GUEST:
I got them in Chattanooga. I like to go to antique malls and stuff about a couple of times a year, and I saw these on the bottom shelf of a display case, and I's, thought they'd really look great in my house, so, I looked at them and I paid $350 for them.

APPRAISER:
Okay, well, that's a lot of money.

GUEST:
It is.

APPRAISER:
So why did you pay that much money for them?

GUEST:
Well, I've, I've looked through books and stuff, and I've seen some that looked sort of like that. I've especially seen ones with seashells on them in books.

APPRAISER:
Right.

GUEST:
Are these by the same people?

APPRAISER:
Well, let's take a look on the bottoms of them.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
And I understood that you researched these marks.

GUEST:
Well, I looked and found that they're Flight & Barr by Worcester, I hope. (chuckles) And that they're early English porcelain.

APPRAISER:
Well, you're absolutely right. They are early Worcester. And there's really interesting marks on the bottom. First of all, there's, on this one is a red painted mark that says "Flight & Barr, Worcester." And then an abbreviation which says "Manufacturers to their majesties."

GUEST:
Oh!

APPRAISER:
And that would refer to King George III and his wife.

GUEST:
Oh.

APPRAISER:
There is another mark, which is rather faint which you may not have noticed. Each of them have the faint letter B. It's incised. And that mark was used from 1792, and they're usually considered to be used until about 1803. The other, hand-painted mark is used as late as 1807. So we pretty much know they're going to be early 19th century or very late 18th century. Now, one interesting thing about them is, they're not a true pair. If you look at this vase here, you can see on the side of it is a little notch in the design...

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
...and this one goes straight up.

GUEST:
I had noticed that.

APPRAISER:
So... And, and, and, and that's not something that most people would immediately notice. So, they were obviously made by the same factory but made at a slightly different time, but then probably sold together new, because if you ever lost one of these vases and you wanted to find a matching vase, you'd probably never find one even though they possibly exist.

GUEST:
No.

APPRAISER:
What's really great about these vases is the hand-painted botanical scenes on the front, of the flowers, which is really spectacularly done. English porcelain-making was reaching its zenith near this time. In the 18th century, it was primarily influenced by Chinese export porcelain and German porcelain, like Meissen. But right at the turn of the century, starting around 1800, they started making their own designs. And this is something that the English excelled at, is these wonderful reserves with botanicals.

GUEST:
They were painted by the same person, you think?

APPRAISER:
I, I feel relatively sure that they were the same artist. And actually, if we had more time to do some research, we might even could attribute them to a specific artist at the factory.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
Another interesting thing about these vases is the beautiful pale green color.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm. I was going to ask about that.

APPRAISER:
And people think that it's kind of an unusual color...

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
...but actually, this was a very popular color during that time period.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
You said something about, is this the same company that did the shells?

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
Yes.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
Sometimes you'll see similar vases with shells or hand-painted feathers, and those are also very popular.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
Now, these particular vases, because they are in great condition, which is, at this point, 200 years after they're made, it's really hard to find vases that are in great condition and the pair is still intact, I would say that a retail value for these would be between $3,000 and $4,000. Now, had they been painted with shells or feathers...

GUEST:
Mm.

APPRAISER:
...the value would've been closer to $10,000 to $20,000. But the flowers are still magnificent.

GUEST:
I love the flowers.

APPRAISER:
Absolutely beautiful.

GUEST:
Porcelains like this with the paintings on them are things I really like, and I never expected to be able to afford one. So when I saw those, I snapped them up and hoped. (chuckles)

APPRAISER:
You made an excellent buy, paying $350.

GUEST:
Thank you. Thank you.