>> Announcer: Welcome to Mississippi Antiques Showcase.

In this episode, we're in Biloxi, Mississippi, with our expert appraisers to look at your rare finds, family heirlooms and your quirky collectibles.

We'll see what we can learn about these unique treasures and of course, see what they might be worth.

>> Great!

>> So, Tim.

Thanks for joining us today.

And you've brought us something very special, something that I've never seen before, and I've seen thousands and thousands of items.

Tell us about what this is.

>> This is a walking stick that Bob Hope gave my father in 1944.

My father was in the hospital.

He had been wounded by our side.

He was a platoon sergeant at the time.

And he would be tasked with a short patrol to ambush some black marketeers.

And unfortunately, it didn't turn out as well as they hoped, and my father got shot in the leg.

And Bob Hope was doing one of his famous USO tours in the New Hebrides when my father was hospitalized.

And he came through the hospital, which he always did.

And my father tried to stand up to shake his hand, but couldn't because he didn't have a crutch or anything.

So Bob Hope said, "Hey, Marine, you need this more than I do."

And handed him his cane.

>> So Bob Hope gave him the cane?

>> Gave him the cane, yes.

>> And what did you bring with you here today?

>> This is a photograph of Mr. Hope out in the New Hebrides in August of 1944.

And here you can see the cane.

It's the best I could blow it up.

But you can see the outline of the mother of pearl in the cane showing.

Right, yeah, It's the exact same cane that's here, down to the the mother of pearl here.

You can see all that in the photo and everything.

It's truly fantastic.

You've done, obviously, a lot of research.

Have you looked into values?

>> Oh, no, there's no, I don't think there'd be any way to really value it.

>> It is very, very hard to value.

And let's look at the actual cane itself.

So first off, you have the mother of pearl work here, which is very well done.

>> I think it's handmade.

>> It absolutely looks handmade.

The cane does, too.

It's some sort of hardwood.

I can't determine specifically what it is.

I don't think it's mahogany.

I think it's probably some sort of, you know, African hardwood based on some of these colors here.

We are missing some mother of pearl there, which, you know, could have happened at any time.

>> Probably came from Bob Hope's use, because my father, when he got it, he had it boxed up and sent to his mother.

I don't think he ever personally used it.

>> And it's great and the story with it is fantastic.

And you can't beat the provenance.

You know, he's holding this cane in his hands right there.

So how do you value something like this?

Very hard.

Very hard.

So what we did is we ran kind of a cross check of other Bob Hope items coming up at auction.

And what we were able to find is one or two of his USO hats that he wore while he was doing the shows and stuff.

And each one of those hats brought a little better than $1,000 at auction.

And they were worn by him, and there's documentation of him wearing them and stuff.

That being said, this is probably more important than the hats, you know.

And that being said, based on current results in which some of the Bob Hope furniture sold for out of his personal collection and stuff like that, I would say an auction estimation would be somewhere in the $4,000 to $6,000 range.

>> Oh, excellent.

>> Hello, how are y'all doing today?

>> Doing good, thank you.

>> I see you've brought a nice ewer and the under plate with it.

>> Yeah.

>> What do you know about it?

>> This has been in my family for generations, so I really don't have a date on it.

But it's always been there and I have it in my home now.

>> From what I've looked at, it appears to be late 1700s, early 1800s, probably.

>> Yeah.

>> It's hard to date these type of things.

Where are you from?

>> I am actually from India.

>> I believe this is Syrian.

>> Yes, and this is from Syria.

>> From Syria?

>> Yeah.

>> I had a little trouble finding this particular one.

I found a lot of them that were with this style and with this painting.

It's actually a white clay paint.

And then the other is added over the white clay, and then it's fired to preserve it.

Have you ever had it looked at before?

Not really, it's just an heirloom.

So I never really had it valued or anything.

>> Right, and you would never actually get rid of it.

You'd keep it in the family always, right?

>> Yes.

>> Well, with that being said, you know, on the open market, you can find these in reproductions a lot.

And that kind of hurts the value because people look at that the money over what it really is.

But I would think that it's probably in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $6,000 for it the way it is.

And it's in beautiful condition.

There's nothing wrong with it.

It doesn't look like-- it's got a little grazing under here.

I'm sorry.

And there is a little wear on the bottom, but other than that, it's in great condition.

And like I said, for insurance purposes, I would do the $4,000 to $6,000.

>> Okay.

Thank you.

>> Thank y'all for bringing it today.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Wonderful seeing y'all again.

>> Nice to see you.

>> It's nice seeing you again, too.

And thank you.

>> Well, what do we have here today?

>> I have a painting that I'm proud of.

>> Okay.

How long have you owned it?

>> About four weeks.

>> Four weeks?

>> Yes, four weeks.

>> All right.

What did you pay for it?

>> $20 >> $20?

>> $20.

>> Okay.

Well, you know, he's an Italian painter, and he's probably done around 1950, and it's not a bad painting, although he didn't do a lot of things that sells for a lot of money.

And he was more of a tourist.

If you would go to Italy, you'd buy one of his paintings, probably off the street or someplace.

It's still a nice painting, and I would say at auction it would still bring $400 to $600.

>> Super!

>> So that's still a pretty good profit.

>> Oh yes, that's a profit.

>> Hello Jeremy, tell me something about your item that you brought in today.

>> Well, I don't know much about it.

I inherited it from my grandfather, who is German.

But I know it's not German.

No, and you don't know how he got it, by chance?

>> He collected antiques, I guess, so I have no idea when he got it, where he got it, how much he paid for it.

I know it's called a-- I used to think was called a Woolley scepter, but I looked it up and I see it's called a Ru Yi sceptor.

Yes, that's all I know.

>> Yeah, and it was something that was used by the Chinese Imperial Court to grant good wishes towards people.

The actual term, "Ru Yi" means "as you wish".

So that's where the term came from.

Yours is a really a gorgeous specimen.

Unfortunately, it's got some damage.

It has a spot here where it's been reattached.

And then obviously this has come off.

It is a gorgeous, gorgeous specimen of jade.

I mean, it's just beautiful.

The translucency is just amazing and the carving is so fine.

I mean, this is really, really pretty.

Unfortunately, the value is next to nothing because of the breaks.

It can be restored and have some value again.

However, at this point, the jade that you see here is worth more than the rosewood scepter itself if it were put together.

But if it were in perfect condition, it would have a value of probably $2,800 to $3,500.

It's probably late 17th century, early 18th century, Qing Dynasty, might be even earlier than that, but it is just an amazing piece.

If you were to have it restored, you could probably regain a lot of that value to about maybe $2,000 or something like that.

But it's always going to have that little bit of, you know, problem where it's been restored.

So it's a really excellent specimen.

What do you do with it?

Do you display it in the house or?...

>> Well, it's in it's not really capable of being displayed in its current condition.

And I had-- I mean I had no idea what it was worth and I'd actually considered, at some point, having the jade encased in silver and giving it to my daughter as a brooch or a necklace.

>> Well, to me, it still has a lot of artistic value and even with it being separated from its original piece, as one item I would display it like this because the jade, as I said, is really, really pretty and it has value in that regard, too.

It's definitely not anything you'd ever throw away.

I would keep it, and at some point, if you want to restore it, you know, use it as it is as a display piece.

So I think it's really, really cool.

>> Thank you so much.

>> And I'm happy you got it.

A lot of people would, you know, toss it aside.

>> Oh heavens!

>> Yeah, that's awesome.

Coastal Mississippi is a regional convention and visitor's bureau or a destination management organization.

Our charge is to drive the economy through visitation.

We can start over in Hancock County with St Augustine Seminary.

It is going to be celebrating 100 years this year as one of the oldest Catholic seminaries to ordain African-American priests in the country.

There's also The 100 Man Hall, which is a great facility where we have live music and some of those fantastic choirs that come in.

We also have the Biloxi Lighthouse.

It's been around since about the 1850s.

Amazing piece of architecture right in the middle of Highway 90.

It's a lovely spot and you can do tours there.

And there's a interesting little spot in Jackson County called La Pointe-Krebs.

It is actually scientifically dated to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest structure in Mississippi.

Started out in about 1750 with this tabby type of architecture.

It was quite the mixture of items that created a 12 inch thick wall.

And the cypress and posts that were used weren't necessarily for structure.

They were for attaching windows and doors so the facility could stand on its own without those.

And it's still standing today.

You can actually go to that location as a museum.

When you talk about generational investment, that's what we have here on the Coast.

We have families that generationally have stayed here, returned here, summer here.

And with that comes all of those families' collections of mementos, antiques.

And there was always a great love for creation.

So we have a lot of interesting items that I'm sure the antique show is going to have a great time with.

>> Hello John, it's good to see you today.

>> Thank you, Mr. Cain.

>> Appreciate you bringing out your ginger jar.

>> All right, well I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for taking a look at it.

>> What do you know about your piece here?

>> So it's been a part of my childhood and life inside on top of another antique, in my home growing up.

And my mother said it belonged to her mother.

And all she can tell me about it is it's very, very old and that's all I know.

And she passed away about five years ago.

And so I wanted to come to the Showcase and let you guys take a look at it and see if I could find out some more information.

>> It's a beautiful piece.

It's hand painted.

And on the bottom here, you can see that it's it's numbered.

>> Yes.

>> And the style, it's an Oriental style.

It almost looks like hand-painted Nippon from Japan.

But I don't believe it's hand-painted Nippon.

I think it was painted by China painter in this country.

It used to be a fashionable thing for little old ladies to paint China years ago.

And I think one of those artists, who was very good, decided to do a ginger jar.

And that's where this ginger jar came.

They would buy the blank and then they would decorate it and have it fired.

But the style is it's Nippon or Japanese style and a beautiful ginger jar, and of course to form is an Asian style.

The knob here on the top, or the finial has been broken and someone's glued that back.

You're lucky is still there.

But it does have that little distraction.

It's a nice piece.

And, you know, a lot of collectors love pairs, of course you have the single.

If you had a pair, they would probably bring in a little more, but this piece, and as far as that top goes and the damage there, you could send that to a restorer and they could straighten it up, detach it, straighten it up, reattach it.

And then nobody would really ever know that it had been had been damaged.

This piece in today's market at a well-advertised auction, I feel like I should bring somewhere in the $150 to $200 range as it is.

If the top was repaired, it would probably be more and the $300 to $500 range.

>> Interesting.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you.

>> Randy, thank you so much for coming to the MPB Antique Showcase.

Tell us a little bit about what you brought us.

>> Well, this is a painting.

My wife and I are dealers, and we have a friend in Texas that sold this collection, and we just bought the whole collection.

And this was a piece of it.

He bought it in Mexico City in 1969 from the artist.

>> Okay.

So he brought it direct from the artist.

That's always good to see.

Just a little bit about what I note about it.

It appears to be in the original frame, what would have likely been in the 1960's that the painting was made.

You do have on the reverse the actual price for the frame, it looks like $19.95.

And obviously you also see on the bottom right hand, we have the actual signature of the artist.

This artist, however, is not documented currently.

not to say that he's not out there with more works, but he likely was an itinerant artist that painted for tourists or people who visited Mexico at the time.

He may be published or distributed or featured in some other galleries, but just looking at the quality and esthetics, the frame is lovely, serrated all the way across, which is always good.

The 1950's and 1960's that you see.

In addition, you have the felt lining there that mimics the stretcher and the gilt inside.

So it's a quality piece and it's well done and well housed in the frame.

But actually looking at the figure in general, you see it's a Mexican individual that actually was most likely a potter and he is painting what probably creation he made to sell in the general market.

So it's really well done.

Impressionist portraiture that I like to see in this type of styles, especially in the 1950's and 1960's, really.

Actually, just on a funny note, you see the cigarette, which is really well done and is lit that he's enjoying doing that.

So just the quality of the painting in general.

Do you think you know how much it may be worth?

>> We're hoping a couple of thousand dollars is kind of what we're hoping.

>> Sure.

Well, I will tell you, it's not worth that much.

And the only reason is we haven't truly identified the artist itself.

If we were able to find and see where these additional works were on the market, then I may be able to to lend that type of valuation.

But currently, just based on the quality, I would say would be anywhere-- and the size-- to be anywhere from $500 to $750 at an auction.

And again, I think that's because of the unknown, possibly itinerant artist.

It's always good to see the signature because that means there's hope for finding who the actual artist is.

But just on the quality and the size of the painting and the details in that regard, it clearly was a little more talented than your average street artist that makes it for tourism purposes.

So I think it has somewhat of a value and I think hopefully it will be more than you paid.

>> Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

>> Well, we appreciate you bringing that in today.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

Appreciate it, Corey.

>> We're here with Rene from Van Cleve with a beautiful painting of a Dutch canal.

Is that right?

>> Yes.

>> What did you learn about it?

>> Um, it's a very large picture from that artist.

He usually painted smaller ones, and the brush strokes were good and there are some kind of wrinkly curlicue stuff like wrinkles, which he thought was good.

>> Now, who was he?

>> Corey, the most handsome, well-dressed appraiser in there, he and his brother.

>> Oh, yeah, I know Corey.

How did you acquire the painting?

>> Oh, I shop at the thrift store, and I went and I was like, wow, that's not that ugly!

And it was $4.99!

>> Wow.

And you learned that it's worth, what?

>> $3000 to $4000.

>> There you go!

That's why you go to the thrift store.

>> Well, no.

>> Or what?

>> I just love it anyway.

>> Yeah, well, that makes it worth it.

>> Yes, yes.

>> That's awesome.

Well, do you have it hanging in your home?

>> No, I bought it for a rental house, but then the back was coming off.

Bugs probably got to it, so I ripped it all the way off.

And then I saw the writing and I said, it's probably worth money.

>> So take it home!

>> So then y'all came and here it is.

>> Great story.

Did you enjoy your visit?

>> Oh, I did!

And you had food, which is my second favorite thing.

Everybody was wonderful, had a great time, love MPB.

Y'all were great.

>> Thank you, Renee.

>> Good morning.

>> Good morning.

>> So glad to have you here today.

>> Thank you.

>> What a beautiful collection you have.

Tell me a little bit about how you acquired these.

>> I found them at an estate sale.

>> Oh, here in Biloxi?

>> In Biloxi.

>> Oh, wow.

Yes, I do a lot of estate sales.

You can get great, great items there.

>> You can.

>> And tell me what you know about them.

>> I don't know a lot about them.

I took them home.

I paid $2 a plate for them.

I have ten of them.

And I just was using them.

I just liked using them.

And, you know, they felt good.

And then I take pottery and I took it to my teacher and he got real excited about them and said they resemble a Hamada plate So, you know, he said they might be valuable.

It's hard to tell because they're not signed.

But this particular Japanese artist did not sign his work.

So I've just been real curious as to, as to what they are.

>> Yeah.

Well, I think, first of all, I'd like to say they're beautiful.

They are a pottery and they're very lovely.

The glaze on them, to me, is it's really interesting to see how that the colors connect so.

Like on this one, you can see the black and then, you know, you see it up there as well.

I love this one.

I think that's that's my favorite of them.

>> Yeah.

>> I think that they do have an Asian, an Oriental flavor to them.

And even though they're not signed, they're really still quality pieces.

You can tell that.

And they're in really good shape.

I think these are probably... they're not 100 years old by any means.

But I think they've got some age on them, you know, as far as the look of it and the colors that they've been using.

But really and truly, I really, I would think if I were in the market for them right now, I would say, ma'am, I'd like to have those and I'd like to pay you a lot more than $2 for each.

So I think I think really and truly, if they were in one of my estate sales with the quality of them, I would say that we would price these at least at $75 to $100 each.

So you did well, I think.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, what do you have for us today?

>> I have a painting that was kind of in our family since 1960.

It was my great uncle's.

And I remember as a kid growing up seeing these characters and I just want to know more about it.

I looked up the artist online and he has several other of these characters in some of his paintings, so.

>> Yeah, he did this quite often.

Eugenio Zampighi, he painted, it's always like a cottage scene and a family scene.

If you go and look and research him, you can see that he did this more, more than most of the time, really.

Most of his paintings are characters and all there.

And this looks like the original frame.

And you've been very wise in putting a back on it from moving it around.

>> We didn't do it.

Somebody else had that done.

>> So not to puncture it in any way.

But it looks like, you know, the original frame, and I don't see any damage on it and the size of it is really great.

I found a couple that are very comprable to it in size and all and I would estimate this one, at auction, to bring between $8,000 and $10,000.

And do you know how much he paid for it?

>> No, he had an appraisal in the 1960's, but I could not find that.

He was an estate attorney, so he did a lot of estates and I'm sure he traded for this or did somebody's estate.

But how did they get it?

I don't know.

I would like to know the history.

If somebody from Italy came over or they bought it in the USA.

>> Well, a lot of this type of art came, you know, back in the 1950's and 1960's.

The buyers would go to Europe and buy big container loads of, you know, although he has sold-- there are a few things that he sold that got into the $20,000 range, but most of them were in the $8,000 to $10,000, $12,000.

And this one-- >> That's still amazing.

>> Yeah.

>> And you think ...

I mean....

This is a painting by him?

>> It is.

It is.

It is for sure.

It is him.

So what do you plan to do with it?

>> Well, it has sentimental value.

So unless I get hard broken down, and need money, I'll probably keep it.

>> Well, I would because I think the art world is starting to-- more and more people are investing in art.

>> So I can be an art collector now.

>> Yeah, you can.

You've already got a good start.

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