GUEST: These white lamps I saw at a thrift store over 15 years ago. I wasn't really looking for lamps. I thought they were cool and they're glass. It wasn't until I moved into my recent place where somebody pointed out that, hey, they actually may be legitimately old and worth something, and it made me curious ever since.
APPRAISER: So what did you pay for them?
GUEST: Probably no more than nine dollars each.
APPRAISER: What part of the country were you when you got them?
GUEST: Uh, back in the Atlanta area. I'd go to thrift stores all the time just to explore and treasure-hunt. But I don't really collect anything particular, and these just stuck out.
APPRAISER: Who do you think made them?
GUEST: I don't know, there's no sticker, there's no mark. There's nothing I could find.
APPRAISER: They're designed by Lisa Johansson-Pape. She was Finnish.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: She was born in 1907. She was a pretty great designer, um, in terms of, uh, decorative arts, but particularly lighting. It's funny, because I spoke to a colleague of mine here at the ROADSHOW who is a specialist in the period in which these were made. And he said in the 1980s...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...these were the modern lamps that people were looking at.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: It was just sort of, they were kind of a signature thing.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: She was trained, um, at the art, one of the art schools in Helsinki. She actually made lamps, glass lamps, during World War II.
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: And then in the 1950s, she started to collaborate with a very famous company called Iittala, which is still in existence today. It's a
Finnish company. And as best as I can figure, she probably designed these in about 1954.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And then I think that they were produced as late as 1969. I'd say a circa date of 1960. They came in two sizes.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And yours is the larger size!
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: They're in very good shape. It's, you know, it's a, an opaque glass.
GUEST: Are these a specific shape for the design?
APPRAISER: I think that you could probably call them a mushroom. She did other things. There's another, there's a Finnish word for onion. She
definitely liked, um, a stylized, streamlined fruit and vegetable inspiration. These probably did have paper labels on the bottom.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And they probably said "Iittala." Because they're the larger size...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ..in a retail venue, these would sell for between anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000.
GUEST: Wow. For the pair or each?
APPRAISER: For the pair.
GUEST: Pair? Wow. Wow! (laughing): That's a great $20 investment.
APPRAISER: Fantastic. Fantastic.
GUEST: (laughing)
APPRAISER: And, you know, they're so, the design is so interesting...
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: ...that I think already, even in the '80s, they were being copied or they were inspiring other designs.
GUEST: Yeah. Wow. Wow, that's... Great eye. Great eye from a very good friend.
