1880 Andrew Clemens Sand Art Bottle
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GUEST:
Well, it was some sand art that my father gave me years back. Really don't know a lot about it. I looked online trying to figure it out and the only thing I could come up with was, I guess, is Andrew Clemens. But as far as that, I don't know anything else about it.
APPRAISER:
It is, indeed, by Andrew Clemens. And there is a paper label on the top. And the paper label says, "Pictured rock sand put up by Andrew Clemens, deaf-mute, McGregor, Iowa." So he was a deaf-mute, and he acquired a skill to make sand art in bottles.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Clearly, he became the master of his generation.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And it's, for the audience, almost unbelievable to think that these are all individual grains of sand.
GUEST:
Individual?
APPRAISER:
They are, indeed.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
And the word "pictured rock" comes from the fact that there was part of Pikes Peak national park called Pictured Rocks.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And it was colored sand from the runoff from the minerals, from the rocks, that he gathered, brought home… To make these bottles.
GUEST:
That's amazing.
APPRAISER:
Really extraordinary.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And I'm going to turn this around, because we see, on the other side... This amazing American eagle and flag. And it's almost unimaginable to think that these were made out of sand. And these were purchased by people in order to give as gifts, and you can see this was for a Miss Emma Kaufman, given to her by someone that actually lived in the vicinity of McGregor, Iowa. He put a beautiful paper label around the top, and then he sealed it with a wax seal.
GUEST:
That's wax, okay.
APPRAISER:
So that allowed it to stay together and not fall apart. He was born in 1857, and he lived a short life, he died in 1894. It's a very heated-up market, right now, for Clemens's works. However, there are a very small group of people that collect his work. So the price range can change quickly.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
I would put a retail value on this today somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000.
GUEST:
Wow. (chuckles) That's a lot. I feel blessed, I mean, that's awesome.
Appraisal Details
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