Dr. Lori with man wearing antique necklace

At my antiques appraisal events, audience members always enjoy when I recount the stories of people and their antiques from my other events around the world. Here are three of many favorite recollections from my appraisal shows. Maybe you were in the audience? I’ll share more interesting stories in future posts.

1. Native American Necklace

Native American necklace

I met a waiter in Seattle, WA who brought a 3,000 dollar Native American necklace to my appraisal event that he got as a tip. He got it for serving a table of 12 diners and thought he got stiffed on his tip when he realized they left a velvet bag with the necklace inside of it on the table. That was his tip. That’s some tip! Maybe they have a valuable Native American basket for their next tip.

2. Ugly Vase

Three sisters attended one of my shows in New Jersey with each bringing an item for me to appraise. After their grandmother’s passing, each sister was allowed to pick an item they wanted from her home. The picking order was from oldest sister to youngest, so that is the order in which I appraised their items. The first two sisters had items worth a few hundred dollars, not bad. The youngest sister complained that she wanted was what her older two sisters had picked. Not liking her remaining choices, she picked grandmother’s ugly vase. As the youngest sister in my family who never got to pick first, I was happy to appraise the ugly vase at 10,000 dollars. Needless to say, the two older sisters were not happy. This is one reason for the need for appraisals. Also, read my article about valuable Van Briggle vases and how to identify them.

3. Cell Phone

A 7 year old girl placed a cell phone on my table full of items to be appraised at my event in St. Louis, Missouri. I figured she was bringing the cell phone up to the front of the auditorium since it had a picture of an antique on it for her mother or grandmother. Boy, was I wrong. She wanted me to appraise her cell phone. She told me that her mom bought her one and her sister one and she wanted to find out who her mom loved more. I told her that both she and her sister had a better cell phone than I had!

Got a great story from one of my antique appraisal events? Please share it with everyone on my social media outlets. I’d love to hear it. Subscribe to my blog, I’ve got more stories and values to share. Don’t forget to share these stories with your family and friends.