APPRAISER: I'm Arlie Sulka and I have been an
appraiser for glass at ANTIQUES ROADSHOW since 1998. The opening venue of
1999, I had this amazing find in Tampa, Florida. It was 2:45 p.m. in the afternoon, and I hadn't eaten any lunch and I was feeling
pretty laggy and I actually looked down in my lap and then I looked up and on
the table was the lamp base of a very important Tiffany Studios Rose Helmet
lamp. I didn't need to eat anything after I saw that. GUEST: My mother found this in the late '60s. There was a little neighborhood newspaper flyer, and she read that there was a glass lamp for sale. And my mother saw it, knew what it was. GUEST: And the woman, she also knew what it was. It had belonged to her grandfather. And she had moved into a very small studio apartment, and it was just too large. And my mother asked her, "Well, what would you like for it?" And, uh... GUEST:She said $125-- APPRAISER: And even in 1967, that was a very reasonable price for the lamp, because if that lamp had been in a retail shop at that time, easily it would've sold for $1,500 APPRAISER: You do know that it was made by the Tiffany Studios, which was the firm that was owned and operated by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who was the son of the founder of Tiffany and Company. This probably dates from, I would say, the year 1905. The shade is called the "Rose Helmet Shade." The helmet, of course, refers to the shape looking like a helmet. It rests on this absolutely magnificent example of a Tiffany base. It has a wonderful Art Nouveau quality to it, and it's called the "Arc and Leaf." Over the years, the bases and the shades can get separated, and what's very interesting about this base is that I believe that this has stayed together all these years. If you notice under the shade, this is gold leading and the gold leading matches the gold on the base. And I have to say that the base is really unusual. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen this base, it's so unusual. This is a situation where the base is almost as great as the shade. It was very exciting to see this particular lamp. The base was almost as value as the shade, it was a very rare base, I hadn't seen very many of them. At the time that the lamp was being made, a gold
finish you actually paid an extra 25% on top of the lamp, because they were gold
plating the lamp, so I knew that nobody would go to that kind of trouble to make
a reproduction. GUEST: The woman who was selling it, because she did know it was a Tiffany, she had taken it in to two dealers, APPRAISER: Mm-hm. GUEST: in her area, APPRAISER: Right. GUEST: ...and the one dealer looked at it and she said, "It's not a Tiffany. It's the wrong finish on the base." APPRAISER: Okay. GUEST: And so she was turned around by two different dealers. APPRAISER: Okay, well, that's okay. This is called the "etched doré finish." It's as right as rain. It's just... everything is beautiful about this lamp. So, now let me just give you the good news: this lamp is worth between $80,000 and $125,000. GUESTS: (laughing and sobbing) APPRAISER: Mom had a good eye. GUESTS: (laughs) APPRAISER: Congratulations. GUESTS: (laughing and sobbing) (light applause) APPRAISER: I have to give you guys a hug. GUESTS: (sobbing) APPRAISER: Isn't it great to get news... Oh, you're so cute! That’s great! Wow... I was living on adrenaline on this one. I was really excited and doing somersaults and cartwheels inside, so I wasn't too nervous about delivering the
news because it was good news. Today the retail value of the Rose Helmet lamp
would be $250,000 to $350,000. I had to wait 20 years for my next big hit. I hope that won't happen again, but I'm willing to wait if I have to.
