APPRAISER: Would you describe yourself as a bargain hunter?
GUEST: Oh, yes, oh, yes.
APPRAISER: Okay, okay.
GUEST: Always looking for bargains.
APPRAISER: Always looking. So where do you go? Tag sales, flea markets?
GUEST: Yard sales; just anywhere that's having a sale. Antiques listed, I'm going there.
APPRAISER: Yep. Okay, you're going there. So what's the story on this table? Where did you find it?
GUEST: Well, I bought this in Tennessee, in Camden, near where I live. I just saw the advertisement in the newspaper.
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: And they said they had antiques.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: So I went by and found this little table.
APPRAISER: Okay, what was it marked?
GUEST: Oh, $7.50, I believe.
APPRAISER: $7.50, so did you negotiate down to any lower price?
GUEST: No, I didn't. But she did add a potted plant.
APPRAISER: She added a potted plant to it? Is this stain on the top from the potted plant?
GUEST: I think it might be, don't you?
APPRAISER: It really was? Have you found out what it is?
GUEST: Well, I was told that it was a card table.
APPRAISER: Yep, you're right on that point. This is a mid-18th-century-- circa 1740 to 1750-- Georgian mahogany card table. Card tables were a huge part of 18th-century life. They were status symbols, because when you had a card table, and here this leaf, which has come off here, right, opened up, and you played the cards at it, right?
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: But when you had this table in your home, it meant that you were, had reached a status, a level where you could afford this rich, mahogany table with a drawer to keep the cards in, with a shell on the knee, with a bellflower, and with these wonderful claw-on-ball feet. All classic English-- probably London-- characteristics. So you have this card table, also called a gaming table. It's a little beat up, okay? You have a couple of spots where you have some, some repairs here and there. This is worth, in a New York shop, about $5,000.
GUEST: Oh, wonderful.
APPRAISER: Now, you paid $7.50.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: Now, that's not a bad profit.
GUEST: That is great.
APPRAISER: I would think that's... I'd be real happy.
GUEST: Thank you, thank you.
APPRAISER: You're welcome. Now, let me tell you what it would be worth if it were American. There's an American version of this. If these were white pine and a little thicker, those drawer sides, that's one of the things that would tell us that this is an American table made in Boston. And then, it would be worth about $100,000.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
APPRAISER: But $5,000's not bad.
(both laugh)