"Antiques Roadshow" Mistakenly Values High School Art Project at $50,000
May 10, 2016 12:34 PM Subscribe
In the mid-1970s, Betsy Soule, an Oregonian high school student, sculpted a trippy jug out of clay. In 2015, it was mistaken for a 19th century "grotesque face jug." "It’s bizarre and wonderful," says the appraiser, Stephen L Fletcher. "You even see a little bit of, like, Pablo Picasso going on here. It’s a little difficult to identify precisely when this was made, but I think it’s probably late 19th or early 20th century."
I'm pretty sure that's a Behelit
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:41 PM on May 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:41 PM on May 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
The folk art table must be the most challenging for the appraisers. There is almost by definition no provenance, documentation, or equivalent comparisons to look at. I feel for them.
posted by Think_Long at 12:47 PM on May 10, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 12:47 PM on May 10, 2016 [15 favorites]
If Beyonce made it in high school it'd be worth five million. Provided she died suddenly.
I remember they valued Jane Austen's cup-and-ball toy for some five-figure number. I must admit I did begin to wonder if I could get by without my car.
I love the show. Sometimes people solemnly put a piece of the One True Cross before the experts, who point out it's plastic and says 'made in china' on the bottom. Other times people find out that stubborn rock they dug out of the garden is a 3rd century Roman bust.
posted by adept256 at 12:53 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
I remember they valued Jane Austen's cup-and-ball toy for some five-figure number. I must admit I did begin to wonder if I could get by without my car.
I love the show. Sometimes people solemnly put a piece of the One True Cross before the experts, who point out it's plastic and says 'made in china' on the bottom. Other times people find out that stubborn rock they dug out of the garden is a 3rd century Roman bust.
posted by adept256 at 12:53 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
What is appraising, anyway? You can make your best judgment regarding an item's provenance (and in this case Fletcher clearly screwed up), but to declare a monetary value is to make a prediction of the future based on what you think someone else might pay for it. It's as exact a science as political punditry.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:56 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:56 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Your question What is appraising, anyway? is very closely followed by make a prediction ... on what you think someone else might pay for it so good job, you're a quick learner.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:02 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:02 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
I lost my faith earlier this year, when a Russian distaff was firmly and confidently described as part of a Scandinavian tape loom and assigned a value of $1500-$2500. Kinda wish at least the value had been correct, as my own distaff collection would have just made me a lot fecking richer.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 1:08 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 1:08 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
The actual history of grotesque face jugs is very interesting, and I'm sorry to see that they're getting attention as an "my kid could make that" sort of thing. I don't want to reduce them to one sentence, but as folk art, they represent the expressions and legacies of the African-Americans who were originally brought to this country as slaves, and in some ways they're among the first uniquely American art forms. The stories they tell are absolutely worth serious respect and attention, and I'm sorry to see them coming up in this light.
posted by teponaztli at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2016 [32 favorites]
posted by teponaztli at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2016 [32 favorites]
I found a blogpost about Jane's toys on the show. The video doesn't work for me but I recall the provenance was rock solid.
posted by adept256 at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2016
posted by adept256 at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2016
Appraising is really two separate skills that are both susceptible to flukes and errors, but also have a relatively standardized approach that means they're not totally talking out of their asses. The first skill is inductive reasoning, using specific details to extrapolate meaning (or identification) for the whole. When inductive reasoning is applied, it is generally trustworthy, but it can be fooled given imperfect (or falsifiable) parameters. There is no such thing as error-proof inductive logic.
The other skill is predicting the market, which I think they are actually quite good at doing, provided the appraiser's identification is accurate. If you put X table from Y period with Z level of provenance in this specific market, it will net $XYZ.000 +- the error.
posted by Think_Long at 1:18 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
The other skill is predicting the market, which I think they are actually quite good at doing, provided the appraiser's identification is accurate. If you put X table from Y period with Z level of provenance in this specific market, it will net $XYZ.000 +- the error.
posted by Think_Long at 1:18 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
To be fair, that's a pretty awesome(ly weird) jug.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:23 PM on May 10, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:23 PM on May 10, 2016 [14 favorites]
The actual history of grotesque face jugs is very interesting, and I'm sorry to see that they're getting attention as an "my kid could make that" sort of thing.
It seems like the humor here comes from the appraiser's mistake, not the jug or the history of grotesque face jugs, which sounds really interesting.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 1:25 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
It seems like the humor here comes from the appraiser's mistake, not the jug or the history of grotesque face jugs, which sounds really interesting.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 1:25 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
The appraiser should buy it for $50k to avoid egg on his face.
posted by Monochrome at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Monochrome at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
I guess this kind of thing is hard to avoid when the folk art of the dispossessed becomes a positional good for a caste that has already devoured all suitable art with verified provenance in their desire for stuff that is both a signal of their refinement and a way to store their wealth.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:54 PM on May 10, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:54 PM on May 10, 2016 [17 favorites]
It's probably worth noting that even in the corrected version, Antiques Road Show appraises this at $3,000 - $5,000. Which is – a step down from $30,000 - $50,000, but still a fair profit for a guy who bought it for $300.
Also, I think it's a pretty awesome piece, no matter who made it.
posted by koeselitz at 1:57 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Also, I think it's a pretty awesome piece, no matter who made it.
posted by koeselitz at 1:57 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Pizza 73, a western Canadian pizza chain did a spot on commercial following the Antique Roadshow format, worth the click.
posted by furtive at 1:59 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by furtive at 1:59 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
A happier Antiques Roadshow story: Woman buys table for $25 at curbside sale, has it appraised at $200,000 - 300,000; table sells at auction for nearly $500,000.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:15 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:15 PM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
a caste that has already devoured all suitable art with verified provenance in their desire for stuff that is both a signal of their refinement and a way to store their wealth.
Nah, they're always making more. That's the fun of modern visual art! It's purely wealth signifier, totally unmoored from any other recognizable standards. You can take comfort in knowing that when the revolution comes, Steve Cohen won't even be able to extract food value from the shark.
posted by praemunire at 2:18 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Nah, they're always making more. That's the fun of modern visual art! It's purely wealth signifier, totally unmoored from any other recognizable standards. You can take comfort in knowing that when the revolution comes, Steve Cohen won't even be able to extract food value from the shark.
posted by praemunire at 2:18 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
What is appraising, anyway? You can make your best judgment regarding an item's provenance (and in this case Fletcher clearly screwed up), but to declare a monetary value is to make a prediction of the future based on what you think someone else might pay for it. It's as exact a science as political punditry.
I've been watching this a lot lately (family funeral). About 90% of what they see was produced by workshops in mass or in series with some fairly specific hallmarks. So they can probably hit up a search engine to find out how many similar items from the same workshop have sold over the last decade and for how much. Usually the appraisal goes something like this:
"Similar cabinets have sold for $2,000 - 2,500 at auction. But you also have a collection of the original medicine bottles which could add as much as $200-300 to the value. However, market conditions change and this type of item was more/less valuable five years ago."
For some items, there's the equivalent of a Kelly Blue Book out there for people in the trade that provides approximate prices based on reported pricing information. If it's an unusual item, they'll say something like, "Full-sized Gogol-Oppenheimer desks auctioned at $X to $Y, but this is the smaller model which might be more more or less valuable depending on the market."
People in different markets do this all the time in pricing various goods. And an appraisal is a starting point for discussion, not a promise of financial return.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:23 PM on May 10, 2016
I've been watching this a lot lately (family funeral). About 90% of what they see was produced by workshops in mass or in series with some fairly specific hallmarks. So they can probably hit up a search engine to find out how many similar items from the same workshop have sold over the last decade and for how much. Usually the appraisal goes something like this:
"Similar cabinets have sold for $2,000 - 2,500 at auction. But you also have a collection of the original medicine bottles which could add as much as $200-300 to the value. However, market conditions change and this type of item was more/less valuable five years ago."
For some items, there's the equivalent of a Kelly Blue Book out there for people in the trade that provides approximate prices based on reported pricing information. If it's an unusual item, they'll say something like, "Full-sized Gogol-Oppenheimer desks auctioned at $X to $Y, but this is the smaller model which might be more more or less valuable depending on the market."
People in different markets do this all the time in pricing various goods. And an appraisal is a starting point for discussion, not a promise of financial return.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:23 PM on May 10, 2016
My late mother was obsessed with these sort of fantastical finds but never wanted to invest much money in the process. So most of what she amassed wasn't worth much. There were a couple of older pieces of furniture and a silver tea set, all of which went to my brother because he has children to pass it on to and I don't. Didn't bother me but it aggravated my wife a little.
A couple months ago my aunt moved into assisted living and was shedding a fair amount of her acquisitions, doled out to all the nieces and nephews. My brother got an old table, bought in the first half of the twentieth century. Fine. Then, while moving more of her stuff, my aunt said "well being you like beer, you can have this set." It's a tall crystal pitcher with a dozen pilsner glasses, all with heavy engraving. She was told at the time it was from the late nineteenth century. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
posted by Ber at 2:48 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
A couple months ago my aunt moved into assisted living and was shedding a fair amount of her acquisitions, doled out to all the nieces and nephews. My brother got an old table, bought in the first half of the twentieth century. Fine. Then, while moving more of her stuff, my aunt said "well being you like beer, you can have this set." It's a tall crystal pitcher with a dozen pilsner glasses, all with heavy engraving. She was told at the time it was from the late nineteenth century. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
posted by Ber at 2:48 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Ber, you can't just leave me hanging like that! Are your pitcher and glasses worth a cool half a mill or what?
posted by bologna on wry at 2:53 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by bologna on wry at 2:53 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
Oh god no, they've never been appraised. I'm sure they're worth something but nowhere near the insanity of some of the stuff seen on AR. I just enjoy the fact that I've got something that the rest of my family didn't get their greedy mitts. If AR ever comes to Bismarck again I'll hustle the set down there to get their opinion.
posted by Ber at 4:06 PM on May 10, 2016
posted by Ber at 4:06 PM on May 10, 2016
I like the owner's reaction to the actual provenance:
The appraisal by the show’s expert was a surprise, but not all good news — upon learning its possible value, he packed it inside multiple boxes and stashed it behind his couch to protect it from damage.posted by Shmuel510 at 4:40 PM on May 10, 2016 [24 favorites]
“I hated it when it was $30,000 to $50,000, because who wants $30,000 to $50,000 lying around their house?” he said. “Now, it’s on my table, and I love it.”
To be fair, that's a pretty awesome(ly weird) jug.
Yeah I really like it. I'm not sure I'd have it in my house but I'd certainly say "Oh, cool!" if I saw one in somebody else's.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:46 PM on May 10, 2016
Yeah I really like it. I'm not sure I'd have it in my house but I'd certainly say "Oh, cool!" if I saw one in somebody else's.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:46 PM on May 10, 2016
FYI CBC's As It Happens interviewed the artist behind the jar here.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 8:32 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Miss T.Horn at 8:32 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
They get, like, 3,000,000 appraisals done reasonably correctly and teach people a certain amount of decorative arts history, and this is what we'll remember.
teponatzli inspired me to look up real face jugs and I can see how this happened. Interesting stuff.
posted by Miko at 9:52 PM on May 10, 2016
teponatzli inspired me to look up real face jugs and I can see how this happened. Interesting stuff.
posted by Miko at 9:52 PM on May 10, 2016
And, like, it is a grotesque face jug, just not an old one.
posted by Miko at 9:54 PM on May 10, 2016
posted by Miko at 9:54 PM on May 10, 2016
I call shenanigans. The AR jug is much better than anything in the photo the one-time artist provided.
posted by Scram at 11:31 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Scram at 11:31 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's really not that different from the British one. Lots of regional accents, just different ones.
posted by Miko at 7:20 AM on May 11, 2016
posted by Miko at 7:20 AM on May 11, 2016
In the absence of actually seeing this purported Antiques Roadshow USA, I'd like to imagine it's roughly similar to something like Storage Wars. :)
As a Storage Wars enthusiast, I've described it multiple times as "Antiques Roadshow plus gambling". The more I think about it, I should probably also add "and with over-the-top characters instead of gently surprised retirees".
posted by Copronymus at 10:10 AM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
As a Storage Wars enthusiast, I've described it multiple times as "Antiques Roadshow plus gambling". The more I think about it, I should probably also add "and with over-the-top characters instead of gently surprised retirees".
posted by Copronymus at 10:10 AM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
It seems like the humor here comes from the appraiser's mistake, not the jug or the history of grotesque face jugs, which sounds really interesting.
Oh yeah, I don't mean here, but I've seen a lot of comments across the internet that were all "how could anyone think something like that was worth so much money!"
posted by teponaztli at 10:37 AM on May 11, 2016
Oh yeah, I don't mean here, but I've seen a lot of comments across the internet that were all "how could anyone think something like that was worth so much money!"
posted by teponaztli at 10:37 AM on May 11, 2016
It seems like the humor here comes from the appraiser's mistake, not the jug or the history of grotesque face jugs, which sounds really interesting.
Oh yeah, I don't mean here, but I've seen a lot of comments across the internet that were all "how could anyone think something like that was worth so much money!"
Read the very first comment in the thread.
posted by nzero at 1:09 PM on May 11, 2016
Oh yeah, I don't mean here, but I've seen a lot of comments across the internet that were all "how could anyone think something like that was worth so much money!"
Read the very first comment in the thread.
posted by nzero at 1:09 PM on May 11, 2016
Anyone who likes Antiques Roadshow should check out Helcomb County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal, where appraiser David Parker solves some interesting puzzles, although he too has made some mistakes.
posted by koeselitz at 1:13 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by koeselitz at 1:13 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Read the very first comment in the thread."
That was me, and let me clarify: anytime there is a discussion modern, outsider or folk art someone always pipes up with "My kid could draw that", see also the movie of the same name. I thought it was humorous that this is the one case where that is a valid, truthful comment: someone's (highschool) kid did make this.
posted by 445supermag at 1:19 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
That was me, and let me clarify: anytime there is a discussion modern, outsider or folk art someone always pipes up with "My kid could draw that", see also the movie of the same name. I thought it was humorous that this is the one case where that is a valid, truthful comment: someone's (highschool) kid did make this.
posted by 445supermag at 1:19 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's really not that different from the British one. Lots of regional accents, just different ones.
Also, there's a drinking game.
posted by Shmuel510 at 4:09 PM on May 11, 2016
Also, there's a drinking game.
posted by Shmuel510 at 4:09 PM on May 11, 2016
That was me, and let me clarify: anytime there is a discussion modern, outsider or folk art someone always pipes up with "My kid could draw that", see also the movie of the same name. I thought it was humorous that this is the one case where that is a valid, truthful comment: someone's (highschool) kid did make this.
Sorry, I saw your comment and I got what you meant by it. I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you. But the rest of the internet (as in Reddit) has been having fun with the "look at how dumb this is" angle, and folk art tends to get that a lot.
posted by teponaztli at 7:30 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I saw your comment and I got what you meant by it. I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you. But the rest of the internet (as in Reddit) has been having fun with the "look at how dumb this is" angle, and folk art tends to get that a lot.
posted by teponaztli at 7:30 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by 445supermag at 12:38 PM on May 10, 2016 [13 favorites]