HOST: For years, historic homes along the East Coast have claimed, "George Washington slept here," well, probably ever since our first president became a national figure. Many of those boasts are more folklore than fact, but for the Wilton house in Richmond, Virginia, that claim is true. This Georgian manor house built around 1753 was visited by Washington in March of 1775, right after Patrick Henry delivered his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. ROADSHOW met up with appraiser Sebastian Clarke to tour the house and to take a look at some curious Federal-era objects that, though common in their day, would stump a modern visitor like me.
HOST: So Mark, we have this interesting object right here.
APPRAISER: Any thoughts what it might be?
HOST: Well, first of all, let me ask, is this an item that people of the Federalist era would commonly use?
APPRAISER: That's very sharp of you. Yes, it is.
HOST: And the puns begin.
APPRAISER: Obviously it's some sort of scissor.
HOST: May I pick it up and handle it?
APPRAISER: Please do.
HOST: All right, so I'm looking at this. Whatever it is goes in here, it is then cleaved with this and then pressed with that, and my guess is you take raw butter and make pats with it.
APPRAISER: You know what, Mark, that's an incredibly good guess, but it's not the right answer.
HOST: So what are they?
APPRAISER: People refer to them incorrectly as candle snuffers, but they're actually called wick trimmers. And the way it would work is that you would open them up right here and then you would trim the top of the wick while it was still burning. The wick was burning down and they would smoke a lot, so that you would be cutting the wick back. They do come up for auction quite often and they don't have a considerable amount of value. The value is around about $300 to $400.
HOST: I feel a little stupid, but we're going to go on with this game. Let's go look at something else.
APPRAISER: Absolutely.
HOST: Okay. Butter pat-- not a bad guess.
APPRAISER: You know, it was enthusiastic.
HOST: I see this beautiful basin of some sort. There's a cut-out here which really is confusing me, but I'm going to guess this is a basin for shaving.
APPRAISER: Yes.
HOST: Oh, I'm so relieved!
APPRAISER: The cut-out is actually so it could be held against your chin so when you were shaving or you were having a servant shave you, it would fit snugly up against the chin and catch anything, all the remnants.
HOST: I see. What can you tell me about this particular bowl?
APPRAISER: It's actually Japanese from about 1770, 1780, and it's in the Imari palette. And the value at auction is around about $1,000.
HOST: Well, it's beautiful and it's even more valuable to me because I got one right.
APPRAISER: Well, there you go. I have one more object for you to take a look at.
HOST: Let's do it.
APPRAISER: I'm hopeful that you'll be able to figure this out.
HOST: Okay. (laughs) Well, it's a whistle of some sort. Is it to call a servant? Is that what it's for?
APPRAISER: That's a good guess, but it's actually a baby rattle.
HOST: A baby rattle. But is this not a whistle of some sort?
APPRAISER: It is, the children will play with that, but it's a baby rattle, and this piece on the end is actually coral. Late 18th century. It does have English silver hallmarks on it. What's interesting about this is that they are really quite rare, but there are a lot of fakes in the marketplace. A real one would be around about $1,500 at auction.
HOST: Very good. Well, Sebastian, thank you for taking me on this little trivia quest, and I got one right, so I'll consider that a mild victory. Thank you very much.
APPRAISER: Pleasure as always, Mark.
