Pennsylvania William & Mary Chest
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GUEST:
Well, about three years ago my wife and I went to an estate sale, waited in line all night and fought through the dealers, and I was one of the first ones in.
APPRAISER:
Well, good for you. Your persistence paid off. So what attracted you to this piece?
GUEST:
I think, overall, when we first saw it, we just liked the shape and the form, and just to us it looked very beautiful.
APPRAISER:
Well, I agree with you. It's really quite a nice form and it's a very distinctive form.
GUEST:
After we bought it, we were told that it was pre-Civil War. We're thinking 1850. A friend of mine that knows antiques a little better in detail thought it was from the 1700s.
APPRAISER:
It's a piece that dates from early in the 18th century. Can't really be exactly precise, but I would say about 1710 to 1750.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Probably made in southeastern Pennsylvania-- Philadelphia or Chester County area. Early furniture of this William and Mary style in Pennsylvania is rare today. It's rarer than, for instance, New England 17th-century furniture. So when an early piece from Pennsylvania comes on the market, it's pretty sought after. And this has a lot of desirable features. It's solid walnut, very nicely dovetailed construction here. And you can see it's a fairly thick construction...
GUEST:
That's one of the first things that catches your eye from the front.
APPRAISER:
Typical of Pennsylvania construction, nice and heavy. Two drawers, and you can see some of the secondary woods here. Sides and back are oak, and this is poplar, which is also typical of Pennsylvania region.
GUEST:
I suspected that.
APPRAISER:
This nice sort of striped, sort of green color to it. But what's really special about this piece is the feet. The feet are turned and they're pegged into the bottom, and they would often disappear over the years. Sometimes they would be rotted away, sometimes you could take this basic form and maybe later in the 18th, early 19th century, add some bracket feet in order to update the fashion. So it's extra rare to have those turned feet, which are original.
GUEST:
So these are the original feet.
APPRAISER:
They are. I would probably put an estimate on it of between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST:
Fifteen? (chuckles)
APPRAISER:
That's right.
GUEST:
Much, much more than we ever expected.
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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