Spalding Golf Putter
APPRAISER:
Walking stick? Garden implement? Poker for a fireplace? What did you bring us today?
GUEST:
Could be any, but it is, I believe, a golf club that I inherited from my father, who picked it up, I believe, at an estate sale or auction probably 60 years ago. You don't see many round-headed clubs like that.
APPRAISER:
There are two things that golfers always want to do: improve their accuracy, improve their distance. This was a putter that was developed by the Spalding company, probably 1895 to 1899, to try to help players improve their putting skills. Now, is this the putter you use today?
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
Exactly, and this is what makes clubs valuable. They either are so good in what they do that they're outlawed, or they're so bad in what they do is that no one ever uses them. And what happened was, Spalding was going to put this into their catalogue. They made a few of them. They tried it out, didn't work. But a few have survived today. Very rare club. Value-wise, because of its rarity, collectors seek these out. And this could sell for as much as $5,000 at auction.
GUEST:
Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Appraisal Details
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
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