The treasures of Tucson's attics are on display. Items appraised during the hour (the first of three in Tucson) include some that are unusually valuable, including a 1790s sideboard and a Western landscape by Edgar Payne. Then there's a 150-year-old Navajo weaved blanket. Appraiser Donald Ellis calls it “a national treasure.” Taped in June 2001 at the City of Tucson Convention Center. Host: Dan Elias. Air Date : 21st-Jan-2002  Read More

Items appraised in Tucson (Part 2 of three) include 18th-century leather fire buckets and an art-deco bronze sculpture. Also: host Dan Elias visits an 18th-century mission church, San Xavier del Bac, which is known as “the white dove of the desert.” Air Date : 28th-Jan-2002  Read More

A three-program stop in Tucson concludes. Appraised: an 1890s silver service; two season passes for the 19th-century baseball team the Cincinnati Red Stockings; and a 19th-century Persion rug. Also: host Dan Elias visits a Tucson resort hotel founded in 1930 by Arizona's first congresswoman, Isabella Greenway. Air Date : 4th-Feb-2002  Read More

The first of three shows taped in New York City. Items shown include a Winslow Homer etching, a collection of Ramones memorabilia, a 1765 table and a futuristic toy car. Also: host Dan Elias visits the Museum of the City of New York, where items on display range from a gown worn to George Washington's Inaugural Ball to a Playbill for “Guys and Dolls.” Air Date : 11th-Feb-2002  Read More

Items appraised in New York City (Part 2 of three) include a painting by Jesse Arms Botke; an 18th-century silver cream jug by Boston silversmith Jacob Hurd; and a collection of vintage luggage stickers. Also: host Dan Elias visits Manhattan's Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Air Date : 18th-Feb-2002  Read More

Items appraised as a three-week stint in New York City concludes include a signed copy of James Joyce's “Ulysses,” illustrated by Henri Matisse; an 1880s weathervane shaped like a codfish; and a collection of turn-of-the-20th-century poster art. Also: host Dan Elias visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Air Date : 25th-Feb-2002  Read More

Items appraised in San Diego (Part 1 of three) range from an 8th-century Chinese earthenware horse to a Tom Mix lariat and a sarong worn by Dorothy Lamour. Then, it's Christmas in July for the owner of a Santa sleigh that was made in the 1920s or '30s. He paid $70 for it; now it's worth $3000-$4000. Also: host Dan Elias leads a tour of San Diego's Balboa Park and visits the Marston House, an arts and crafts style mansion. Air Date : 22nd-Apr-2002  Read More

Items appraised in San Diego (Part 2 of three) include a yellow-diamond Tiffany pendant, a pair of 18th-century candlesticks and sheet music of jazz pianist James P. Johnson. Also: host Dan Elias visits the Hotel Del Coronado, a vintage-1890 resort located across Mission Bay from San Diego. Air Date : 29th-Apr-2002  Read More

Conclusion. Items appraised in San Deigo include an ivory-and-diamond ring with a cameo of Britain's King Charles I; an 18th-century chest; and a Dr. Seuss “kangaroo bird” sculpture. Also: host Dan Elias visits the San de Alcala Mission church, which was founded in 1769 by Junipero Serra, the father of California missions. Air Date : 6th-May-2002  Read More

Part 1 of three in Indianapolis: a 19th-century French nude bronze; a combination pipe and tomahawk; a collection of Civil War bullets. There's also a picture N.C. Wyeth painted for a 1913 issue of Harper's magazine. The painting's worth: $250,000. Also: host Dan Elias recalls the history of the Indianapolis 500 during a visit to the Motor Speedway Museum, and admires Persian tribal weavings at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Air Date : 13th-May-2002  Read More

Evaluated in Indianapolis (Part 2 of three): a 1920s Little Orphan Annie Halloween costume and an Empire-style Italian marble-top table. Also: host Dan Elias visits the Indianapolis Chidren's Museum, which covers 13 acres and bills itself as the world's largest. Air Date : 20th-May-2002  Read More

Appraised in Indianapolis (conclusion): a porcelain bowl commissioned by Catherine the Great, and sci-fi illustrations by Frank R. Paul (1884-1963) valued at up to $40,000. Also: host Dan Elias visits Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetary, the final resting place of John Dillinger, poet James Whitcomb Riley and President Benjamin Harrison. Air Date : 27th-May-2002  Read More

Items appraised at Miami's Coconut Grove Convention Center (Part 1 of three) include a Federal period gaming table bought for $300; an Art Deco pendant brooch; and an autographed team photo of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics that includes four Hall of Famers. Also autographed are two Elvis Presley recordings made for Sun Records. Also: host Dan Elias visits the 1891 home of Miami-area pioneer Ralph Monroe. Air Date : 21st-Oct-2002  Read More

Items appraised in Miami (Part 2 of three) include a Persian rug, a Tiffany lamp and collections of Norman Rockwell posters and Beatles 45-rpm records (the sleeves are worth more than the records). Then there are Chinese vases, purportedly from the 6th to 9th centuries, and a gold “lifetime pass” to American League baseball games issued to George M. Cohan in the 1910s. Says appraiser Simeon Lipman: “It's phenomenal.” Also: host Dan Elias visits Vizcaya, farm-machine magnate James Deering's early 20th-century Biscayne Bay mansion. “It looks,” exclaims Elias, “as if a royal family had lived there for hundreds of years.” Air Date : 28th-Oct-2002  Read More

Conclusion. Appraised in Miami: a 1950s Cuban alligator handbag (with an alligator on top); an 18th-century French “orbit clock”; a bracelet inscribed by Martin Van Buren; and an early-20th-century chair that appraiser Leigh Keno calls “rococo revival on steroids.” Also: host Dan Elias offers a thumbnail history of Miami (“the billion-dollar sandbar”); and admires the displays of industrial-design objects from the 1930s at Florida International University's Wolfsonian Museum. Air Date : 4th-Nov-2002  Read More

Part 1 (of three). Items appraised in New Orleans range from a 1654 Rembrandt etching to an early 20th-century guidebook to New Orleans' red-light district, Storyville. And there's a pair of 1920s Lalique glass figures, which put a smile on their owner's face. Their value? “Much higher than I would have thought,” he says. “More in line with what I would like.” Also: host Dan Elias offers a thumbnail Mardi Gras history at the Louisiana State Museum's Presbytere and surveys the African-art collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Air Date : 11th-Nov-2002  Read More

Items appraised in New Orleans (Part 2 of three) include a Howdy Doody doll, a 1751 English silver tankard and a book about the U.S. Constitution from Jefferson Davis's library. Then there's a 1935 art-deco promotional poster for the ocean liner Normandie that appraiser Nicholas Lowry calls “part of the visual vernacular,” and a rotating oyster plate from 1857 that appraiser David Lackey calls “the holy grail of oyster plates.” Also: host Dan Elias visits restored New Orleans homes and surveys the Newcomb-pottery collection at the Lousiana Museum. Air Date : 18th-Nov-2002  Read More

Conclusion. Items appraised in New Orleans include an 1858 map of the Mississippi River, Mardi Gras memorabilia (including a Krewe of Rex coin from 1862) and a collection of Civil War-era copies of the Philadelphia Inquirer, including the papers from the day after the Gettysburg Address and the Lincoln assassination. Also: promotional materials for the 1934 movie “It Happened One Night.” Air Date : 25th-Nov-2002  Read More