GUEST: The book has been in my family for a number of generations. I have a great-great-grandfather who was a peer of George Custer. When Custer later wrote this book, he hand-signed a copy for the son of my great-great-grandfather.

APPRAISER: So the book was written by General George Armstrong Custer. It's titled Life on the Plains and published in 1874. And what was your great-great-grandfather's name?

GUEST: His name was Francis Amasa Walker. I think one of the things he's best known for is modernizing the census. He did the census of 1870.

APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: And 1880, 1871. He was named as the Commissioner on Indian Affairs at the time. He actually parlayed that work into the 1880 census where he sought to look at the Native American populations of all the different tribes, on the various re-- uh, reservations...

APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: ...and incorporate that into the census data.

APPRAISER: He inscribed it to your great-great-grandfather's son.

GUEST: It was Ar-Arthur. His oldest son, yes. He was seven or eight years old at the time.

APPRAISER: Right. So with this amazing inscription inside the book, "Master Arthur, if I may suggest to you two maxims which if adopted will lead to success in life. The first would be never cry over spilled milk. The second, never cross a bridge until you come to it. Truly yours, G. Custer." May of 1875, so about a year after the publication and about a year before his demise at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Custer wrote this book after the Civil War about his time during the Indian Wars leading up to the Washita campaign. He writes a lot about his self-mythologizing to some extent, and being a hero on the plains. From our perspective, he was very controversial and led to the massacres of thousands of Native Americans and-and obviously led to the destruction of the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn a year after this.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: So it is a problematic narrative. As you say, your great-great-grandfather was Secretary of Indian Affairs and also had to deal with questions about the Indian campaign. And do you know much about that?

GUEST: It was a difficult time. From what I've learned of Francis Amasa, uh, he was conflicted in that he was compassionate toward what he saw with the Native Americans being put on reservations of subpar land and unable to sustain their traditional ways of life.

APPRAISER: Uh-huh.

GUEST: Yet the thought of assimilating into, you know, society also seemed to be, you know, he seemed to have biases against that.

APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: I think today you could've... have to call that racism.

APPRAISER: Right-- the book itself is fairly rare. Inscribed copies of the book are extremely, extremely rare. There actually is only one other copy that we've seen at auction. We would suggest a very conservative auction estimate, of $10,000 to $15,000 of the book. Honestly, that may be low. (soft chuckle) The other copy that I mentioned had the same estimate and made almost $100,000.

GUEST: (chuckling): Oh, my God.

APPRAISER: Because you never know if... (chuckles) ...the desire of collectors can step up to the plate. If you were to have it insured, a figure of $30,000 or $40,000 would not be u-untoward or unusual.

GUEST: Wow. Wow, I just, I, it's... ...as a child, I loved it just as a child. But-- and I certainly today recognize the history and the significance, I... (voice breaking): ...no idea. (soft chuckle)

APPRAISER: Well, we were so glad you brought it in and were able to share this piece of history with us. Thank you so much.

GUEST: Thank you so much, Martin. That just blows me away. (soft chuckle)