OTISFIELD -Ethel Blow held up two peculiar objects that looked like wavy glass cups attached to a pewter donkey and elephant. She looked hopeful. Ian Stewart, a retired art history professor, leaned closer.
“The pattern on the glass is typical of the 1880s and 1890s. And they are obviously party symbols,” he said. Other than that, their use eluded him, he admitted.
“They were my grandmother’s. They sat on her whatnot shelf,” Blow, of Otisfield, said of the oddities that have lost their function and name over the years, and are truly just that, whatnots.
Blow and many others showed up at the Otisfield Community Hall on Thursday night with china as thin as butterfly wings, cracked ceramic pots, dented aluminum tea kettles and other curios to have Stewart assess them. Stewart, who lives in Newburyport, Mass., taught at Cornell University and worked for the Minnesota Historical Society. According to him, many old things, while dainty or pretty or sometimes just strange, have only as much value as the sentiment or story attached to them.
The Otisfield Historical Society invited Stewart, who has detective-like powers in identifying the period and provenance of most antiques, to meet with guests and turn their plates and vases up to the light and flip them over to determine if they were worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
This dream, while an entertaining and almost universally-shared fantasy, can be quickly deflated.
Stewart, during the talk he gave to the crowd, said Antiques Roadshow, the popular Public Broadcasting Service program that has experts evaluating antiques, has given many viewers false hope.
After watching, Stewart said, “Suddenly you begin to think Grandma’s light in the back bedroom looks a lot like the one just appraised for $15,000.”
While it is possible that an expensive antique is sitting uncelebrated in someone’s attic, Stewart said the odds of this happening are about as great as winning the lottery.
Yet, despite an antique having little monetary value, many of them come with an insight into the past or attached to family lore, which may or may not be true. Taking a piece to an authority can lead to dashed hopes and a need to recreate family history.
“These stories are very powerful, and people are reluctant to give them up,” Stewart said.
He recommended that those who can stand learning that great-grandma wasn’t given precious Chinese ceramics from a sea captain in Portland use auction houses for accurate evaluations. He also said e-Bay, the online auction site, is a good way to sell antiques for a price that reflects their worth.
Doris Ham of Otisfield came to the lecture with a red glass vase and a print of Venice her father brought back from Europe after fighting in World War II. “I picked this up for $4 at the Willows, the flea market. I picked it up because I liked it,” she said.
Stewart came over, and with his piercing blue eyes, quickly identified it. It was a pressed glass piece from the early 20th century. And then the verdict. “It’s not terribly valuable,” he said. “You can’t go out tomorrow and buy a fancy meal.”
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