Gordon Newell Anteater, ca. 1958
GUEST: This belonged to my father. He was an architect during the '60s and '70s and '80s. He was very much into mid-century modern. I remember it first... in probably about the mid-'60s, when my dad acquired it.
APPRAISER: Uh-huh. You remember growing up with it as a kid?
GUEST: Oh, yes.
APPRAISER: And like you point to that thing up on the shelf?
GUEST: Oh, yes. We always looked at it and wondered why it was so strange-looking and why he even bothered to buy it.
APPRAISER: (chuckling)
GUEST: We always in the family called it an anteater, but he said it was a polar bear.
APPRAISER: Ah. He was wrong, it's an anteater.
GUEST (laughing): All right.
APPRAISER: It's made out of ceramic.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: It is fragile, it is made out of porcelain, and it has this wonderful glaze, and of course it has this wonderful form to it and it has a conforming base. The artist is Gordon Newell, born in 1905 in California. And he went to a number of art schools out in California and eventually became a teacher. The 1930s, during the Depression...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...there was something called the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, which hired artists, painters, sculptors to keep them employed. And Gordon seemed to be involved with architectural things. So, you know, kind of commissions he got...
GUEST: Sure.
APPRAISER: ...he got post offices, so...
GUEST (laughing): Oh, I see.
APPRAISER: Yeah. So there'd be like a relief over the entrance of the post office or maybe something inside. Very interesting commissions. He lived in Carmel, California and he exhibited widely other things, non-WPA pieces. His work is in a number of collections.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: There's something at the White House of his.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: And he exhibited at the famous 1939 World's Fair in New York City. It's a spectacular piece, the way it's stylized, simplified, and I think it captures the whole spirit of the artist. This piece was made in the mid-1950s, probably around 1958. It's not signed, and it's also on a very nice, uh, wooden base.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: I don't know if it was original, but it could be original, because it's tapered perfectly. A number of these have come up for auction. They do very well, especially because in the last ten, 15 years the interest in mid-century modern design has skyrocketed.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Very, very popular, especially among young new collectors. One recently sold at auction for $7,500.
GUEST: Wow... that's amazing.
APPRAISER: An auction estimate would be in that $7,000 to $10,000.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: An insurance evaluation might be closer to $12,000 to $15,000.
GUEST: Very nice.
APPRAISER: So, I'm glad you have it out. It's a spectacular piece.
GUEST: Well, thank you very much, and I'm, I'm very surprised and very pleased.
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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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