GUEST: I think it's a cold-painted bronze from Austria. I call it the bedouin. I absolutely adore it. I got it at a secondhand store in Devil's Lake, North Dakota, with some money I made from a yard sale.
APPRAISER: And may I ask how much you paid for it?
GUEST: I gleaned $50 from the yard sale. The very day I got the money, I went in and found it.
APPRAISER: Okay, and what would you like to know about it today?
GUEST: I'd really like to know if it's a Bergman, the year it was made, and anything else you could tell me about the piece.
APPRAISER: Okay. So it is by Franz Bergman.
GUEST: Oh, fabulous. Fabulous.
APPRAISER: And while it's not signed, it is... it's his work. We're entirely confident. I've showed it to a colleague, I've even been able to do some research and find some almost identical examples that are signed Bergman. He was a sculptor in a foundry in Vienna, in Austria, and they made all of these lamps. This lamp dates from about 1900. There's a lot of really cool things about it, but one of the things I wanted to start with is that the switch is buried behind one of the trunks as part of the whole setup. And we can actually go ahead... ...and turn it on, and it still works. It is made of bronze, and it is cold-painted bronze, and what's very interesting is the subject matter. You call him the bedouin, my colleagues and I said the antique seller, and as you can see here, he's sitting almost cross-legged on a stool on a wonderful carpet. He has a tiger skin rug here, hanging. But then what's very interesting is he's actually selling a sphinx. And then over here, he has a water jug. And then over here also is this wonderful Egyptian attendant in the corner. As I said, it isn't signed, but we're still very confident that it is by Franz Bergman. You paid $50 for it.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: How much do you think it's worth today?
GUEST: I think it's worth more than $50. I thought maybe around $4,000 or $5,000.
APPRAISER: Okay, so similar ones do come up at auction quite often, and the market for these has sort of seen its highs and lows. That being said, I found one which sold in February of 2014, so very recently, and it sold at auction for $7,000.
GUEST: Oh, fabulous! Fabulous! Well, maybe the bedouin, being a nomad, could travel on.
APPRAISER: I think an auction estimate would be $6,000 to $8,000.
GUEST: Good $50 investment.
APPRAISER: That's a great $50 investment as far as I'm concerned.
GUEST: And it still works!
