Thomas Commereau Stoneware Jug
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APPRAISER:
Tell us how you found this stoneware piece.
GUEST:
I dig old bottle dumps and I dug for six months, and then I dug that up.
APPRAISER:
What is a bottle dump?
GUEST:
It's where the old wagons used to turn, make a turn and get rid of their garbage. Instead of feeding the rats near the house, they'd rather feed the critters and they'd throw their bottles and everything out of the way that they didn't use their land for, I guess.
APPRAISER:
Sort of a dump.
GUEST:
I used a pick, and I drove it in the ground real slow and I hit something, and I pulled it out and I turned the pick over, and I dug it out and then I hit the crock, and I didn't know what it was. I couldn't find the end of it.
APPRAISER:
Did you ever have it appraised or looked at?
GUEST:
Yes, I had someone look at it.
APPRAISER:
And what did they think about it? What did they think it was worth?
GUEST:
He offered me $400 for it.
APPRAISER:
$400? Well, it is in fact a stoneware jug. Do you know who made it?
GUEST:
Corlears Hook, I believe.
APPRAISER:
Corlears Hook. Well, it's a great old ceramic body salt-glazed stoneware. They threw salt in a kiln to get this wonderful mottled surface and in fact, it does say "Corlears Hook," but that is not the guy who made it. That's the place in which it was made. It was actually... this is the mark of Thomas Commereau, who is a stoneware potter from the Lower East Side of New York City at the end of the 18th century. And he's known for these early ovoid shapes. And if you smell it, there's even a linseed-oil smell that's coming out of it, and that's what we think these jugs were used for. And its actual worth is $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST:
Wow. That's beautiful.
APPRAISER:
Isn’t that great?
GUEST:
It's a ten-minute dig. (laughs)
Appraisal Details
Current Appraised Value: $3,000 - $5,000 (Unchanged)
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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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