GUEST: I remember my grandmother having it on a counter when I was a child. And my assumption is that it had belonged to my grandmother's parents. I'm not sure what it is. Someone had mentioned to me one time they thought it might have been used to store dental instruments or medical instruments.
APPRAISER: Okay, and brought from where?
GUEST: My great-grandfather came from Croatia.
APPRAISER: And you thought maybe he brought it with him?
GUEST: He may have, but I don't know.
APPRAISER: Okay, so we may have a Croatian dental cabinet that sat in your grandmother's house on the counter.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Okay. The only part of that is partly accurate is that it's a cabinet and it sat on your grandmother's cabinet... counter. It's actually a remarkable survivor of a piece of American furniture.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: And it was probably from New York or Connecticut and made around 1825, perhaps to 1850. Somewhere in that range. I would call it a diminutive chest of drawers because it's not quite small enough to be referred to as miniature. There are some losses like this corner here. The molding is missing. And there's a piece of veneer that has come off down here and another in the back. But nobody made an attempt to fix those or replace those veneers. These glass knobs are most likely made in New England, perhaps in Massachusetts. And because there are no other holes on the inside of the drawer front, it's entirely plausible that this is the original set of hardware. And that helps to make the piece all the more interesting. It's tulip poplar, which helps me put it into the mid-Atlantic seaboard, not Southern.
GUEST: I see.
APPRAISER: It also has never been refinished. And that is what's really remarkable. Unlike other collecting categories, in the world of American antiques, the ones that maintain an old or original surface like this are really truly special. The fact that this is still in the rough or in the dirty rough is spectacular. So you have a late federal figured maple tiger on the top, bird's eye on the front, diminutive chest of drawers. The market for American furniture is tough these days, but because it's petite and it's untouched, if this were to go to auction, I would say it's $1,500 to $2,500.
GUEST: Fantastic. (chuckling) Now I need someone to want it.
APPRAISER: And if it had been cleaned and skinned or heavily cleaned, which is what we refer to as a skinned surface it would be worth about $300.
GUEST: I'll be darned.
