GUEST: I brought a box with some liquor bottles inside, as far as I know, that my mother got in the early '60s from an antique dealer. And I believe he got it on the East Coast, Connecticut, I believe. And it belonged to Samuel Colt's brother-in-law. His name was Richard William Hart Jarvis. He was president of the Colt Firearms Company from about 1865 to 1903. I guess that was the longest period anyone was president. But yeah, Samuel Colt was married to his sister. And so that's kind of what I know about it. And it's been in the family a long time, and recently I discovered that it was from Tiffany's in New York, which made me even more excited to bring it to find out what you can tell me about it.
APPRAISER: Well, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at the top of the box, because the reason why we know where it came from is because of the initials. What are the initials on the top?
GUEST: R-W-H-J, Richard William Hart Jarvis.
APPRAISER: When we open the box, we do see some cut glass liquor decanters. Wonderful pieces, cut glass. We know it's cut glass rather than pressed glass because it's still sharp to the touch. So that's a good thing, because cut glass is going to be more expensive than pressed glass.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Now, we do have a little bit of damage. There's a big chip right here. Okay. So the glass is probably not the most important thing about this piece. It's the box itself.
GUEST: So that probably means it was used often, then.
APPRAISER: Probably, probably so. So what we like is the Tiffany and Company label, because it says, "Tiffany and Company, Union Square." That helps us date the box. They were there about 1870 to about 1910. But the style of the glass tells us that it's probably about 1880. It was not made by Tiffany, it was retailed by Tiffany. It's a burlwood box with bronze mounts, bronze being more expensive.
GUEST: I thought they were brass, but okay.
APPRAISER: Yeah, bronze being more expensive than brass, so that's a really good thing. What did Colt collectors love more than guns? Liquor.
GUEST: Oh! Oh, those kind of... oh, yeah. I was like, "What else do they like?"
APPRAISER: That's right. At auction, a piece like this could do really well. I'm thinking in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
GUEST: Oh, okay. That sounds good.
APPRAISER: The value, if it was not associated with the Colt family, would probably actually still be the same. The Colt people like Colt materials, and this is the brother-in-law of Colt, so not exactly Samuel Colt himself.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: So if it was Samuel Colt's piece, I might bump it up a little bit more, to $5,000 to $8,000 at auction.
GUEST: So --
APPRAISER: But as the brother-in-law, I'm still in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
GUEST: I think my mother paid $500 or $550 in the early '60s for it.
APPRAISER: So you, you did pretty well.
GUEST: I think that's great. Thanks, Mom.
