GUEST: I brought some prints that I've had for about 20 years. They're from the Associated American Artists. They've been in the family for a long time. My great... a great-aunt had them.
APPRAISER: What do you know about Associated American Artists?
GUEST: Well, when I first got them, you know, I didn't have a personal computer, didn't really have any way of finding out anything. I was watching your show a few years back, and a girl had something similar, and she had hers appraised, and I was like, "I have got to see what... a little bit more about these."
APPRAISER: Well, Associated American Artists was a gallery that was formed in 1935 by a man named Reeves Lewenthal. And Reeves Lewenthal decided that art should be for the middle class, not just the super-wealthy. So he, with his populist approach, came upon the idea of commissioning artists to do a series of prints that he would sell by subscription. He only commissioned about four artists a year. And the ones that you have came out of 1939, 1940, 1941.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Reeves Lewenthal, with Sylvan Cole and Estelle Yanco, would choose a variety of artists, all American artists, and one of the most famous was Thomas Hart Benton.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And the print that we have here is Thomas Hart Benton's Slow Train to Arkansas, which is a rather important work.
GUEST: Is it really?
APPRAISER: The painting itself is important.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: And the print is very well known. This work, when it comes on the auction market individually, sells for $4,500.
GUEST: That's good.
APPRAISER: Then here we have Reginald Marsh, and this work, when it comes individually on the auction market, sells for approximately $1,500.
GUEST: Good.
APPRAISER: The... Luigi Luccione is a Vermont painter, and he did these beautiful prints. And this etching sells for approximately $100. Ernest Feeney, if this were to come on the market, this would only make about $50 at auction. So you have 40 works here.
GUEST: 40, yeah.
APPRAISER: Mostly they're in excellent condition. Together, we're talking about a value for the group of 40 of approximately $48,000...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...at auction.
GUEST: That's great. That's unbelievable. I cannot believe that. I had no idea. I mean, I really had no idea.
APPRAISER: It's exciting.
GUEST: That is so exciting. I mean, who'd have ever thought?
