GUEST: In the mid, late '50s, my parents were window shopping for a potential Christmas present for my mother. She remarked about what she thought was a dinner suit in the window, and said, "That's lovely." And my father listened, went
into the store, and wanted to buy the display in the window.
APPRAISER: So she was looking at clothing in the store window. Now where was this store?
GUEST: This was Higbee's in Cleveland.
APPRAISER: So he went into the store...
GUEST: He went into the store and they said, "It's not for sale, it's a display." And he said, "But I want to buy it." And I guess there was a bit of an argument, and I guess my father won, and I don't remember if my mother got the dinner suit, but she got this. Since that, it was her treasure, and after she died, it became my treasure.
APPRAISER: Well, I'm glad that your father was a dutiful husband and he did what he thought he was supposed to do. It makes a great story. It's Italian, all the pieces are well marked on the bottom. Let's turn this guy over here. And on the bottom it says, "P-R-O-F" for professor, an "E" for Eugenio, and then it says "Pattarino," so it's Eugenio Pattarino was the maker. And he was located in Florence, Italy. And there's also an oil label, which says pretty much the same thing. Now he was born in 1885,
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: and he died in 1971, but his company lasted after that. After World War II there was a huge interest in figurines. American consumers, and people really all over the world were very interested in figurines, and pottery and porcelain manufacturers made figurines for the public. That's what the public wanted. And there were lots of Italian makers. Now he is known as one of the best makers of Italian pottery figurines.
GUEST: Oh, wow!
APPRAISER: The modeling, the detailing, the color, and especially all the gold accents. You can see these figures are so detailed and so well-made.
GUEST: I love the faces.
APPRAISER: Oh, it's amazing, but they're really known for their gold, and another thing that he's known for is Madonnas. So we don't just have a Madonna here, we have the three wise men, Mary and Joseph, and the baby. And her halo is really spectacular, that's what a lot of people like. And some of the halos on the large figures they even sometimes are this tall.
GUEST: (gasps) My goodness.
APPRAISER: Sometimes the figures are six, eight, ten, 12 inches in diameter. It's amazing what they could do.
GUEST: Is this porcelain or...
APPRAISER: This is pottery.
GUEST: This is pottery.
APPRAISER: But a very good grade of pottery. In terms of marketability for people now who want to collect Italian pottery figures post-war from the '50s, in terms of his work, they like the things that were made before he died. He died in 1971, so this would appeal not only to collectors of his figures, Italian pottery figures, but to collectors of Madonnas. Now Madonna is not just the mother of Christ, but a Madonna represents the sacredness of motherhood, and then people love crèche
figures, manger scenes for Christmas. So if it were being sold it can appeal to many different types of people. Some of their sets are much larger, but this is a nice-sized set, it's a really usable set. When your father bought these from the store, do you have any idea how much he paid?
GUEST: I don't have a clue. I was a teenager, I'm not even sure that when they came out of the package I was that excited about them because I was probably more excited at Christmas about something else.
APPRAISER: This sort of thing was very expensive when it was new. They're so popular because of the color, the detail, that I would think a retail price for this set today would be somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000.
GUEST: Well, that's very exciting. I've always loved the colors and the gold. I mean they're... as you said, there is so much gold.
