GUEST: This is an antique car horn that was given to my great-uncle by a customer who really appreciated his service while he was the service manager at the Cadillac dealership in Memphis, Tennessee. They used it as a doorstop. Originally, it had green glass eyes in it. And my aunt thought that it was really creepy, and it was watching her all the time, so she popped the eyes out.
APPRAISER: Oh, my goodness.
GUEST: And we don't know where they are.
APPRAISER: It's truly one of the most spectacular things I've seen at ROADSHOW. It is a circa 1915 Art Nouveau silver-plated car horn in the form of a grotesque or a gargoyle. And as you can see, it has wings, it has claws. The horn looks like it was actually made by a music maker who would have known exactly how to bend the metal. The workmanship here is just so spectacular. The claws-- I can see why it might have creeped your aunt out, but...
GUEST: (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Uh, it's just, it's so wonderful. You've got this bar here where it would have been attached, and here you would have had the horn, so you could have just reached out the window to make it sound. It's French, probably made in Paris, because Paris had the great metal foundries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The French love monsters. And in the late 19th century, which is right around the time things like this started getting made, the French had what they called the Grand Guignol theater, which was the theater of horror. And the themes were death, monsters, terror, and the French loved it. Unfortunately, the eyes are missing. But even so, I would estimate it on today's market at between $1,500 and $3,000.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: If it still had the eyes, you're looking at $2,000 to $4,000.
GUEST: Okay.
