GUEST: My sister and I
inherited them
when our brother left everything
that he had to the both of us.
He did a lot
of traveling.
Over the years
he brought back a lot
of beautiful
Southwestern pottery.
I've got you.
And the little bit I know about
it is just from the books
that we kept when he passed away
and started reading on Maria.
But we knew that was
his favorite potterer.
APPRAISER: So these are
Maria pots?
GUEST: Yes.
I saw the receipts.
I've got two receipts,
that's all I could find.
APPRAISER: And he had paid, like,
$110 or something?
GUEST: $110, $90, $125,
something like that.
APPRAISER: Okay, there's two signatures on these pots.
Do you know who the
other signature is?
GUEST: The Popovi is her son.
APPRAISER: Right.
Her son didn't live a long time,
so they didn't make a lot
of pots together.
He was an excellent potter.
All of these pots are dual
signed Maria and Popovi,
and he was...
Popovi Da was his name.
GUEST: Da, right.
APPRAISER: And I just wanted
to turn this over,
because you can see
there's the Maria signature,
and the Popovi,
and the number.
And I believe this would
be fifth month of 1965.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: I'm pretty sure
that it's the date.
The first pot over there,
it's a feather design.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And the plate is
the same thing.
These are called an avanyu.
It's a water serpent.
It's almost like a dragon
in Japan or China.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: He bought the right pots,
and he bought them at the right
time for the right price.
They're burnished blackware.
She learned to do this in
the early '20s, late teens.
It's called reduction firing,
and that's what turns
them black like this.
Condition is a huge thing
with Maria pots.
There's a lot of them out there.
She made her living doing this.
Her whole family did.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: So there's hundreds.
We see no less than
a half a dozen a show.
The half a dozen we see
are usually worth anywhere
from $400 to $1,200
because they've got nicks and
scratches and little dents.
These are really pristine
examples of her work.
The feather jar over there,
$8,000 to $12,000 in a retail
situation, conservatively.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: The plate,
$8,000 to $12,000.
This little avanyu bowl,
$4,000 to $6,000,
and $4,000 to $6,000 for this.
So these four pots,
which were just sort of
Art Deco style tourist pieces
from the 1960s are worth
$24,000 on the low end,
$36,000 on the high end,
and possibly more.
GUEST: More, okay.
APPRAISER: Again, it's about collectors
wanting pristine examples,
and you've got them.
GUEST: Right.
