GUEST: I believe the newspaper came from my family, and I want to know, (a) if it's real, and (b) if it has any value and how, most importantly, would I preserve it if it has some value?
APPRAISER: This is from Tuesday, July 22, 1788. New York paper, the date's right up here. And it's The Daily Advertiser. It's wonderful rag paper, you don't have any problem with it. This is definitely an original. Almost the whole front is advertising. But what I particularly liked about this paper, this is the Constitution. What was happening then was the New York Assembly was voting whether to accept the U.S. Constitution. So this is an account of that, and imagine, that's on the second page. The New York Assembly accepted and passed the Constitution. They were the 11th state to accept it, but they were a very, very important state, because if New York had turned down the Constitution, it might never have passed. We can see that there are some issues...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: With some holes in them, and that does affect the value. One of the fortunate parts is, it doesn't really affect much of the text. There is one spot here.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: But most of the text is intact. You can get these papers in almost perfect condition, and one of the reasons you can get them like that is many of them sat in old libraries. They bound them by years, so they do show up in good shape. Now, I noticed when you first brought this in today, you had it closed in the...
GUEST: In an old magazine.
APPRAISER: You had it closed up in an old magazine. That actually isn't the worst thing in the world. It could be restored. To do it right, it might even cost $500, $1,000. Quite honestly, I wouldn't touch it. In a retail shop, retail value is, in this condition, $2,500, $3,500, in that range. If it was in absolutely perfect shape, we might double that.
GUEST: Wow. Well, you know, the part I like is typically, the things in my family were passed down from oldest son to oldest son, but my father changed, and since I'm the oldest child, I got this, so I'm thrilled.
