APPRAISER: You have a fairly dramatic piece here, Cliff. Where did you get it?
GUEST: It belonged to my grandparents.
APPRAISER: When did he get it?
GUEST: We believe it was in the late '50s. My mother was a young girl when he went to Alaska, and he befriended a Ketchikan Native there who I believe was the artist of this piece. I'm not positive about that. And he came home with this, and it's been in the family ever since.
APPRAISER: First of all, this is an Inuit whalebone vertebra sculpture. And I'm going to turn this thing, because we have two faces. And it's really spectacular. Now, I can tell you that this did not come from the Ketchikan area. This came probably well north, maybe even up as far as Point Barrow.
GUEST: Oh, wow, okay.
APPRAISER: Because that's where you would more likely see the whales. And even though we can't really establish precisely the age of the whale, clearly we could say it's a 20th century piece. It's a fantastic sculpture. They're extremely rare. And an object like this, realistically, in a gallery environment, I would expect to see it sell for $2,500 to $4,500. In a good showroom, I think it could go higher than that. It's a great piece.
GUEST: Excellent.
