GUEST: Andy Warhol was in Birmingham in 1976. He appeared at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The morning before that event, he was selling the book, which was The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. He asked if I would like for him to sign it, and I said sure. He also signed the celebrity register that I had, too. But he drew the tomato soup can, and awhile later, I cut that piece of paper out of the book because after I'd read the book, it was pretty pathetic, but I liked what he did by signing it.
APPRAISER: So you read the book and...
GUEST: And I gave it away.
APPRAISER: You gave it away. You didn't care for it too much.
GUEST: No, I didn't care for it.
APPRAISER: Do you remember what the book was about?
GUEST: His crazy ways of going to shop for groceries and sending people off to do things, you know, for him. It was involving The Factory.
APPRAISER: We do have an inscription to Richard, and then he's titled it "Campbell's Soup." And then we have a signature, "Andy Warhol, Birmingham, '76." And the book came out in 1975. And he did do these book signings regularly, so we do see many copies of either the book with the signature and a drawing or simply just this page, where people have removed it from the book. So Andy Warhol is quite an important artist and really the most important artist of the pop art movement. He is most well known for a few images. Probably one of the most famous would be the Campbell soup can. So you have a couple of great things here. You have a drawing of one of his most important images, you have something that comes from his heart in that he wrote this book and it really meant something to him, and you have a great provenance, which is very important with Warhol. As you've probably heard, there are lots and lots of fake Warhol drawings, prints, everything out there because he's become so valuable. I would estimate this for auction today at $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST: (laughs) What? Can you repeat that?
APPRAISER: We would place an auction estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST: That is totally amazing. Totally amazing. I'm delighted.
APPRAISER: The book itself, I did speak with my colleagues at the books table, and we see copies of it come up for auction. Usually, they sell for a few hundred dollars. Copies have come up with the drawing inside the book, and they bring about what the drawing itself brings, so you didn't really lose much by giving the book away. It's really this drawing on this page that's the value there.