GUEST: It's, we think, a jade piece that we picked up in China in a small village near the Great Wall in about 1988, in a small little junk shop. The guy had a drawer full of just rusty items and, like, marbles. And I happened to see that in there, and I asked how much it was. He held up two... three fingers for three yuan, which was about one dollar at the time. I actually looked around in the drawer for the missing broken piece. It was nowhere to be found. So I still thought it was a good value.
APPRAISER: Not surprising the piece wasn't there. Corner's probably been missing for a while. Looks a little worn away. Could have been broken pretty soon after it was made, about 600 years ago.
GUEST: Excellent.
APPRAISER: This is actually a 15th century jade carving. Made as part of a belt, there would have been several of these in a belt worn for ornamental and ceremonial purpose. The layered carving on this is absolutely spectacular. You see there's three layers that are meant to be represented here-- lotus leaf, representing the Buddhist tradition. I think you have other plants and scrollwork in there. It's absolutely gorgeous. You paid a dollar? If this were to show up at auction, I would expect a reasonable value is $1,500.
GUEST: Wonderful.
APPRAISER: Given the condition, I think that's a very good price. If it were fully intact, could be about $3,000.
GUEST: All right. Well, thank you very much.
