GUEST: It was my father's. And he died and he had six of these paintings. And my stepmother gave one to each of his children.
APPRAISER: He had had them for how long, do you know, or...
GUEST: Oh, for as long as I remember. Probably late '50s, early '60s.
APPRAISER: Yeah, do you know anything about who the artist is or anything, have you...
GUEST: I know his name is Cahoon.
APPRAISER: Okay. Ralph Cahoon was a Cape Cod artist and known for these whimsical, nautical, 19th-century-inspired motifs, primarily with mermaids and sailors. Some of them had hot air balloons. He was born in 1910. He died in 1982. This is a mid-20th-century work. This is a, uh, oil on masonite. He lived on the Cape, uh, in Cotuit, I think, most of the time.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And after his death, his prices and, uh, recognition started to gain quite nicely. This is basically the original frame. I'm sure Ralph put it in this frame. It's a Victorian frame, very typical of his work. Nice, bright picture here. We have a lot of the bells and whistles. We have 13 mermaids; we have a sailing ship with sailors; and then we have an American flag. And we're either in the, it looks like the Antarctic, but it could have been in the North Pole. This is a nice, cool picture. I was very excited when I saw it. I lived on the Cape for a number of years and knew a lot of friends of his and heard a lot of stories about him over the years. Sounded like a wonderful guy.
GUEST: Sense of humor.
APPRAISER: Oh, yeah.
GUEST: (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Wonderful, folky, whimsical painting. And I think a good auction estimate would be $30,000 to $50,000.
GUEST: Great. Good price.
APPRAISER: (chuckles)
