's time for the "Roadshow" Feedback Booth.

We've had these baskets in my house forever, and I thought they were from the Northwest coast, and they're African and worth about $25, but I had a lot of fun.

We did-- thank you, "Antiques Roadshow."

Thank you.

You fulfilled our fantasies.

And I learned that my great-grandmother's ring needs a good cleaning, but it's from the 1930s, and it's worth about $2,000, so, not bad.

And I got a couple camera lenses that aren't worth a whole lot, but I sure do love to use them.

(laughs) These are Grandma Mills's salt and pepper shakers from Germany.

No markings, so we don't know how old or where they came from, but they're really good for salt and pepper.

And today we learned that this painting, uh, is actually, uh, porcelain, and it is quite a bit newer than the door that it's framed in, uh, quite possibly Italian or Scandinavian on the artwork.

Um, and it's worth $150.

(chuckles) This is a folk carving that I thought was a circus carving, but it's not.

It's from the 1890s.

And is worth-- not bad, $500 to $800.

My ancient Egyptian figures are younger than I am.

So, this doll came, um, from Korea with my grandmother in 1964, and she's in great condition.

Unfortunately, she's only worth $75, but she'll continue to haunt my dreams forever, I'm sure.

PEÑA: Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."