GUEST: About eight years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Maya Angelou, and... I just fell in love with her from my time when I knew of her back in my college years for her poem "Phenomenal Woman." And my wife's a huge fan of hers. And I met her in Winston-Salem. And unfortunately, she passed away not too long after I met her. They had a auction of her estate in Kernersville, North Carolina. I didn't even know she was a North Carolina resident. And she had told me how she lived in North Carolina, and she worked at, uh, Wake Forest University. And so I went through the pre-auction guide, and I saw these. The name of the award is the Spingarn award. Well, my mom went to Spingarn High School in Washington, D.C. She was the first graduating class. So I said, "Hmm, that's interesting." So I delved even deeper, and the first recipient of this w, award was my fraternity's founder, Dr. Ernest Everett Just. So the connection even, grew even more. This one is ten-karat gold. And, and I looked at who won this award, and it's a prominent award given by the NAACP to African Americans. Oprah Winfrey has one, Sidney Poitier has one. Martin Luther King has one. Harry Belafonte has one. Very, very many.
APPRAISER: Jackie Robinson.
GUEST: Jackie Robinson.
APPRAISER: Hank Aaron.
GUEST: Hank Aaron. The list goes on-- yeah.
APPRAISER: Paul Robeson, also.
GUEST: So I said, "I've got to have this." And so, uh, my friend went to the auction, and I was supposed to go, but my father had gotten sick. And so I got on the phone, and I was really willing to go as high as I had to go to get this. I thought it was going to go for at least $5,000, but it didn't. It went for around gold price, which was $1,100. Now, I had forgotten about this one. So what I found out was, they give two awards, they give one that the recipient walks around with.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: And in case it gets snatched or gets stolen or something like that, or lost, you still have the real one. So my friend who was at the auction, he purchased this for me for $80. My 50th birthday came along, and he presented this to me-- I already had this one.
APPRAISER: I did find another auction record of a walk-around selling.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: Uh, and surprisingly enough, it brought $3,000.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: So, you know, for an auction estimate on the walk-around...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...about $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST: Wow, for the walk-around?
APPRAISER: For the walk-around.
GUEST(laughs): Okay.
APPRAISER: Now, you said...
APPRAISER: That's pleasantly surprising.
APPRIASER: Y, y... That's a good surprise. You said you spent $1,100 on...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: ...that piece, and that was the gold value.
GUEST: Yeah, yeah.
APPRAISER: Well, good news is, gold has gone up.
GUEST: Absolutely.
APPRAISER: And the gold value on that piece now is over $2,000.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: But that's peanuts compared to what I think it's really worth. An important award-- I wouldn't be surprised to see it go in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.
GUEST (breathily): Wow, wow.
APPRAISER: Uh, I think that would be a, a fairly conservative estimate, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it explode even higher.
GUEST: Well, that's great to hear-- I, I wouldn't... It's something I won't sell. But I, I'm proud to be the guardian of it. But, um, it's great to know that it has a value, and I'm, I'm just happy to have it, and, and I'm happy to have this piece of African American history.
APPRAISER: And if you're keeping it, which is the plan...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...then you probably want to insure it.
GUEST: Yup. I will now.
APPRAISER: Um, something... I would probably want you to insure it for around $50,000 to protect yourself.
GUEST: Wow.
