Civil War Tintypes & Drawing
GUEST: I brought in a picture of an execution in Warrenton, Virginia. My mother had it in a, in a box of things, and I got it out and had it framed for her, and then, when she died, I acquired it.
APPRAISER: Who is the person you think is responsible for this drawing?
GUEST: My great-great-grandfather. My mother wrote all that stuff down in the lineage on the back of the pictures.
APPRAISER: This drawing depicts a brigade in the Army of the Potomac fighting for the Union cause during the course of the Civil War. You provided us with the name of your ancestor, complete with a middle initial. And I did a little research on the men that were in this brigade. I checked all of their regimental rosters, trying to find a name that lined up. I only found one, and he was a private in the 96th Pennsylvania. More than likely, he is the drawer, the artist involved in making this drawing. And from the drawing, it is clear to me he was a witness to the event. However, the two tintypes you have are of an infantry officer, of a lieutenant, and I could find no one with that name that served in this brigade who was an officer. So I'm relatively confident the images are not of...
GUEST: Of him.
APPRAISER: ...the gentleman you believe it is. But I am firmly confident that the drawing was done by a, a witness to the event who was in that brigade, and more than likely is your ancestor, whose name you provided. So maybe those items got mixed up at some point in time.
GUEST: Mixed up.
APPRAISER: Or the story about who it is got mixed up. There are a lot of pictures that have been drawn of Civil War camp scenes by the soldiers who were there, and sometimes aftermaths of battles, but you just rarely see an execution of a deserter. This is a mid-war execution, the summer of 1863. Executions for desertion were not quite as common as we're sometimes led to believe. And President Lincoln commuted a lot of those. I would assume that this gentleman did something particularly egregious that they felt the need to have a battlefield execution. He's sitting there on his casket...
GUEST: Yep.
APPRAISER: ...the one he's about to spend eternity in. We've got the firing squad drawn up. We've got the whole brigade around him to witness this. And the layout of the camp, it's got little notations-- "ambulance corps," "battery." The subject matter is rarely, if ever, depicted. Amazingly, this drawing is in very, very nice condition. You can clearly see the fold lines from where it was folded up and mailed home in a small envelope. It's been very well preserved, and apparently always been cared for. Camp scenes drawn by participants do sell from time to time. They're not horribly common. But a typical example is $500, $1,000, maybe $2,000, if it's particularly artistic. This is a great example of content trumps everything. You just don't see a period witness drawing of an execution.
GUEST: Execution.
APPRAISER: This drawing alone-- even if the I.D. isn't quite correct, the drawing is absolutely complete, correct, authentic-- it would probably sell in the $5,000 to $7,000 range...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...at auction. And you've certainly got several hundred dollars worth of tintypes there. If he's not identified, those tintypes are going to bring $400 to $600 at auction for the pair.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Maybe a little more. If we can really tie them all together and tie the I.D. all together, the entire grouping could hit the $8,000-plus range.
GUEST: Wow, okay, that's cool. It's going to continue hanging on my wall, but... (laughing)
APPRAISER: Well, that's wonderful. I would hope it would stay in the family.
$5,400 - $7,600 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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