GUEST: We were going through some of my wife's mother's stuff, and we found an envelope, and the envelope had a, a lawyer's name on it, and we opened it up, and inside was some wallpaper all folded up. And we thought, "Why would you put wallpaper in an envelope?" And we were about ready to throw it out, but I opened it up and looked at it, and we found this. I looked on the internet, and I've checked with the Library of Congress. It's "The Daily Citizen." It was published in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 2, 1863. And it was published the day the Union Army took over Vicksburg.

APPRAISER: That's exactly right.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: This is one of the most famous pieces of memorabilia from the Civil War.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: It's, it's actually a collectible from the Civil War. It's the Vicksburg paper.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And that publisher kept publishing kind of right up through the, that battle.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And he set up the type for his paper on July 2, but then he had to flee the city.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: So, two days later, the Union Army comes into the city. They find this typeset paper almost set up, and they add a little bit of a note here at the bottom that indicates that the authors are not the Confederate sympathizers of the Vicksburg press...

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: But, in fact, it's the Union Army.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: "Two days brings great changes."

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: It's a very famous piece of Civil War memorabilia. The paper itself is printed on wallpaper, right?

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Paper was very scarce during the war, and you can see a little bit of the floral print from the wallpaper on the other side. You were right to go to the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress has famously studied this particular piece of memorabilia.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And identified the points-- what we call the points-- of the true first edition. And your copy matches all points. And there's actually a first state and a second state. The first few printings, this word, "citizen," is misspelled, C-T-I. Several copies were run off, and then somebody figured out, "Oops, that's misspelled." They corrected it and continued to print them.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So you have the true first state of this very famous piece of memorabilia. And the reason why I'm calling it a collectible is that the soldiers came in, they saw the wallpaper on the floor, they saw the typeset, and they decided to add this little note and print off copies for themselves and their friends, which they then sold to other soldiers for about 25 cents.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And what is different about your copy is that here along this left margin, we have this period inscription from Union soldiers from 1863. A true first printing of this, with this extra inscription, we would estimate this piece at auction at $3,000 to $5,000.

GUEST: Holy mackerel.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: That's neat.

APPRAISER: It's a classic piece of Civil War memorabilia.

GUEST: I'm, I was the skeptic in the family.

APPRAISER: Yeah?

GUEST: My wife says, "Oh, it's going to be an original." I was the skeptic, so...

APPRAISER: Did you want to throw it away?

GUEST: No, no.

APPRAISER: Okay, well, see? You're not a skeptic if you didn't throw it away.

GUEST: No.