GUEST: I was at the flea market here in Tulsa one day and I saw this beautiful piece of oak. It was in bad shape. It had been in somebody's chicken house. The lid was broken, it was kind of beat up, but I was impressed by it.
APPRAISER: And tell us then what you discovered on this piece. First of all, there is a tag at the top, isn't there? That's right. And it says... "W 64." And it has an inkwell here.
GUEST: Right. I didn't know what those meant. There were stars on the sides here. I didn't know what they meant. The... there was a globe with America on it... and it also had a shield here. That was significant. I had no idea what it was. I restored it first, and then I put a yardstick by it and took pictures from all different angles, sent the pictures to the Smithsonian Institution. They referred me to the Architect of the Capitol-- which I had never heard of—
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: and he sent me back some information that explained what it was and where it was from.
APPRAISER: And it is a desk out of the House of Representatives.
GUEST: Yes, sir.
APPRAISER: And it was assigned to West 64.
GUEST: Yeah, the western door, the western half.
APPRAISER: And from that, we can tell on the map where it was in the building.
GUEST: Yes, sir.
APPRAISER: We know today that these desks were made in the 1850s, designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, the great architect from Philadelphia, a founder of the American Institute of Architects, designed Girard College in Philadelphia, and later made great additions to the United States Capitol. He's the one who put the cast-iron dome on the building in 1855 to '63. We think this desk was made about 1857, probably made by the firm of Doe and Hazleton in Boston. So this is pre-Civil War and shortly after, they sold most of them out of the House and put new furniture in. And one sold recently in New York. It was discovered with an impression on it of the company's name. It sold for about $15,000. We think that this, with the restoration, probably is more in the $8,000 to $9,000 range.
GUEST: Oh, wow... wonderful.
APPRAISER: But a great deal more than your buying it in the...
GUEST: Yes, sir, I only gave $350 for it.
APPRAISER: $350.
GUEST: Yes, sir.
