1777 Sussel-Washington Fraktur
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GUEST:
I don't know anything about the document. I found it in a suitcase at the dump. These are the old school dumps, back when they used to just have a big hole...
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
And you back up to it and throw all your stuff in it.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And then they come along at some point with a bulldozer, and fill it up. I was taking things to the dump, and, you know, saw the suitcase.
APPRAISER:
How many years ago did you find it at the dump?
GUEST:
You know, I'm thinking it could have been over 30 years.
APPRAISER:
30 years ago, wow. You own a Sussel-Washington baptismal document, by the Sussel-Washington artist. The Sussel-Washington artist is probably the most famous 18th century fraktur maker-- documents of marriage, birth, baptismal documents-- in 18th century America in Pennsylvania. Out there, Sussel was a great collector, and he had a great collection. It included Lady Washington and George Washington in it. They call this artist, we don't know his name, but we call him the Sussel-Washington artist. So, when I actually saw this and I called Lisa Minardi, who's the curator at Winterthur Museum, she is writing the last word, a massive tome, on frakturs, when I sent her photos of this, she couldn't contain herself. She said this is the Sussel-Washington artist.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
Right here, we have Johann Christian Lore, it says, "November 21, 1777." At the end here, this says Bethel Township, written in old German, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Right here, this says, "taufzeugen," and right here it says, "taufzeugen." And these two are the godparents. You've got everything. I mean, it's just everything you'd want. First of all, full human figures are rare in frakturs. Typical of this artist's work are these-- look at these little eyebrows, okay, these little kind of dots for eyebrows, the almond-shaped football eyes. He actually used a lot of cross-hatching, do you see on the pants right here? This is one of the most exciting things in terms of Pennsylvania works of art, 18th century works of art, that I've seen on the ROADSHOW here, and it adds tremendously to our knowledge. There are only about 24 works by the Sussel-Washington artist known in the world. 24, you know, roughly; you made it 25 right here.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
So that's been in a dump and hidden away in your place. About half of those 24 are in museums. They come up very, very rarely, but one sold within the last year. A conservative auction estimate on this would be $25,000...
GUEST:
What?
APPRAISER:
...to $35,000.
GUEST:
Whoa. (chuckles)
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
That's amazing.
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