GUEST: It's something that I've had in my possession now about 35 to 40 years. I wanted to have some Tiffany if I possibly could, or something similar, for my desk in the office. I've always followed Tiffany, and thought he's a remarkable individual, a great artist, as we all know, especially in colors. And about that time, something was in one of the antique articles, and they were mentioning an inkwell that they thought was somewhere around 1915 to 1920. It was a reasonable price at that time, and so I ended up having it sent to me. I put it into a glass closet and kept it there and looked at it for many, many years. And I really haven't gotten it out of that glass chest, except just recently.
APPRAISER: When we think about inkwells with Tiffany, we think about their bronze inkwells, or we think about the bronze and glass inkwells that were part of a desk set. This piece was never part of a complete desk set. The colors on this are fantastic. I love this little hook decoration, this kind of wave decoration that goes all the way around, and then it comes down from the top right over that shoulder. You have this wonderful bronze lid that has a hinge on the back, and what I've noticed about it is, it has a little bit of condition issues. It looks like at some point in time, somebody took tape, probably to tape the lid down shut. Maybe if it was being shipped or if it was being stored. So you have these little four spots where you can see tape was. It took away from the patina that was on it. And for a few hundred dollars, you can actually get them re-patina'd.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: And have them fixed so that they look brand-new. On the bottom, you've got this pontil mark here, and then you've got an "L.C.T." and then an "H" and a three-digit number behind it, which shows this was an early piece. This would be something that would have been done around the turn of the century.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: Yeah, so a little bit earlier than what you thought for it to be. If you don't mind, how much did you pay for the piece?
GUEST: I think it was $600.
APPRAISER: The Tiffany market is very, very wild right now, and we don't see these kinds of inkwells come up very often. I would say if this came up at auction, you would expect to see an estimate of $6,000 to $8,000.
GUEST (chuckling): Really?
APPRAISER: There's a pretty strong possibility that it would sell for even more money than that.
