GUEST: It belonged to my father, and when my father passed away, my mother had it for a while, and then she gave it to me.
APPRAISER: These herbals...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...which are very elaborate to produce, very expensive to buy…
GUEST: Right, right.
APPRAISER: ...were probably done for university libraries, important private libraries...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...amateur botanists, of which there were large numbers, and physicians.
GUEST: Yeah, that's what I thought.
APPRAISER: Because all the plants in this book are of medicinal use.
GUEST: Yeah, yeah.
APPRAISER: One of the things that's so unusual about this book-- this one's by a woman.
GUEST: Right, Elizabeth Blackwell.
APPRAISER: Elizabeth Blackwell, right. She was the wife of a physician to the king of Sweden. And she had an interest in medical botany, and was obviously a fine artist herself. And this book is the result of her botanical drawings over a long period of time. This is the German edition, with the text both in German and in Latin.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Published Nuremberg, 1757. The nice thing about it is the hand coloring here.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: This was a common way to produce fine illustrated books in the 18th century.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And there's gilt here. The lettering is picked out in real gold. Watercolor is used for the rest. The effect is quite beautiful.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Let's look at an internal page. And you can tell what that plant is.
GUEST: Yeah, a poppy.
APPRAISER: A poppy. And what was done is a copper plate engraving…
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and then a colorist would carefully hand-color the stems, the leaves, the flower.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Let's look at another one-- a cucumber.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And cucumbers, of course, had medicinal properties...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...in the 18th century. I don't know if they do today. Now, let's talk a bit about conservation issues.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Basically, the book is falling apart. Since it's an important and a valuable old book...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: You need to have it rebound.
GUEST: Right, okay.
APPRAISER: You need to spend a few hundred dollars at least...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...to have a good-quality binding...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...have the pages resewn. In this present condition...
GUEST: Yeah?
APPRAISER: I would still say it was worth somewhere in the range of $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST: Are you serious?
APPRAISER: Yeah. It's a very important botanical book.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
APPRAISER: Some of the better botanical illustrations of the 18th century are right in this book.
GUEST: Oh!