GUEST: It belonged to my great-grandmother.

APPRAISER: What you have here is a maternity dress, mid-19th century, which is rare as hen's teeth. Almost as rare as a pregnant mannequin.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: It's also a mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, piece. And in my 25 years of doing this, I have never seen a mourning maternity dress. Maternity dresses were always colorful, and it was not characteristic at all for a woman who was pregnant to be wearing a black dress. I think that she needed it for a special occasion--there was a death in the family. It was made rather quickly, and she would have needed to wear it during the mourning period, which could have lasted from six months to a year. Well, what you have here is worth between $2,500 and $3,000.

GUEST: Really?