GUEST: I got it at a flea market. I saw this, and it seemed like a really great object. The frame seemed like the original, and...
APPRAISER: What'd you pay for it?
GUEST: A few hundred dollars.
APPRAISER: And how much is a few?
GUEST: About three, I think.
APPRAISER: This is a great photograph, and it's one of the sort of iconic photographs of American aviation. Do you know what the photograph is of?
GUEST: Yeah, there's a little plaque on it. It's the Goodyear zeppelin.
APPRAISER: And did you know this is the maiden flight of the Goodyear zeppelin?
GUEST: No, I did not know that.
APPRAISER: This is the USS Akron, which was one of two zeppelins made by the Goodyear Corporation, the other one being the Macon. And this is the air dock that the zeppelin was in. It's in this great frame, which is made of the same kind of material that they used to frame the rigid structure of the zeppelin. If you look over here in the corner, there's a signature there. Can you read that signature at all?
GUEST: I can't.
APPRAISER: Well, it's signed by a great 20th-century photographer whose name was Margaret Bourke-White. She worked for LIFE magazine.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: This was one of her signature photographs, and really one of her most famous photographs.
GUEST: Great.
APPRAISER: This particular photograph in this frame outfit-- and you can see the label here, it mentions something about the Goodyear zeppelin race-- these were given out to top salesmen for the Goodyear Corporation for selling tires and that sort of thing. There's a great auction record for these kinds of photographs. The good news is that they're very collectible. The bad news is, the value of them has started to decrease. About 15 years ago, when the first one came on the market, it sold for about $15,000.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Since then, the market value has started to go down and down and down. But even so, with it being signed by Bourke-White, being in great shape, its value is somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Yep, no question about it.
GUEST: So it was a good investment.
APPRAISER: I think that for 300 bucks, you did okay.
GUEST: Yeah, great-- that's great news.
