GUEST: I brought my antique curly maple highboy. My husband and I collected antiques for a long time. And we had a friend who was in the business, sort of, and he got it for us.
APPRAISER: Oh, really-- excellent.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And what did he tell you about it?
GUEST: That if you collect antiques, you ought to have a highboy.
APPRAISER: Well, he's certainly right. It's the cornerstone for any collection. Now, did he give you any sense of how old it is or where it's from?
GUEST: No. But I got the feeling it was from... New England and Connecticut.
APPRAISER: Well, excellent. And what gave you that feeling?
GUEST: Because that's where he got most of his antiques.
APPRAISER: Most of his antiques? Do you remember when you bought this?
GUEST: Well, it was before 1964.
APPRAISER: Oh, really.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Any idea what you paid for it?
GUEST: No, I don't remember what we paid for it, but it was substantial. Several thousand dollars, I'm sure of that.
APPRAISER: Several thousand. When we look at a piece of furniture, we look at the form.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: Did the form exist in the 18th century? And the answer is, absolutely. This relates to the Queen Anne period, which is something that would have been made between about 1740 to 1760.
GUEST: That's old.
APPRAISER: Absolutely. The next question we look at is, what's it made of? Was this something that would have been used in the period? It's called figured maple or tiger maple, and that is absolutely a native wood to America that's found in New England. So you are right. This is something that would have been made in New England. You've got this fabulous figured maple that draws the eye up. But there's also another element on here that's a neat decorative feature, which is this fan.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Well, when I look at the fan, I say, "Is that something that I would see in the period?" It looks like a handheld fan, something you'd cool yourself with. And during the period, we would have expected to see a demilune fan, a semicircle with a flat bottom that runs parallel to the edge of the drawer. And the other feature about this that is a little unusual is the shape of this foot. This is what we call a trifed foot. And it's really unusual to find a trifed foot on a New England piece of furniture. So a little bit of alarm bells are starting to go off. You'd expect to see a pad foot. If I pull this drawer out, and I pull this drawer out, I want to compare the top and bottom to each other.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And if we look at the dovetails, you'll see on the bottom drawer, there's one large dovetail.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And up top, they're smaller. That to me says we've got an issue. It should be uniform construction throughout the case. What I think you have here is a high chest that's been married.
GUEST: Which cuts its value.
APPRAISER: It does cut its value. Have you ever had it appraised?
GUEST: Oh, in the early '90s, we had someone look at it for a fine arts insurance.
APPRAISER: And do you remember what they appraised it for?
GUEST: No, not really. Maybe $9,000, something like that.
APPRAISER: Well, $9,000 would have been a pretty significant figure. But if you have what we call a married or an assembled chest, the marketplace sort of views it as just a decorative object now.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: So if I were to appraise it for insurance purposes in 1990, I probably wouldn't have put more than $1,500 to $2,000. If this were to come up at auction today, I would place a conservative auction estimate of $500 to $1,000 on it.
GUEST: Is that all?
APPRAISER: That's it. Uh-oh. Well, I hope I didn't ruin your day.
GUEST: No, you didn't. You didn't ruin my day at all.
APPRAISER: But... You know...
GUEST: It's been a lovely day.
