so one of the guys I work with (collects Japanese tsubas, which are the hilts on old Japanese samurai swords-who knew there were people that collected stuff like that) got one of the golden tickets and took four of his tsuba's down to be appraised.....he told me two were what he thought they were, one wasn't nearly as valuable as he thought, and one that was a lot more valuable than he'd imagined (he bought it for around $400 and turns out it's worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $3k to $4k.....I'm not a big antiques guy, but I have a small tea cup that my mother told me she purchased for like $0.10 at a movie theater when she was 6 or 7 years old
so I asked my buddy if he mind taking down this teacup with him and have somebody look at it and tell me if it's worth anything
there are no markings on it so I didn't know anything about it, other than my mother cherished it and when she passed away, it was really the only thing of hers I wanted because she loved it so much.....well it turns out that one of the antique guys knew all about it....it's a glass teacup manufactured by Fenton, who made so much of it they began to sell it for promotional items to carnivals, theaters, etc., hence the name carnival glass.....he said it was probably manufactured in the early 30's, but it was a design he'd never seen before.....the appraiser said he'd rarely seen an example like it that was in as good of condition as the one I have is, and they almost never have the saucer with them....he said at auction, it could probably sell for $350 to $400?!?!?
go figure
unfortunately, my buddy wasn't chosen as one of the few that will appear on the broadcast episode.....some of the "treasures" they found were a first edition book of mormon that's worth about $65 to $70k, a letter from Thomas Jefferson that would likely sell at auction for around $40k, and a Sanford Robinson Gifford painting (never even heard of the guy) that was estimated to be worth about $300,000?
