Atocha-salvaged Silver Candlestick, ca. 1620
MAN: I was a young Naval officer attached to my first command, which was in Key West, Florida, on U.S. Forces Caribbean. I had just come off duty, and here's this tall, kind of jovial fella... (chuckling) ...who says, "Hey, Navy guy, can I buy you a beer?" And we got to be sort of friends. It was Mel Fisher, who had not found the wreck at that time. He and his family were operating a salvage operation out of Key West. He was, at the time, I would put him in his early 50s, maybe, mid-50s. He was interested in the Navy's access to charts in the Keys off Florida, because they were still searching for artifacts. I helped him get some charts and we got to be sort of friendly. And he invited me over to his warehouse operation, where he showed me his charts, where they had pins punched into a chart where they were finding artifacts. So we chatted a bit, and then he said, "Why don't you invest in this thing?" It was $1,000 investment, which was to us a lot of money. So I called my wife at home. She said, "Well, I'll, I'll send a check, whatever you think." So I sat on it for a week and said, "Okay, here you are." And a week later, they found the wreck. And then about a year and a half went by when they got up all this treasure, and they got into a long legal battle with the State of Florida. And they codified all of these artifacts and attach point values to your investment amount. And about a year and a half later, called me and said, "Come down and get your stuff." And this was the largest of the items. It was mostly just kind of a fun adventure.
APPRAISER: The Atocha, as it's always shortened, is Nuestra Señora
de Atocha.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: Which is Our Lady of Atocha. Atocha was a shrine in Madrid.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And it was a wonderful ship. It took almost two months just to load it, it had so much gold, silver, emeralds. Therefore it got a really late start. And in September of 1622, on the second day out, it hit a hurricane.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it sunk it.
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: Outside the Dry Tortugas. And it was, I think, 1969 that Mel Fisher started his Treasure Salvors...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...to try to find this wonderful treasure. Most people got coins or ingots, but very few people got candlesticks.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: The candlesticks that come up on the market are never complete like this one. There's pieces of bases, there's pieces of tops, but the fact that you have the whole candlestick is great. So you have a Dutch silver candlestick from the 17th century. The artifacts all had certificates of authenticity. And I love the fact that the numbers on the certificate of authenticity match up with the numbers on the candlestick. So as they were recording the inventory, they added the catalogue numbers. It can't get lost because it helps the value of this piece.
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: And the reason I say that is because if this was out of context, just as a Dutch 17th-century candlestick, it would have a value in this condition of maybe $300, $350. If this piece was to come up at an auction, I would put a pre-sale estimate on it at $7,000 to $9,000.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: It could well bring over $10,000. It's just such a special piece and you're so lucky to have it.
GUEST: Yeah, well, we feel lucky, yeah.
APPRAISER: It is in the “Guinness Book of Records" as the biggest find ever.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And they evaluated it at about $400 million.
$7,000 - $9,000 Auction
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Understanding Our Appraisals
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
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."
Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.
Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.
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