GUEST: And the fisherman came from my great-grandfather's house. Um, he bought the home from a man that owned a fleet of fishing boats, and it was carved for him.
GUEST: This fisherman was found in a home that my great-grandfather purchased. And the owner of the home previous to him was a captain of a fishing fleet. And it came from Alpena, Michigan. After my great-grandfather owned it, it came down to my mother, and as a child, he lived in our basement. And with those terrifying red eyes in the black corner next to the coal bin, we were afraid to go to the basement. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: What we have here is a late-19th-century trade sign.
GUEST: Trade sign?
APPRAISER: It's, it is a sign that is beckoning a profession-- a fisherman-- where one would go in and buy fishing supplies for the profession.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: So the fact that it was owned by a professional fishboat captain makes a lot of sense. And a piece like this is carved wood, and the wood is white pine.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it was a, a wood that was very, very favored by the trade shops because it was soft, it was easy to carve, and it took paint very nicely. And this would have been carved out of a two-foot log. And what is wonderful about the piece is, it's virtually untouched and it's wearing its historic surface. And we have a very important thing going on here, and that is the beautiful 19th-century nameplate that was put on when the piece was made that says "T," which is for Theodore, and "Crongeyer," a street address in Detroit, Michigan.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: And we know his shop, he did church work, he did tobacco store trade figures, he did design work. So this figure would have been outside a shop, possibly up high, over the door of the shop, so that people, when walking down the street in either direction, could see what is going on inside that shop. Don't forget, it's 1875-- people coming to America, many of them can't read, can't speak English.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So this becomes a sign language.
GUEST: How wonderful.
APPRAISER: When we turn it around and we take a look, we see etched into the side of the piece the word "fisherman."
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: That was done at a later date. And when we go around to the back, We see a wonderful surface. And you said that this was stored near the coal bin.
GUEST: Correct.
APPRAISER: I suspect it was subjected possibly to heat.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And that's how you created the surface over here. I think today it's a desirable piece for the folk art collectors that collect trade signs. But, really, these are so rare because the number of shops that sold s, fishing supplies were quite few. The number of tobacco shops were, were plentiful. Many more. So we're going to put a retail valuation today of $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST: I'm amazed. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Yeah, I think it's, it's...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...being a little conservative, too. I think it's a very desirable form by a, a known maker, who's quite rare, actually. It's a wonderful piece.
GUEST: Wow, thank you, Mr. Katz, I'm so surprised. Thank you for telling us it's a sign. Who would have guessed? Well, you knew. (both chuckling)
