GUEST: I had acquired this crock almost 25 years ago at just a farm auction in southeast Ohio.
APPRAISER: This is a piece of American salt-glazed cobalt blue decorated stoneware. And you can see over here to start with, a little dropping. This happened the day it was fired in the kiln. This is a crystalized piece of salt. This cobalt blue decoration was done freehand. A lot of times cobalt blue decorated pieces were done with a stencil. But this was done with what they call a slip cup. So the liquid cobalt was put into the slip cup, and actually drizzled onto this stoneware piece. Can you imagine how difficult that was?
GUEST: Their handwriting's a lot better than mine.
APPRAISER: It is amazing. And, trust me, the guy that did this, he was the highest paid man in the factory because cobalt was expensive, and there was a lot of room for error. We see the "ten" there, pretty obvious this is a ten-gallon straight-sided crock. And we see a name: John H. Klippart. He was the secretary on the Ohio State Board of Agriculture in 1868. And then we see "from." So as soon as you see that, we know that this was a presentation piece. This was a gift. And it was given from a gentleman by the name of J.P. Alexander from Akron, Ohio. J.P. is Jay Park Alexander. He was a very wealthy, large manufacturer of American stoneware. And he served on the board at the same time that Klippart served on the board. He owned two oil wells, made a huge amount of utilitarian pottery, and shipped it in railroad car size. So he was a major, major producer, made fired bricks, won a medal at the centennial celebration for making fired bricks. What'd you pay for the piece?
GUEST: I must have liked it a lot that day. I paid $2,000.
APPRAISER: That's extraordinary, at a farm auction in Ohio 25 years ago.
GUEST: I was hoping for $50, but no such luck.
APPRAISER: And you went for it.
GUEST: I did. A couple of guys were standing there after the auction and they said, "Got more money than sense." So, I guess we'll see today if I had more money than sense that day.
APPRAISER: Well, this would appeal to a lot of collectors. American stoneware collectors, historical Ohio collectors would love this piece, and decorated stoneware from Ohio is extremely rare. So today we're going to put a retail value on this piece of $8,000 to $10,000.
GUEST: Wonderful.
APPRAISER: So I think your intuitive nature paid off.
GUEST: Wonderful, I appreciate it.
