Fake Jacob Weber Painted Box (Corrected)
GUEST: I went into an antique shop near my hometown and really looked around, and the lady I know pretty well, and she had this box, but she really didn't want to sell it. And I kept begging her, and finally I just gave up. And a little bit before Christmas, my grandfather went in and just was looking and asking her what I wanted, and she pulled this out, and she sold it to him, so that's what I got for Christmas.
APPRAISER: All right, so what did you offer her for the box?
GUEST: She wouldn't even give me a price or a chance to even really talk about selling it.
APPRAISER: So what'd your grandfather pay for it?
GUEST: Well, he just said he paid $1,000 for it.
APPRAISER: Wow, $1,000. I mean, that was pretty... that was a lot of money, right?
GUEST: Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER: Were you shocked when he told you he'd paid that much for it?
GUEST: Yeah, I about fell out back there.
APPRAISER: Wow, wow. Well, do you have any idea about who made it, or where it's from? I mean, you're from North Carolina?
GUEST: Right, well, it looks Pennsylvania to me, but I don't... and I don't usually buy Pennsylvania. I like local North Carolina pieces, but it really just stuck out to me. I like early pieces, too, and she said it was 1800, so...
APPRAISER: Okay, it is Pennsylvania. And it is by a well-known maker of this style of box.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: Yeah. His name is Jacob Weber.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: From Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: We know he was born in 1802, but we don't yet know when he died. A lot of these early folk artists, very little is known about them. We know that Weber made these sorts of boxes, and he made them in two different styles: he made them with feet on them, and he made them like this: little rectangular boxes. It's very simple construction, six pieces of pine, cheap wood, and then painted with this great mustard color. His work always has the same sort of green ground here with a house flanked by trees, and decorated on each end with a tulip. And then finished, of course, on the lid with another tulip.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: This box was probably made sometime between about 1830 and 1845.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: It's missing its hasp that would've closed it, and the hinges have probably been replaced. Weber was known to have made boxes with what are called snipe hinges, where they're little metal pins here. But he also did them with wire like this. But when you look at this box in the back, you'll see the shadow of where these snipe hinges used to be.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: But then the wire that's on here closing it up has been here for a long time. If you look and see how the wire has worn into the soft pine wood, it's been here a long time.
GUEST: Now, did he sell these or just make them to give away?
APPRAISER: No, he was selling them.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: He was selling them, it was a commodity, he was making them, and we don't know enough to know how much he sold them for, but there are enough of these boxes around to know that he was obviously selling them. And they come in various sizes ranging up to, you know, maybe a foot in size to this size. But enough of these have sold that they are almost a commodity in Pennsylvania folk art. Really great ones can bring as much as $150,000.
GUEST: Oh, my God.
APPRAISER: This one, I think a good auction estimate for this box would be somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST: Wow. I think he did pretty well, then, and what a gift.
APPRAISER: Yeah, now what are you going to give your grandfather now?
GUEST: I don't know. I have to do something pretty nice, I think.
APPRAISER: What do you think he's going to say?
GUEST: Sell it.
APPRAISER: (laughs) Don't do it, keep it.
GUEST: Oh, yeah, I plan to.
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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."
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