GUEST: I really don't know a lot about it. My father's dad's mother was religious, and she evidently had this in her stuff, so it's basically been in the basement amongst her things for quite a while.
APPRAISER: This is a familial inscription on the front pastedown.
GUEST: Yeah, evidently she wrote that there. She inherited it from her father, and I didn't realize until we got here that it was 104 years old when she wrote it.
APPRAISER: (laughing) A long time.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Well, this is the so-called Bellows Falls hymnal of the LDS church. It's one of the earliest hymnals that the church produced. It was 1844. The very first LDS hymnal was printed in 1835, and it was done by Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of Mormonism's, wife. So this follows in the tradition. This is one of the earliest hymnals issued by the LDS church and the earliest to use musical notation along with the words.
GUEST: Awesome.
APPRAISER: In addition to being one of the earliest hymnals of the LDS church, it's also one of the rarest ones. Unlike LDS scripture, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, when those books got used and got a little rundown in condition and falling apart, they were sacred scriptures, no one threw those away. But the hymnals were designed to be used in the pulpits in the churches, and when they got a little ratty and tatty, you threw them away, and you printed a new one.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: So it makes it very uncommon for them actually to still exist a century and a half or so later.
GUEST: Awesome!
APPRAISER: So you've got a very early and scarce one. Do you have any idea of the value of the hymnal you brought to us today?
GUEST: I have no clue, absolutely none.
APPRAISER: At retail, your hymnal would sell between $40,000 to $50,000.
GUEST: (gasps) (crying): Oh, my gosh! Really! (gasps)
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh. (exhales) What do I do with it?
APPRAISER: (laughs) Keep it very, very safely. Like in a safety deposit box, or...
GUEST (sighing): Oh, my word. I had no idea. Who do you hand it down to?
APPRAISER: (both laughing) Good question. The 1835 hymnal is a $100,000 book.
