GUEST: My husband was flying out of the Pacific, uh, right at the start of the Korean War, and he flew into Tokyo, found it in an antique shop, and bought it. (chuckles) On installment. Every time he went in, he carried seven cartons of cigarettes...
GUEST & APPRAISER: (both chuckle)
GUEST: ...to the man in, in the antique shop. And that went on until he was about to be transferred back to the States, and he paid off the balance in cash. I don't know how much it was. (laughing)
APPRAISER: What year was that?
GUEST: That was 1950.
APPRAISER: I understand that you were at the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW before. When was this?
GUEST: It was in Atlanta, about 1997. I saw Mr. Lark Mason, Jr., and he was doubtful about the horse, so he advised me then to have it authenticated. He pointed me in the right direction. I took the horse to Chattanooga. A lady there drilled holes in him, and I sent it to England, and they sent me back the fact that he's real. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Thermoluminescence tests are really, really important to get for pieces of this type. This is a test that Oxford Authentications does in England. Basically, they take a core sample from the belly and two or three other places...
GUEST: Right underneath here.
APPRAISER: Right un, usually underneath the, the head of the piece, and then they irradiate those samples with light and calculate when the piece was last fired.
GUEST: Mm, okay.
APPRAISER: So for Tang Dynasty examples, these tests are pretty foolproof.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So it's really a boon for a collector to have a test of this type done for these pieces.
GUEST: Well, I'm so glad.
APPRAISER: These Tang Dynasty horses are really quite rare, for its massive size, and also the fact that it's a three-color glazed example. The ownership of these steeds was a matter of great prestige during this period, and so models of these were buried when the nobleperson actually died. If you had come to us in 1999 with this authenticity certificate, we would have told you that the insurance value would be about $100,000. In 2007, the market's gone down a bit. It'd be about $80,000 at insurance now, okay?
GUEST: Wow. Wow, that's still very good.
APPRAISER: This is, it's great, isn't it?
GUEST: (laughing)
