GUEST: A friend of ours had these in her home in Minneapolis. And when she closed her home, we went to her estate sale, and we purchased them from her. They've been in our home for nearly 50 years, on the mantel place, where we see them every day.
APPRAISER: So you didn't use them as doorstops.
GUEST: No, no. But they're on a heavy metal base, and we were told that they were originally used as doorstops.
APPRAISER: Do you remember what you paid for them?
GUEST: We paid her $100 for all six.
APPRAISER: Alice in Wonderland is so much a part of our culture. And this imagery is just ingrained. And what to me is really exciting is, in carved wood, whoever created these did a masterful job of adding dimension to the wonderful Tenniel illustrations, which of course are touchstone imagery of Alice. The Duchess here, it's just so vivid. The frog footman is phenomenal. It's some of the best objects of Alice in Wonderland that I've ever seen. Alice is spectacular. The Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the March Hare... you notice the March Hare is holding his teacup and a biscuit. Just standing up from their tea party. Extraordinary, absolutely vivid, and of course, one of a kind. It's very hard to date something like this, but something about the whole quality and the patina suggest to me that these are, I would guess, done about 100 years ago. It's very difficult to put a price on something that's truly unique, but I would have no problem at all putting these in an auction with an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000, and I think they could easily exceed it.
GUEST: That's wonderful.
