GUEST: My great-grandfather worked for Teco. This is a picture taken around the turn of the century of my great-grandfather and his buddies at the plant.
APPRAISER: And Mr. Gates is the gentleman at the bottom, Mr. Gates...
GUEST: It is, it is.
APPRAISER: ...who started the pottery in 1881, near Crystal Lake in Illinois. I say "Tech-oh" because I always said "Tech-oh," some people say it's absolutely "Tea-co." You see mostly pottery at Teco, and a lot of architectural ceramics, but not so much these lovely cuenca tiles, which are a beautiful example of an Arts and Crafts piece. This big beautiful vase-- a rose vase being a nice, tall-necked vase where you could put roses, right? Even thought this has irises on it-- is covered in the characteristic Teco green, and what makes this beautiful matte green is the fact that it's a crystalline glaze, but it's very, very small. It's a micro-crystalline glaze. Nothing like this beautiful little pot you have here, which is super-, super-rare. They started making these crystalline glazes in about 1905. When you have it like this, these big, showy crystals, it's pretty amazing. And then there's smaller examples, which you see more often, very architectural here, more organic here.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And you also have some pipes. Pipes like this, usually, without the carving, they're worth a couple of bucks. Ten bucks. But you have them carved-- it says "Teco" here, and some initials, all done very much in the Arts and Crafts style.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Looks wonderful. As far as pricing goes, these pipes, to a Teco collector, must be worth about $500 apiece.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: Something like this, maybe $600 to $900. Something more architectural, which is more what people are looking for these days, that's more like $1,000 to $1,500. A rare vase like that, more like $1,500 to $2,000. This beautiful tile alone-- $1,000. And this big one-- easily $20,000 to $30,000. And perhaps, who knows what that would bring? It could bring $40,000 at auction-- it's spectacular. I've never seen this particular form.
GUEST: Oh, my.
APPRAISER: It's... it's just fabulous.
GUEST: Well. Thank you, thank you very much. That's... that's part of our family.
