GUEST: As far as I know, it's a Civil War flag or banner dating 1863, maybe. Other than that, I don't know too much about it.
APPRAISER: Do you know what kind of pattern of flag this is?
GUEST: I have no idea.
APPRAISER: Did you ever see the movie Gone With the Wind?
GUEST: I can say I have not.
APPRAISER: Well, that's your homework. In Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler and Scarlett have a daughter and they name her Bonnie because her eyes are as blue as the Bonnie Blue Flag. This is the Bonnie Blue Flag pattern. It's got the single star in the middle and it's called a secession flag. It's got "57th Georgia Regiment, Dixie Boys." And it has "Company A." The local companies would actually name theirselves. It's a way to give the boys pride. And they were the Dixie Boys out of Georgia. You're not going to like me by the time this is done...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: But you're going to help people out there save money. This is a reproduction.
GUEST: Is that right? Okay.
APPRAISER: And they're done for two reasons. An ancestor of somebody that served in the 57th Georgia wants something to go on their wall that shows the regiment that they served in as a way of honoring that person that served. They're made for that reason. And they're also made to fool people and to steal their money. There's a few things that you can look for. The cloth, it's made out of cotton, and, if you notice, a bullet hole or something along that line. A bullet isn't going to stop at the first layer of cotton, it's going straight through that thing. Originally there would have been ties on the side on the original one where they tied it or nailed it to the pole. This one has holes, but it has nowhere where it was ever flown. But it's a beautiful display piece, which is oftentimes what they are sold as. I assume you paid a decent amount for it.
GUEST: Yes. Purchased it in an antiques store in northern Arizona in the late '90s for $1,500.
APPRAISER: A flag like this, should it be real, would be worth between $40,000 and $60,000. The reproductions like these that are made just as a nice display piece will usually cost a couple to $300. They're beautiful on the wall, but we see them all the time, and that's the reason I wanted to talk about these today. And you're going to make sure that that doesn't happen to other people.
GUEST: Okay, that's the way it goes. You win some, you lose some.
APPRAISER: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
GUEST: Right.
