Autograph Book, ca. 1900
GUEST: This is an autograph book that I discovered at a antique show in Miami about 40 years ago. It is a book filled with autographs that were mailed to a lady that started this book, a Florence Hooker from Chicago. But the autograph that caught my attention and the reason that I bought this book was the signature of Teddy Roosevelt. My grandfather served with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba as a Rough Rider. And so this signature meant a lot to me.
APPRAISER: And do you remember your grandfather growing up?
GUEST: I do. He limped, because he was wounded in the Battle of San Juan Hill at-- in Cuba.
APPRAISER: And when you purchased the album at the antique show, what did you pay for it?
GUEST: I paid $1,000 for it.
APPRAISER: This is a really super album, autograph album. It's who's who of late 19th century, early 20th century autographs of some of the most famous people in America at the time. You have Teddy Roosevelt, and what's really great about this Teddy Roosevelt autograph is A-- when it comes to autographs, you want strength of signature. And this is as clear and crisp as you can get. Also, it's on the White House executive card, and collectors of presidential autographs love that. That adds substantial value. Included in the book, besides the Teddy Roosevelt, on White House cards as well, you have Grover Cleveland.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: You have his wife, Frances Cleveland.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: I believe there's a Benjamin Harrison as well. You also have a McKinley, not on an executive card. There's your William McKinley. Down in this corner here, we have a great signature and inscription of Susan B. Anthony.
GUEST: We do.
APPRAISER: Why don't you read what it says for us?
GUEST: "Perfect equality of rights for women-- civil and political-- is the demand of yours truly, Susan B. Anthony."
APPRAISER: Great inscription, and one that she used very often.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: It's also signed and dated in Rochester, New York, where her home is still there as a museum. She lived there for 40 years.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: It's just a phenomenal encapsulation of what she was all about, the suffrage movement and everything else.
GUEST: It was, yeah.
APPRAISER: We also have a really, really cool... signature of Mark Twain.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: There's an enormous amount of great autographs in here. One of the things that I'm not crazy about is that collectors generally want to take the signatures apart, so they can frame them and mat them with photographs.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: In this case, I like the idea of keeping this together as an archive.
GUEST: I agree.
APPRAISER: It's a history of one person's enjoyment, what she did for a hobby. In terms of value, the Teddy Roosevelt autograph by itself would be more than what you paid for the whole book. It would be about $1,000 to $1,500.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: The Susan B. Anthony, probably in the $1,200 to $1,800 range. And these are auction estimates. A Mark Twain good cut signature like that, also probably in the $1,000 to $1,500 range.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: And then you have the presidents mixed in, some of them in the $200, $300, $400 range. So by the time you're done adding all those up, a conservative auction estimate, as an album...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...would be somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000.
GUEST: Wow. It's something I really treasure. Thank you, very much.
APPRAISER: Thank you.
$5,000 - $8,000 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.
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