GUEST: It came from a field somewhere around Melville, Texas. There was a farm that was just sort of abandoned. I have a friend who goes out from time to time and does handy, you know, odd jobs and that sort of thing. And so he got the job of cleaning up and removing debris from the property, and in the process of doing that, by some miracle found this piece of pottery in pretty darn good condition.
APPRAISER: What do you know about the merchant here?
GUEST: Well, I began researching the name P.H. McGraw. He had this drug business in Natchez, Mississippi. He was involved with the Confederate Army, and it turns out that he was a little too old to be on active duty himself. What he did was he smuggled drugs across the Union lines.
APPRAISER: Really? That's an interesting story. We have here a name, "I. Thomas," and then a capacity mark of one, so that's a one-gallon jug. "I. Thomas" stands for Isaac Thomas, who was a potter in Maysville, Kentucky.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: Thomas was an early stoneware maker. He was making stoneware in Maysville in the 1830s up through the '50s and '60s.
GUEST: How old do you think this actually is?
APPRAISER: Well, I think it was probably made 1850, '55. He was obviously a very enterprising businessman. He was on the Ohio River, which is where Maysville is. He was sending salesmen down the Ohio, down to Natchez, taking orders for stoneware.
GUEST: Oh, interesting.
APPRAISER: And not only did he say, "Well, we'll put your name on it, Mr. McGraw," but “I'm going to make sure that my name is on this too, to advertise my business."
GUEST: Fantastic.
APPRAISER: Great example of marketing. The stoneware industry of Kentucky has not been very well studied. There are researchers now who are working studying early Maysville ceramic industry. This is precisely what their thesis was-- that these Maysville potters were directing their traffic down the river. So your friend found this while he was cleaning up a falling-down house in Texas.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Did he give it to you or did you buy it from him?
GUEST: I bought it from him. I paid $30.
APPRAISER: $30.
GUEST: Well, we didn't know what it was or anything. So I don't know if I would ever sell it, but I would certainly make it right with him.
APPRAISER: I would think that a good auction estimate would be $1,000 to $1,500.
GUEST: Wow, that's fantastic. That's amazing.
