GUEST: This belonged to a friend of the family. I know her husband served in World War II. When she passed, we received it.
APPRAISER: When you would guess this dates to?
GUEST: I was thinking basically about Second World War?
APPRAISER: Knock a century off and you're close.
GUEST (laughing): Okay.
APPRAISER: It's a Federal period sword. It comes from early American Republic period, around the War of 1812 and up into the 1840s.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
APPRAISER: These were very popular. They're called an eagle head sword. This is a particularly attractive example. He has a bone handle, an eagle head pommel, a single knuckle bow, and then all this is gilted brass. And you can see an awful lot of the gilt finish remaining on it. A lot of the ones that were very high end, they don't look high end anymore because this coal bluing that creates that beautiful frosted finish and the gilt on it, it doesn't survive very well. And that was one of the reasons why we were interested in your sword. Most of these in today's market aren't worth a whole lot of money. It's a sword that comes from a time period where the items might be rare, but the collector interest just isn't there. That being said, because of the fact that it's been kept in nice condition, the scabbard is still with it, it is orders of magnitude above where it would be if it was in normal condition. This sword would retail for between $1,200 and $1,500.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
