GUEST: I've been involved with a program called the Amigo program.

And it's for students from all over the world to come here and learn English.

And I've been sponsoring students mostly from West Africa and Central Africa.

There was a student from Dahomey at the time, it was Dahomey.

It's now called Benin, West Africa.

We spent time together.

He brought his wife over toward the end of his stay here, and they brought this as a gift and presented it to me.

APPRAISER: Oh, great.

GUEST: At the time, he just said they were antiques.

I knew didn't know too much about them, and still don't know too much about them, but I was fascinated by them.

APPRAISER: Bronzes from West Africa are highly collectible, and consequently, they can be extremely expensive.

And, in fact, the, uh, tradition of bronze making in Africa really goes back to the 15th, 16th century.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: Bronzes can be very tricky.

And one of the things that we look for is we look for the style of the piece.

We look at the surface to see if it's had wear on it.

Now, these objects here... are cast, but the casting is is just not very fine.

There is a, uh foundry which is actually not in Nigeria or Old Dahomey, which is the Republic of Benin, but it's in the Cameroons.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: And most of this material now comes from the Cameroons.

And these objects, I believe, are in that group.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: And... Stylistically, as the aesthetics of the piece... GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...they're very long and drawn out.

This is not what the old ones really look like.

They're actually new pieces.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And they can be really admired and enjoyed as African folk art.

GUEST: Yeah.

Yeah.

APPRAISER: And I would say that these are probably worth about $50 apiece.

GUEST : Oh, okay.

And£ APPRAISER: And.

GUEST: £how old would you think, just recently would you say?

APPRAISER: I-I think they're very new.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: I think that they're certainly not, um, older than maybe the '50s.

GUEST: Okay, okay.

APPRAISER: Do you have any questions?

GUEST: Not really.

I just love them regardless.

APPRAISER: Well, great.

GUEST: I think they're beautiful.

APPRAISER: I hope you enjoy them, and thanks so much for coming.

GUEST: I will.

Thank you, I appreciate it.