WOMAN: Did you all hear that?

Did you all hear that?

MAN: Yes!

CORAL PEÑA: Do you hear that?

He offered me $100 for it.

(all laughing) You can't have it for $100.

PEÑA: That's the sound of "Antiques Roadshow: Musical Scores."

♪ ♪ PEÑA: "Antiques Roadshow" has been making music for over 26 years.

Well, that's kind of more than I had thought.

(laughs) PEÑA: We've evaluated rare instruments...

The Selmer Mark VI from the 1960s is kind of the Holy Grail.

PEÑA: Unique items from some of the world's most talented musicians... APPRAISER: Not a really common thing to see Marvin Gaye memorabilia.

I never would've thought.

I mean, I'm just shocked.

PEÑA: And objects that illustrate music's role throughout history and across many cultures.

APPRAISER: It's a Plains Indian courting flute.

Quite a great piece.

PEÑA: In this episode, we're revisiting some of those appraisals that hit all the right notes.

WOMAN: I always read the "Chicago Daily News," and my favorite, favorite columnist was Mike Royko.

Always for the underdog.

Frank Sinatra was in Chicago to perform, and, of course, all these little ladies on Michigan Avenue were always getting mugged on State Street.

And Mike Royko wrote a column about the fact that Frank Sinatra had half the Chicago police force acting as his bodyguards on this whole floor of a hotel.

And so he wrote a kind of a cute, funny column that, uh, you know, where were all the policemen?

Well, they were taking care of Old Blue Eyes.

Well, Old Blue Eyes didn't appreciate the column and fired off this letter to Mike Royko.

So Mike published it in the "Daily News" and said he would sell that letter to the highest bidder, and the money would go to the Salvation Army.

So I decided I'd bid on the letter.

And I had a $400 Mothers' Day check from my big family, and I was sitting there and I said, "I'll bid $400."

And maybe a couple weeks later, the phone rang.

I picked it up-- "This is Mike Royko."

(laughing): I just let out a holler.

And so that was the story of how I got the letter.

And it's a historic letter, because Mike put it in his column, and Frank was really ticked off about what Mike said, and so he has, he has a few choice words for Mike.

He says, "Firstly, "let me start this note by saying, I don't know you and you don't know me."

And he goes on to say, basically, "Where are you coming up with this stuff?

I don't have cronies."

You know, "The police force is being generous.

"That's not my fault.

Why don't you take it up with them?"

He says, "Quite frankly, I don't understand "why people don't spit in your eye three or four times a day."

(laughs) This is Frank talking to Mike here.

That sounds like Frank.

You know?

He talks about his "tough reputation" and that no one else can prove that type of allegation.

And then, he calls Mike Royko a pimp.

That was a, that was a blow.

And, I mean, this is just amazing stuff.

"Lastly," he says, "I will allow you "to pull my 'hairpiece'; "if it moves, I will give you another $100,000; "if it does not, I punch you in the mouth.

How about it?"

(laughing) He signs it "Sinatra," and then copyrights it, so if, if it's ever published, it has to be published in full.

Over here, we have Royko's columns, and these two are his responses to Sinatra's letter, where he talks about how he plans on auctioning it off, after he found out that people were interested in the letter, and he wanted the money to go to a good cause, the Salvation Army.

I conferred with some of my colleagues here, and we all agree that it is the best Sinatra letter we ever read.

Yeah, doesn't it sound just like him?

(laughing) Oh, it's him all the way.

And when he called him a pimp?

Oh, boy.

There were headlines in a lot of papers then, about the pimp letter.

Absolutely.

I bet.

And it's still a famous letter, and people remember it today.

And as such, I would estimate it at auction at at least $15,000... (gasping): Oh!

(laughing) And, and I wouldn't be surprised... Oh, no...

I wouldn't be surprised if this letter sold for more than that, because Sinatra stuff is as hot as it can get, and, uh, and it just doesn't get any better than this.

(laughing): Oh!

So with all the provenance and your great story... Oh, my goodness.

It's just such a great piece.

I was so, so happy that you brought it in today.

(laughing) Oh, gee, I, I'm going to faint.

(laughs) (laughing): I'm going to faint.

I really... Where are my friends?

Are you all right?

CREW MEMBER: We have seats here.

WOMAN: Oh, yes, give me a seat!

(laughing): Oh, man!

Are they kidding me?

Did you all hear that?!

WOMAN: Yes!

MAN: Yes!

Did you all hear that!

(laughing): Oh, isn't that...

He offered me $100 for it.

(laughing) You can't have it for $100.

Isn't that super?

Yeah, that's so super.

Oh!

I'm going to give that money to...

If I ever sell it, the money goes to the Salvation Army anyway.

Oh, that would be good.

So the more, the merrier.

(all laugh) Oh, listen, you just made my... Uh-huh.

...my life... (woman exclaims) Did you hear that, Betty?

I know, I heard it, I heard it, I heard it!

(both laughing) (both exclaiming) They must be nuts!

Isn't that great?

It's wonderful.

You inherited this guitar, right?

From my brother, yes.

Tell me a little bit about how he wound up with it.

Um, he was in college in Colorado, and him and a friend had gone to a pawn shop.

They spotted this guitar, and the man at the pawn shop said that it was once owned by Hank Williams.

So, being a poor college student, though, he was having second thoughts.

He finally decided he would just purchase it.

So this is, like, in, uh, early to mid-'70s?

Yeah, yeah, around there.

And what did he pay for it?

I think he paid between $250 and $300 for it originally, yeah.

One of the things that I would put to rest first is that I don't think that Hank Williams actually owned this guitar, but he did play...

Okay.

...a Martin D-28.

The exciting thing about this guitar is the date and all of the features that it has.

It's a Martin D-28, made in 1944.

Okay.

Now, I've played bluegrass pretty much all my life, and this is the Holy Grail for bluegrass players-- a Martin D-size-body guitar.

Okay.

1944 was the last year that they did scalloped bracings.

Now, we can't show this on camera because we can't take your guitar apart, but when we were over at the musical instrument table, we got a mirror and a flashlight and looked up inside of the top and the back here, and we could tell that it had the scalloped bracings.

Okay, and that's a good thing.

That's a very good thing.

Okay.

The reason people love these so much is because that scalloped bracing gives them a certain sound.

And they quit doing it because they had a lot of warranty claims from the top separating and so forth, and started making it more sturdy and had a stiffer sound, also.

It has herringbone trim around the outside.

It's Adirondack spruce, Brazilian rosewood in the body, and that's the original inlay pattern.

The tuners have been replaced.

Okay.

And that's not unusual for a guitar that old.

The other thing that I noticed was that there's a real light overspray on it.

Uh, not much, nothing that would really be a deal killer.

Real evidence of it is right here in this little inset where the fingerboard comes out, because that would have never had finish put on it.

And also, when you look through the sound hole, you'll see that there's a little bit of varnish down inside of it.

So whoever sprayed it probably didn't put anything over the sound hole, so it's got a little bit of varnish inside of it.

I talked with my colleague over at the table, and we both agree that this guitar would retail for $35,000 to $45,000.

$35,000 to $45,000?

Thousand.

Well, that's kind of more than I had thought.

(laughing) Well, that's great.

That's... unbelievable.

I just want to strum one chord on this...

Okay.

...so people can hear how wonderful this is.

(strums major chord) You hear how full that is?

(repeats chord) It's just got a great sound.

Maybe I should take guitar lessons.

(chuckling) I would.

(both laugh) APPRAISER: I know a lot about this sculpture and who the artist is, and I don't really know who the subject matter is, but you know who the subject matter is.

Tell us about him.

It's a band leader from the 1930s named Hal Kemp.

You have a lot of interesting documentation.

In fact, you even have this photograph of Hal Kemp here, with the sculptor, Max Kalish, with the model.

I would put an auction estimate of between, uh, $6,000 and $8,000.

Really?

Yeah, really.

(chuckling): Wow.

Yeah.

MAN: This poster came from the New Orleans Pop Festival.

APPRAISER: Great acts there.

We've got the Byrds, we've got Canned Heat, we got Chicago Transit Authority.

I see Janis is on here.

Tell me your impression of Janis.

Almost all these bands were dominated by men.

Uh-huh.

And when she took the stage, it was all about her.

I did find another one that sold, and it sold for $1,500 at auction.

Well, there's no problem with that.

WOMAN: This is a birthday gift from my father.

His father was in the jewelry business and this is part of the family collection of random things.

And, uh, it's a little music box that plays "Happy Birthday."

Wow.

"Happy Birthday" for a birthday gift.

(chuckles): Yes.

It's an American 14-karat-gold musical charm from the 1960s set with glass gems.

And the motif on the back is music.

Yeah, isn't that cute?

Yeah.

It's probably worn on one of those great big charm bracelets with all of that heavy gold on it.

Gotcha.

It's a little clockwork in there, it's a little music box, and such a thing sells now in an antique shop for around $500.

Really?

Wow.

I, I thought maybe $20.

That's amazing.

Could you show us how this works?

Yeah, you've got to pull out the little, um, knob here, and turn it up.

(tune playing) Today I brought in a manuscript, a musical manuscript, that was personally written by Giuseppe Verdi.

It's an excerpt of his opera "La Traviata."

And it was written on the 20th April of 1858 and signed by Giuseppe Verdi.

A dedication probably to a friend.

And how did you get it?

I grew up in Vienna, and our neighbors were Austrian Jews, and they escaped to London, and they were very involved in the Jewish refugee community.

A lot of Jewish refugees brought over valuable items that they could smuggle out of, uh, Nazi Germany.

I've known the couple since I moved to Vienna in the 1960s.

They became very close friends of ours.

Over time, they gave my dad a couple of those pieces.

My dad was a big Verdi fan.

That was his favorite opera.

Yeah.

So I guess that's why they gave it to him.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's a terrific piece.

In the manuscript world, we would call this an autograph musical quotation, signed.

Mm-hmm.

So it's not the working manuscript, it's not the draft of Verdi.

Sure, sure.

But someone, a friend, a fan... Yeah, mm-hmm.

...asks Verdi to give him a few bars... Mm-hmm.

...of, of a famous aria... Yeah, yeah.

...from "Traviata," and he complied.

What's nice about your example is that unlike the usual autographed musical quotation... Mm-hmm.

...which is only about three bars of music, this is 16 bars.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, really, yeah?

This is really a full... Never counted it.

...a full musical phrase.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And it's signed and it's dated, as well.

What's great about this is, it really helps explain what manuscript collectors are looking for.

Mm-hmm.

Manuscript collectors want letters, documents, manuscripts from famous people, but they want those letters, documents, manuscripts to show the person doing what he does best.

Sure.

If you have something from a musician... Yeah.

...you want the musical quotation.

You want to see the bars of music.

And the more, the better.

It has a few condition problems.

This is probably some silverfish damage.

Right.

So it might bear, uh, reframing it and, and perhaps treating it more archivally.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

So this full-page 16-bar... Yeah.

...musical quotation I would put at auction for $8,000 to $12,000.

Oh, really?

Yeah?

Okay.

(chuckling): That's very, very nice.

Now I know for insurance purposes what to do.

Mm-hmm, if...

If you were going to insure it... Yeah, yeah.

...you could double it to $16,000... Yeah, sure, yeah.

...for insurance purposes.

And then there, yeah...

Okay, uh, but it's, uh, but it's definitely good to know.

MAN: I've brought a painting which I inherited about 30 years ago.

And it has remained in our family...

I think it's been in since about 1955, maybe?

It stayed unframed for many years, and when I inherited, I had it framed, and that's about all I can tell you about it.

Can you tell me how much your mother paid for the painting?

I have no earthly idea.

I think she bought it from the artist himself, because there was a sticker on the back that had his home address, which is on Racine Avenue in Chicago, and I think she bought it from the artist, not from the show.

The artist is Bernard Goss.

Mm-hmm.

And you're right, there's a sticker on the back, which is an exhibition label from Atlanta in 1954.

Okay.

This was in an, uh, in an exhibition that was actually of some note called "The Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, and Prints by Negro Artists" at Atlanta University.

This is from April 4 to May 2, 1954.

Bernard Goss, he studied at the, uh, Art Institute of Chicago and became a Chicago artist.

Mm-hmm.

Eventually he married another very important artist, as well, Margaret Burroughs.

Margaret Burroughs established the, uh, South Side Community Center.

This was a WPA project, which was a Works Progress... Mm-hmm.

...uh, Administration of FDR.

And actually, Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1941, attended the opening of that center, which is still open today.

So he's an important artist for, for Chicago.

My mother, who was a psychotherapist... Mm-hmm.

...worked for the South Side Center.

She did?

For a number of years.

Uh, this was while she was going to school.

I imagine that's how she got to know the artist, through his wife.

That's very possible.

This painting, which was painted in 1954, is actually very important, as far as its date and as far as what it depicts.

Mm-hmm.

Now, 1954 was a seminal year in the civil rights movement.

Mm-hmm.

Because that was the year of Brown v. Board of Education.

And as we all know, Brown v. Board of Education basically, uh, outlawed segregation in the, in the schools.

So when we look at the subject matter of this painting, what we have is an African American woman playing the, uh, piano, and a white woman dancing with her.

The title of the painting, as it's titled on the back, is "Counterpoint."

You can imagine, in 1954, when we're talking about the races getting together and, uh, desegregation, this painting was very apropos.

Mm-hmm.

It relates to that time period.

The way it's done is also very, very lyrical.

It reminds me of Harlem Renaissance paintings.

Yes.

It's this, this kind of fluidity, the, the way the woman is dancing, and even the way the figure in the foreground is, is painted, with the kind of, the low décolletage, the...

Her look even reminds me of, of Harlem Renaissance painting.

Mm-hmm.

The painting is oil on Masonite.

There are a lot of institutions and a lot of collectors for African American art.

Mm-hmm.

I would put an auction estimate of $7,000 to $10,000 on it.

Okay.

What's the insurance value?

The insurance value is going to be about $15,000.

Okay.

But it could, insurance could be as, as high as $25,000, it depends what kind of appraisal you get.

WOMAN: I bought this poster at an auction about six or seven years ago.

APPRAISER: When you bought it at auction, how much did you pay for it?

I believe I paid about $350.

Do you know who, who the artist is?

Do you know when it's from?

Do you know what it's for?

(chuckling): I really don't.

I hate to admit my ignorance.

It's the Alcazar d'Été, which was one of the two great French music halls on the Champs-Élysées... Ah.

...only during the summer.

There was also the Alcazar d'Hiver, which was the winter theater.

But these were outdoor music halls on the Champs-Élysées, and this is a poster for a cabaret act for the Four Marten Sisters.

Okay.

I hate to tell you my ignorance: I don't know who they are.

(laughs) Their act is lost to history.

They are the tambourine-playing, dancing quartet.

Uh-huh.

But they were obviously a minor sensation in the Parisian music halls at the end of last century.

There's no date on it, but I went to some reference books and I looked it up.

It's from 1888.

Oh, my!

Which is a really early lithograph.

Uh, but the more interesting thing to me is who the artist is.

Now, you don't see an artist's name anywhere on the picture.

Uh, it's unsigned, but it is clearly the work of Jules Chéret.

Now, Jules Chéret's name appears on the poster, but not as the artist.

Mm-hmm.

His name appears right here as one of the printers of the poster.

Jules Chéret was basically the father of the modern poster.

He's been called both the father of modern lithography and the father of the modern poster, and it was his work and his work alone that created the entire sensation of posters in Paris at the end of the 19th century.

He was the master of combining four colors into a virtual rainbow of lithographic colors.

Now, this poster predates his really colorful images.

This is really only three colors, not four.

It's red, blue, and black.

And it's unusual because Chéret's earlier lithographs are usually much smaller.

And in about two years after this, he began designing the posters that were really filled with yellows, filled with reds, filled with purples and greens.

But this is a very important early work of his.

It is valuable, it is interesting, it's a great document because it's an early work of this very important artist.

We decided that a very fair auction estimate would be $1,500 to $2,000.

Oh, my goodness.

And the great thing about auction is, is if other people feel it's as rare as I'm telling you, then the price can only go higher.

Wow.

(laughs) So it really does have a lot of pizzazz, huh?

That's good to hear.

Yes, yes, it, it suddenly has more interest to me!

That's great.

(laughs) This is a gown that was owned and worn by Tammy Wynette around the early '90s.

It was designed by Anthony Ferrara, who designed for many famous people-- Katy Perry, Cher, Dolly Parton.

This type of thing is really hot in the vintage world right now.

You would expect to get somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 just for this ensemble by itself, but because Tammy wore it, and that you also have the paperwork, we can add $1,000 to it.

So exciting.

(chuckles): It's priceless to me.

It's from the Virgin Islands.

It's interesting how this ended up in the Virgin Island.

(chuckles) This is a Beijing opera costume...

Okay.

...for the lead actor, who would play the role of Guan Yu.

Uh-huh.

And Guan Yu was a real person, a general, from probably about the first or second century A.D.

If this were to come up at auction, I wouldn't hesitate to put an auction estimate of $4,000 to $6,000... (chuckling): Wow, okay, nice gift.

...on it.

APPRAISER: Now, the whole thing with this is that it's got to be authenticated.

WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

As it sits right here, it's worth $4,000 to $5,000.

Mm-hmm.

If it's truly Elvis's, I think $35,000 could be what it's really, really worth to a collector, his memorabilia.

Mm-hmm, right, right.

So we gotta look around, we gotta find a picture with him wearing this ring.

Yeah.

And, and then maybe you'll really have something.

Right, right.

Well, I found it in an antique shop, uh, just hanging on the back wall.

Okay.

And I was very excited to, uh, find a metal-bodied instrument with a pretty picture on it.

You're, uh, an instrument collector, I take it.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, the thing that makes this so much more unusual than a run-of-the-mill instrument is, this is what we call trench art.

Okay.

Trench art was very popular in World War I. Um, it was typically made by convalescing troops that were wounded, and it was to keep them occupied during their convalescence.

Okay.

Most trench art that we see will be shells, artillery shells with decorations on them.

Right.

Little bullets, cigarette lighters, cigarette cases.

But in all the years I've been involved with military antiques, I've never seen a musical instrument made of brass shells.

Oh, really?

Okay.

It's dated September 20, 1917, and then the man's name who more than likely made it.

Apparently, he may have been a musical instrument maker before the war.

Right.

Because he knew how to fabricate a musical instrument, especially out of brass from military casings.

Trench art has become very popular in the last few years.

Okay.

And something like this, it's kind of hard to put a value on.

You paid how much for it?

I think $130 for it.

That was a very good buy.

I would estimate it $500, maybe $600, $700 for it.

Oh, excellent.

MAN: It came to me by pure accident, actually.

For years, I worked for the Motown Museum here in Detroit, started when I was 18 years old.

I was a Motown collector-- anything Motown I loved-- and after a Motown musician had passed, we had gone to their house to pick up some items that the family wanted to donate to the museum, and they had said, "Is there anything else you wanted?

"Because otherwise, it's going to be in the estate sale this weekend."

And she said, "No."

And I said, "Well, what about these albums and records?"

And, and they had so many already that it just wasn't worth taking.

So I went back to the estate sale and bought some albums and 45s.

When I got home, I was going through them, and out of an album fell this passport.

So... And so it literally fell into my hands.

(laughing) So you know the musician actually had worked with Marvin Gaye, so we can only assume-- we don't know how it ended up in his house in an album that got stashed away, and luckily, you found it.

The thing I'm in love with is how young he is here.

Yes.

This is dated 1964, which is great, and it is after he added the E to the end of his name.

Because when he was signed as a solo artist with Motown, he decided to add that E, and there's a lot of different theories.

People say it's because he wanted to separate himself from his father or because he actually liked Sam Cooke so much, who had an E at the end of his name, that he wanted to imitate his idol.

He had such a journey with Motown.

He started out as a session musician, drumming.

He's on Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips, Part 2," the live version, doing drums.

Yes.

He played drums on "Please, Mr.

Postman."

He did all these great things, and then he slowly worked his way into the duets, and then in this era, you've got kind of a sweet spot, I think one of the happiest times in his life.

1964, he's still in the prime of his life and having the best time.

His career's really starting to take off.

But this is such an innocent time.

Yes.

And people love passports, because they also show where he was all over the world...

Yes.

...what he's doing during these years-- he's obviously traveling, he's touring.

People also like them because we know that they're real signatures, because you have to sign your own passport.

Yeah.

And passport collecting is a really vibrant... Really?

...collecting world, because there's usually only a few of them throughout your life; you only replace them every so often.

How much did you pay for these albums that you bought at this yard sale?

I think it was 50 cents an album and a quarter for a 45.

Wow-- for insurance, I wouldn't put less than $20,000 on the passport if you were to insure it.

(chuckling): Are you kidding me?

I'm not kidding you.

Nothing comes up for Marvin Gaye.

It's not a really common thing to see Marvin Gaye memorabilia.

Wow.

I never would have thought.

I mean, I'm just shocked.

I mean, I, I... Wow.

Oh, gosh, thank you.

WOMAN: She is a Webber Singing Doll from 1882.

She belonged to my grandmother, who was born in 1883.

My grandparents owned a grocery store, and one night, someone came in and took the doll, and my grandma and her folks were lucky enough to find her in the alley.

Her hands had been cut off, as well as her hair, and my grandmother resewed her shoulders.

APPRAISER: What you have here is indeed a Webber Singing Doll.

It has wonderful patent marks on the back of the doll.

Here it says "The Webber Doll."

There's a U.S. patent, there's a Brussels patent, there's a French patent.

The doll was actually assembled in Germany.

And on the front, it says "I sing sweet bye and bye."

You demonstrated, uh, to me how the doll sings, and I'm wondering if you could do that for us.

Absolutely, I'd love to.

(doll whistling) The whistling sound is made by a bellows, and to have the doll still working is very rare.

The doll has a papier-mâché head and glass inset eyes.

The wig, although you were disappointed had been trimmed many years ago, it still has its original wig, which is better than having no wig.

It has kid leather gloves, or arms-- they were sewn in-- and your grandmother did a wonderful job sewing them back on.

Original shoes, original underwear.

This was the original dress that was on the doll.

But then some family member made several other pieces that are over here.

What is she stuffed with?

Usually they're stuffed, stuffed with horsehair.

On today's retail market, the doll would sell between $800 and $1,200.

Now, the interesting thing about that is, it's a very rare doll, very rare, but rarity doesn't always translate into mega dollars, so it's a modest retail for what dolls do sell for on the market today.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay?

Thank you for bringing it.

WOMAN: My uncle played the violin and I think I was earmarked to have this violin as the person to bequeath it to.

I got a little violin when I was seven years old, and was coerced into playing-- he dated the violin teacher.

So I played all those years, and I started to enjoy it when I was in high school, and then I played it through college, and recently I've just played it in my daughter's preschool and grade school.

And last December, I made an attempt to play in a community "Messiah" program.

Good for you.

Tell me a little bit more about your uncle.

My uncle played in an orchestra.

Mm-hmm.

And he was an optometrist, and this is what he did on the side for entertainment, and he went on this quest for the best violin he could find.

Mm-hmm.

And I always heard about this great violin, but nobody knew... Mm-hmm.

...if it was really great or if that was just a rumor.

It's from the Gagliano family of Naples, and it dates from about 1800 to 1810.

Now, the Gagliano family was a huge dynasty of makers that went from the early 1700s all the way to the late 1800s.

They were really the prevailing family in Naples, and with this particular violin, I think that it was probably a collaboration between two generations.

The label inside reads "Nicola Gagliano," who was the most famous and maybe the most prolific maker in the family.

The work on this violin, I don't see only the hand of Nicola, but I do see the work of his sons Joseph and Antonio.

It's worth just a little bit less than if it was purely by Nicola.

It's a little bit later than his prime time.

The violin is in wonderful condition.

It's a typical Gagliano model, a very powerful, broad arching.

It projects a huge sound.

That's what makes this violin always a favorite for professional players who are kind of on a budget, or just starting.

The top's probably made of Italian red spruce.

As we go up, we see a lot of wear to the front of the scroll, and that gives us a clue to its age.

And we see that on the back, too, where it used to be sliding in and out of the case.

It's almost worn flat in that area.

But you see the more protected areas are quite crisp and clean.

The sides and the back are made of Yugoslavian maple.

This is a very high grade of maple, very light and very strong.

Best violin-making wood in the world.

This is a beautiful two-piece back, and you see a lot of the original varnish still on there.

All in all, it's in very, very good condition.

Looking at the bow, this bow was made in France at the shop of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, who was the most famous violin dealer of his day.

He had a whole crew of bow makers, among them, which was his favorite, was François Nicolas Voirin.

All of the bows from Vuillaume's shop have his stamp on them, and the head's bell shape is what helps us to identify it as the early period of François Nicolas Voirin.

And these are the favorite bows of musicians nowadays, because they play fantastically.

The way to identify further the origin of this bow is to look at the actual stamp on it.

And for that, we have to turn it upside down, because that's the way the French stamp their bows.

So, this being an early work of François Nicolas Voirin, because of its condition-- it's a little bit worn, it's got some cracks in the frog that have been repaired-- I'm going to value the bow at $12,000 to $14,000.

Really?

(laughs) And the violin at $60,000 to $80,000, very conservatively.

Really?

And that would be an auction value.

Wow.

(laughs) I would have never guessed.

(laughs) ♪ ♪ APPRAISER: This was made by the Columbia Company in 1899.

MAN: Right.

And it cost three dollars when it was new.

Oh, good, okay.

And they couldn't sell them.

They reduced the price in 1900 to $1.50 to get rid of them.

And they're very, very rare today.

It's a finger-powered little guy.

Right.

It is in fact a cylinder phonograph type, but it was a toy.

It's wonderful.

If this were to come up in the right auction, you'd make between $10,000 and $15,000.

Whoa!

(chuckles) APPRAISER: Horns are not that collectible.

Even signature horns.

I'd probably put it somewhere between $600 to $1,000.

♪ ♪ MAN: My stepfather was stationed in Japan right after World War II, brought it home, and that's all I know about it.

This guy is so small and so beautifully worked.

It's done in the Meiji period, from 1868 to 1912, by the Miyao factory that produced the best mixed-metal work in that entire period.

Mm-hmm.

At auction, it would carry a pre-sale estimate of $2,000 to $3,000.

Ooh, that's great!

(laughs) Yeah!

APPRAISER: Your grandfather owned this?

That's correct, he, I inherited from him.

Uh, he passed away before I was able to find out where he received it.

Uh-huh, so it's been in the family quite a while.

Yes, my mother remembers that when she was a child, seeing it in the house.

Well, it's a Plains Indian courting flute.

Warriors used to stand outside the tepee and court their sweethearts with this.

This is a particularly beautiful one.

Uh, the Plains people, they didn't make a lot of sculpture.

They were on the move all the time.

They made pipe bowls and a few things.

And I've studied these pretty extensively, and it appears to be a loon as a flute block, which is very evocative of the, the sound of the flute, and you can kind of romanticize what it would have sounded like on the Plains.

This is a very beautiful, very early flute.

Uh, the ties are buffalo hide.

There's traces of red ocher, both in the, the buffalo hide ties and on the loon itself.

It probably dates to the mid-19th century, which is quite early for something like this.

Have you got any idea what its value might be?

I have no clue.

Uh-huh, well, they're, they're fairly rare.

Uh, I know I sold one years ago, and I have to say, I think this one's even nicer than that one.

So I think I'd put an estimate of about $6,000 to $8,000 on it.

Wow, that's...

It's... That's fantastic.

It's quite a, quite a great piece.

Yeah, I'm gonna feel real glad giving it to my children.

It has been in my family since probably about the '30s.

My great-great-uncle was a doorman in New York City, and somebody gave it to him when they were moving out, and then it went to my great-grandmother.

When she passed away, it came to my mother, and about 15 years ago, my mom gave it to me, because she knew how much I loved the piece.

We've always referred to it as the music stand.

We're not really sure what it is, but that's how we referred to it.

And my mother used to have the record player on it when I was a kid.

So I used to love listening to the records.

Okay.

And we'd prop them in the front.

So as we were playing the record, the, the cover art would be on the front part, propped up.

Oh, fun!

We don't see things like this every day.

First of all, it's interesting that it rotates.

I think it's a, it's a very good question.

What exactly is this?

(chuckles) Well, stylistically, this is bridging the gap between the Art Nouveau style...

Okay.

...and the Arts and Crafts style.

Okay.

And if you look, like, the, uh, the carving at the end here...

These, yeah.

...it's very naturalistic and flowing, very much in keeping with the Art Nouveau that was flourishing...

Okay.

...in the, in the 1890s.

Oh!

At the same time, it has that oak with the bright grain and the sort of austerity in shape, at least, of the Arts and Crafts period.

Okay.

So this falls right there on that line between the two.

But I love the silhouette that's created by that naturalistic carving.

On the side, you've got the drawers there.

I do think this is a music stand... Oh.

...or a portfolio stand.

Okay.

The drawers are just the right size for a folded sheet of music at that period.

Okay!

And we can just rotate it around here.

Look at all of this dramatic openwork carving.

This was made by a very charismatic American by the name of Charles Rohlfs.

Rohlfs made this probably about 1905.

And he was working in Buffalo, New York, in that period.

Under here...

Okay.

...there is a little cipher, and it's meant to look like a saw...

Okay.

...and a sickle.

Right.

And it has an R in it.

Okay.

And that is for Charles Rohlfs.

He thought of his works as real originals.

Okay.

And he liked to say that they didn't refer to any other style, that they were just out of his mind.

And it was his passion and love for them that brought life into them and made people love these things.

That's cool!

(chuckles) Um, it is very distinctive.

Okay.

And part of what I love about this is, Rohlfs wanted this to be a mystery.

He wanted it to be something that people puzzled over...

Okay.

...and said, "What is that?"

Both in ornament and in function, it's an open question.

Works of Charles Rohlfs are in museums all over the country.

Okay.

There has been a major exhibition of the works of Charles Rohlfs in recent years.

Okay.

So this piece is a treasure.

Now, I want to know, what does your husband think of this?

(laughs) My husband has been wanting to put it on the fire pit because it's in such bad shape.

Your husband's gonna have a hard time living it down after this, I think.

(laughs): Okay.

I would estimate, at auction, this piece is worth between $40,000 and $60,000.

Oh, my gosh!

(laughs) WOMAN: A few weeks ago, I was looking for art here in Austin to hang into a house I had bought, and up until then, I had a lot of French country, but I bought a very modern house.

So I wanted something to hang on the fireplace, and I saw this in a resale shop and I noticed it had these grays and these really pretty colors, and it was ten dollars, and it had this stainless steel frame.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

And so I went ahead and purchased it.

Good for you-- I, I noticed you have that on here.

Right here, actually, the ten dollar price tag.

So do you know anything about who the artist is?

I... Or what the medium is?

I do not.

It was signed, I couldn't read it.

It says Romare Bearden.

And it is also numbered 30 out of 175.

Romare Bearden is a 20th-century artist who died in the 1980s, but is one of the most celebrated African American artists.

He's well known mostly for his collages that he did.

This is an example of a slightly different look of his, but it is another theme that he's very famous for, which is jazz clubs and music.

This one is from his "Jazz" series, and there were six images in this series.

Bearden was really well-known for being a huge supporter of African American artists, writers, dancers.

He founded several organizations that were meant entirely for the support of young Black artists and helping them come along.

He was the director of the Harlem Cultural Arts Council.

He wrote and published several books, and was known to be friends with Langston Hughes, various jazz musicians... Mm-hmm, yes.

...all different kinds of major figures in African American arts, and for that reason, he's celebrated hugely as having a major impact on later-20th-century African American art coming to the fore.

This particular print is a lithograph, which is an image in which the artist works directly on the stone.

There are many others done of it, of course.

There's 175 altogether.

This particular print was made in 1979, towards the end of his career.

Do you have any idea of the value of the print beyond the ten dollars that you spent?

No.

I figured it was worth more than ten dollars, but...

Okay.

$100?

$200?

I think you could add another zero to that number.

And the current auction estimate that I would place on a work like this would be $1,000 to $2,000.

It's wonderful to see and I'm thrilled you brought it in.

Uh-huh.

You okay?

Yeah!

(laughs) (voice trembling): I'm okay.

I am, I mean, that's exciting.

I don't have anything that's, you know, that, that's nice, it's like...

Sorry.

It's, like, I told you I wasn't gonna cry!

(laughs) It's, like... Oh, my gosh!

APPRAISER: What's exciting about this banjo, and it's, it's all original.

MAN: Yes, it is.

It is all here, and it's... Yeah.

But there's a, there's a hook here for me.

Okay.

Which really excited me when I flipped it over.

And that is who signed it on the back.

Right.

I'm gonna say, with Pete Seeger's signature and all, $2,000 to $2,200.

Good!

APPRAISER: It is a very large, oversized albumen print between the 1880s and 1900.

Might be from Markneukirchen, Germany, a town that's known for this amazing production of brass instruments.

Okay.

This is a type of work that most likely would have been commissioned by a musical instrument production company.

It would have hung really proudly in their offices.

At auction, I would estimate this for $1,200 to $1,800.

And I think it could sell for a lot more than that.

(laughs): A lot more than I expected.

WOMAN: I have a Mickey Mouse band and I think that it is old.

APPRAISER: It is old, it's somewhere in the range of 1930s.

First of all, if you look at Mickey's face, it's the long, pointy-nose Mickey.

Mm-hmm.

The interesting thing about this is, it's not made in Japan, which a lot of the... Mm-hmm.

...material was-- this is better.

This was made in Germany.

And you don't always find a complete band and you rarely find these in, in condition like this, where there's no chips, no breaks-- these are perfect.

You're looking at somewhere between $900 and $1,200.

Well, this is a Selmer Mark VI, and, uh, I bought it my freshman year at college.

I bought it in New York City.

I had started a band my senior year in high school and carried that through college.

I bought it in the fall of '64 and I paid $365.

It's a Selmer Mark VI alto saxophone made in Paris.

The serial number dates it to about the middle of 1964.

Uh, vintage horns, such as this, are more desirable than even the best horns that are made today.

The Selmer Mark VI from the 1960s is kind of the, uh, Holy Grail of, uh, of saxophones.

Oh, wow.

The condition is spectacularly good.

This horn is 99-plus percent original lacquer, which is hard to find.

In today's market, this horn would sell for $6,000, at least.

Wow.

And you've got three mouthpieces here, a Brilhart metal duck bill, they call that.

Right, right.

The original Selmer C-star hard rubber.

Yup, yup, yup.

And another Brilhart that happens... Yeah, that was a tenor.

This is a tenor mouthpiece.

Sometimes I would play tenor.

Between the three of them, there's probably about $700 worth of, uh, vintage mouthpieces.

Wow.

Wow.

And the total value of the whole package is, uh, about $6,700 at retail.

Very nice.

Thank you for bringing it in.

Appreciate it.

MAN: My dad was in the American Legion, and he was down at the, uh, Legion Hall one day, in the storage room, and happened to see this sitting in a corner, and asked if they wanted to sell it, and they thought they might as well.

They used to use it for, uh, dances and that sort of thing, but they hadn't used it in years.

And this is, like, 1971.

And, uh, so anyway, he acquired it that way, and, uh, brought it home, and we've had it ever since.

Did you ever find out what he paid for it or do you know?

(laughs softly): Well, he was kind of cagey about some of those type of things.

Uh, he said $25, but I, I don't know about that.

It is a Rock-Ola.

Uh, it's a model 1428, uh, which was manufactured in 1948.

It plays, uh, 78 RPMs and it holds 20 of them.

Uh, this is sort of the end of the golden era of these light-up jukeboxes, and the demise came as a result of the fact that it couldn't handle more records.

Rock-Ola was founded by David Rockola in about 1927.

He bought the rights to the mechanism which would change the records, and he became a very fierce competitor of Wurlitzer, and one of the leading manufacturers of jukeboxes.

You gotta love the name Rock-Ola.

It's very fine condition, you know?

These are certainly vulnerable to damage.

Uh, the sides are plywood, and can bubble and warp, and you can see, if we look at this one, paint specks, very authentic.

Right.

And then if we opened up the front of the box, you can see that it's just pristine inside.

Right.

And condition matters in everything.

People pay a premium for it.

Do you have a thought of what it's worth today?

No, not really, we've, uh, tried to get it appraised, and it's, never has worked out to get somebody to check it out for sure.

So I don't have any idea.

Okay.

I think in today's market, a fair auction estimate would be $2,000 to $3,000.

Really?

And might fetch a little bit more just because of the condition of it.

I mean, it really is... Oh, that's great.

...uh, uncommon to find them this, this clean.

I see, yeah.

So... We've had a lot of fun with it.

MAN: I've known this song for quite a while.

This song was written, uh, in part by my grandfather, Ted Koehler, and he wrote it with Harold Arlen.

It was in 1933.

They wrote it for one of the Cotton Club revues of that year.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And this stationery that he wrote it on, I think, was a, sort of a normal practice for him.

From what I know about the composition, it, it was quick.

You know, maybe an hour or two?

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

From what I've read.

Right.

We don't have any other examples of these original lyrics.

And I think the fact that they wrote it so quick is maybe why they have it all just on one page, even though they...

Even though your grandfather wrote other great lyrics, like "As Long As I Live," "I've Got the World on a String."

Right.

Uh, "Don't Worry About Me," "Ill Wind."

(chuckles): Yeah, it's, I don't know why the, we don't have more of that stuff, but I'm, I'm sure glad we have this one.

You know, if you go back to the Cotton Club, it was actually established by boxer Jack Johnson in 1920 as the Club Deluxe, but it was taken over by gangster Owney Madden in 1923, who renamed it the Cotton Club.

Okay.

Your grandfather Ted and Harold, they were two of the staff for, at the Cotton Club from 1930 to 1934, and they wrote some of the greatest songs for Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington.

They wrote for the revues that came up twice a year.

In '33, what I've read, they wrote this at a party.

How fun is that?

Wow, yeah.

And they did it for Cab Calloway.

Uh-huh.

But Cab left the show.

They got Duke Ellington, but he had no singer.

It just so happened that Ethel Waters, who was singing for fellow gangster Al Capone in Chicago, moved back to New York, and they gave her this song.

But where it really became a standard is in 1943.

And that's when Lena Horne, who, interestingly enough, got her start as a 16-year-old chorus girl at the Cotton Club...

Right.

...sang it in "Stormy Weather," which is one of the few nearly all-Black ensemble cast movies that was really made for a white audience, and it became a standard and a classic to this day, and one of the greatest jazz classics of all time.

This is a great period photo-- here's your grandfather Ted Koehler, and there's Harold Arlen... Yeah.

...who he'd collaborate, and Irving Berlin.

They're out having a good time.

Yeah, yeah.

We also have this great painting, because it seemed that your, uh, grandfather was multitalented.

It's a fabulous Harlem scene at 135th and Lenox.

Yeah.

But then we look at the lyrics.

And what makes these lyrics so great, their original words were "clouds are dark up in the sky," and then they changed to "there's no sun."

Well, think about the resonance that gave it.

They changed "blues" to "gloom."

"The blues came and met me," instead, "the blues walked in and met me."

"All I do is hope," instead now it's "all I do is pray."

You see the thought process of the composer, and obviously made it the song that it is today.

Just on the painting, on its own, I would probably put $2,000 to $4,000 on the painting.

I think it's fantastic.

I think it's a great scene, and the fact it was done by your grandfather had an appreciation.

But the lyrics, there aren't a lot of comparables out there.

If I were going to put an auction estimate on it, and I'm being conservative here, I'd put $50,000 to $75,000.

Wow!

Wow!

And if I were going to insure it, I'd insure it for at least $100,000.

Oh, wow.

It's a fabulous piece of history and social history.

Oh, that's great, thank you so much.

MAN: I don't know a lot.

It was my father's cousin Uncle John, and he lived in Manhattan.

He actually worked with Coco Chanel, as I understand, in the '40s and '50s.

And when he passed, my father flew to this beautiful apartment he had in New York, and picked out just what he could carry home in a suitcase.

I understand there were some pretty valuable things that left by friends that wanted a memento.

But this came home, and so I now have this, and it's pretty.

But that's about all I know about it.

And do you know what it's called?

I've always called it the bird music box.

Okay, so it's called an automaton.

It's French, around about 1830 to 1850.

And the movement inside is Swiss, and if we give this a moment, I'm gonna open it up, and we'll be able to listen to the music, okay?

Fantastic.

(twittering) Isn't that cool?

It's super-cool.

It's a wind-up movement, uh, and we have the key here, which is really great, to have this little bird-shaped key.

It's fun.

Sometimes they get lost.

It's made of silver and enamel.

Huh.

And all of the painting on it is enamel.

The painting here is after a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

And it's of a girl letting a bird out of a cage.

Oh, I never noticed that.

And actually, the bird in the cage is emblematic of her purity.

Okay.

So she's actually releasing her purity.

Oh, my.

Yes, so it's sort of mildly erotic in nature.

Uh-huh.

We've looked at the inside.

And what's also very interesting, I'll turn this around here... Yeah.

...is that there is this compartment in the back.

I, what is it?

I mean...

I thought it might be a snuff box or something.

That's a great question, and in all honesty, we've spoken with a number of appraisers here, and its true purpose we don't know.

Okay.

It could have been for ladies' patches.

It's possible that that would be a place that you could store the key.

It's unlikely for snuff-- it would have spilled out.

Mm-hmm.

And because these music boxes were traditionally laid out, you wouldn't have any valuable items in there.

Oh.

If this were to come up for auction, an auction estimate would be $8,000 to $12,000.

Oh, fantastic!

That's... ...something I better thank Uncle John for, wherever he is.

That's great.

(twittering) PEÑA: Thanks for watching this special episode of "Antiques Roadshow."

Follow @RoadshowPBS and watch us anytime at pbs.org/antiques or on the PBS Video app.

See you next time on "Antiques Roadshow."