GUEST: Well, there are two chairs. It was out of a set of six. And they've been in the family-- at least the story goes-- since they were basically created. An old descendant of ours, Isaac Kazanow, worked for John Hancock. The set of six were a wedding gift to Isaac Kazanow from John Hancock, back in the late 1700s.
APPRAISER: Oh, man, that's pretty amazing. That gets my heart beating. How long have you been in New Orleans?
GUEST: Well, I've been in New Orleans for two years now, but my folks lived over on the coast in Bay St. Louis, and these chairs we had in the dining room, and they went through Katrina. Folks had eight feet of water in the house. You can still see some of the Katrina dirt.
APPRAISER: Oh, my God. And if we look at the back rail, you can see how light it is, and I wondered-- it seemed like there was water damage or some sort of moisture, so that explains it. So these chairs are really true survivors. These are, in fact, what we call Chippendale mahogany dining chairs. They would've been made in the North Shore of Massachusetts, just north of Boston.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And one of the indicators is, overall, what's the design? It's a nice, clean aesthetic. You've got this wonderful serpentine crest with... I love these flaring, molded ears.
GUEST: Mh-hmm.
APPRAISER: At center, there's a nice vasiform splat, continues to a trapezoidal seat, and we've got these wonderfully shaped, beautiful line-of-beauty type cabriole legs that end in a pad foot with a nice cushion or disk. This disk or cushion…
GUEST: Mh-hmm.
APPRAISER: …is what is the indicator that these were not made in Boston, but likely the North Shore. You're talking Salem, Ipswich, Newburyport. They were likely made between about 1760 and 1780. Have you ever had the chairs appraised? Do you have any sense of value or...?
GUEST: No, we use them around the house for the dining room chairs and never had them appraised.
APPRAISER: Well, using them is just what I like to hear, because they're awesome. This furniture was made to last. They've had standard wear. What do you expect for 200 years? And you see this wonderful surface, it's got this rich brown color. If I were to estimate the pair of chairs at auction…
GUEST: Mh-hmm.
APPRAISER: …I would say $1,000 to $2,000. Okay. Now, if you could substantiate the Hancock evidence, if you can find any sort of documentation, like a letter or things in a will that indicate Hancock owned these, there's an exponential factor. I would say, for the pair, I think I would conservatively estimate them at $20,000 to $40,000 at auction.
GUEST: Wow.
