GUEST: I was visiting an Asian store in my neighborhood that sells mostly mahjong stuff and Asian things. And I saw this and thought, "That looks kind of out of place." So I went to the owner, who I knew, and I said, "What's this thing doing here?" She said, "Somebody dropped it off, said sell it." I said, "I want it." She said, "How much you want to pay for it?" I said, "Well, $30." She said, "Let me call the owner." She called the owner, "Sell it." That's how I got it.
APPRAISER: Wow, and what year...
GUEST: About five or six years ago.
APPRAISER: Five or six years ago.
GUEST: Yeah, yeah.
APPRAISER: This is actually from the state of Nayarit in west Mexico, a place called Chinesco. And this is everything that we want to see in a large west Mexican piece. Now what we have to do is figure out whether it's real or not. If we look at the overall style, the overall configuration, it's pretty good. The way it's hunched over, that's accurate. The shape of the head, that's okay. When we start getting to the paint, we got a little bit of a problem. The paint on the face is not quite right. The nose and the little nose ring, that's okay. The eyes are a little bit strange. So this is a red flag for us. Unfortunately, that means it's a reproduction.
GUEST: Ah, okay.
APPRAISER: And... but, as a reproduction, it's a big, impressive piece. And even on the decorative market, I would put a value of $300 to $500.
GUEST: That's a good return for $30.
APPRAISER: Now do you want the bad news?
GUEST: Yeah, go ahead.
APPRAISER: What do you think it might have been worth if it were real?
GUEST: Well, that's probably more like $20,000, $30,000 or something.
APPRAISER: You're close. How about $30,000 to $50,000?
GUEST: Wow.
