GUEST: My grandmother was born in 1880, and when she was a teenager, she was courted by a young man who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was an Indian agent in the Oklahoma Territory. She did not marry him, but she kept the gifts.
APPRAISER: (laughs) As she should have. I mean, they were gifts, right?
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Looking at them, I assume, just the overall look of this, you've kept them in pretty good shape.
GUEST: Yes, sir.
APPRAISER: So they're pretty much like they were when you got them.
GUEST: Yes, sir.
APPRAISER: Especially this piece over here?
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: What's on your side is a pipe bag, and what's over here is a pipe and a stem. They may have ended up in Oklahoma for whatever reason. They didn't come from Oklahoma. They are probably Eastern Sioux or Lakota, and date to anywhere between the late 1870s at the earliest to the late 1880s. The pipe bag is made out of porcupine quills that have been flattened and dyed, and then woven and tacked down to that deer skin. And the fringe has been twisted. And interestingly enough, that is not what I'd expect to see out of a Northern Plains pipe bag from the Lakota. That's something you see more in Oklahoma.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So these things may have been carried to Oklahoma, but created in the Dakotas by Lakota Sioux. The pipe is one of a number that we've all seen before. It's a style that's very particular. There are probably a dozen of these things on record. They were carved by the same carver. The pipe bowl. Do you know what that material is?
GUEST: No, sir.
APPRAISER: It's called catlinite. And it comes from the red stone quarry, the catlinite quarry in Minnesota, which is named after the artist George Catlin. And it's a stone that's a little softer when it's quarried, and it's easier to form and shape into something like that with files and with tools. And beautiful pipe bowl-- it's never been broken. 50% of the time, they've been broken in half and glued back together. The pipe stem is ash. These are probably quills from a bird that the feathers have been skinned off, and the quills been flattened and woven around a piece of thread or a piece of sinew and wrapped around it to make this design with these duck feathers. A bison on the bottom, big horn ram on the next one up, a turtle, and an elk. And they've been dyed with red ocher on the sides, and then this is indigo that's been put on the background of this, the edge of the turtle, and the horns of the bison. It's a spectacular piece of sculpture. It's ceremonial art. Whether or not it was ever used in ceremony, probably not. It was probably sold or it was probably given to someone, as it was given to your grandmother. Sometimes you see them without the quill work. I don't think I've seen one that has any more animals than this. We think it may have been a carver at a place called Fort Berthold that was in the territories at that time. It is a piece of art, and the pipe bag is, too. For the pipe bag, I would say $4,000 to $6,000. It's got a little damage to it, but it's visually, it's overall in pretty good shape. And it's with the pipe, which is real unusual. The pipe itself, again, $4,000 to $6,000. So the two together, $8,000 to $12,000 for the two.
GUEST: Pretty impressive.
APPRAISER: Yeah, it's great stuff. It could bring more. I'm talking about an auction. If you wanted to insure them, get it up there towards $16,000.
GUEST: Okay.
