Wow i dont know if tts anywhere near where you what you paid for it. Thats quite a bit higher. Okay, good. The last one that sold locally sold for 1,500. So if it were in better condition, and didnt have some of the marks, i think wed actually be looking at something more along the lines of 2,200, 2,500. So it has a lot of things going for it. Not the least of which is the fact that its a nice ship, and its local. Continue to enjoy this. Hang it in a place of prominence. Thank you for coming to chesapeake collectibles today. Can you tell me a little bit about what brought you here. Well, i have this collection of 452 different steamship line coffee cups. You are coffee drinker of the extreme. Well, with 50 years of taking ships up and down the bay, they brought me coffee on the bridge. And i noticed all the logos were on the cups and i became fascinated with them. So i asked skippers on the ships, or the mates, could i have a cup to take home . And they all said, yes. You drank at least 452 cups of coffee in your lifetime. Maybe a few more than that. Thousands of them. You were a pilot on the chesapeake bay. Thats true, from cape henry, virginia to baltimore. We would board the ships at cape henry and i would navigate the vessels all the way up the bay into baltimore. Now, these are not passenger liners, these are more of the commercial ships that would be transporting cargo and things of that nature. But i do have a couple of cups from the passenger vessels because we piloted not only merchant ships, but naval vessels. I have a few cups from naval, regular submarines during the war. They came and went into annapolis. They were the smaller diesel subs in those days. Wow now, by virtue of interacting with the crews of these ships, youve really not spent any money to acquire the collection. Not a dime. Not a dime. Those are the best kind of collections, arent they . Lets talk a little about the array that we have here, which is really a modest sampling of what you have. And we see in the photographs some of the larger bits of the collection. When a ship was built and christened, it was christened with a set of china with the emblem of the ship or the line that was the ownership. And thats what we have here. A lot are a variety of mainly iron stone, theres a little bit of porcelain, but it was mainly iron sne because it would wear better in difficult conditions. But what we see are a host of really international representations. Every country in the world had even switzerland had a steamship. A landlocked country and they still had a good ship to come up with. Thats right. I had several swiss ships. I dont know in all the time that ive been in this business that ive ever seen a collection like this. We see within our auctions one, two, three pieces. Down in southern virginia, we also saw a lot of the ss United States iron stoneware because thats where that ship resided for so many years. Its different to value a collection of over 400 pieces in exactly what the collection in itself is worth. I mean, it also has an emotional value to you and your family that im not sure would ever equal the market value. But when we see good pieces, and youve got some wonderful examples, and one of the important elements of value is condition, the condition on these is wonderful. So often we have pieces that come in, theyll have a chip or theyve lost a handle. Even so, those pieces will do 25, 30 per piece. Real good pieces, depending again on the line, you know, if its a white star line, q r line, those tend to carry some of the premiums. But equally from what youve described, a submarine, if you had a submarine piece, i think that could be a very interesting piece to a collector. It would not be unusual, quite candidly, for i think that the average price, if they were being auctioned now im not proposing that, but somewhere between 60 and a 100 per piece. Per cup . 60 to 100 per piece. Is that right . Yeah. Oh my but im not going to do the math here on the air because all of my math teachers will be embarrassed for me. But i think you could be in that 30,000 to 40,000 range for the collection. Oh my and its virtually irreplaceable. You could not go out and redo this today. Weve got everything from small espresso cups all the way up to the, you know, the thats gonna keep me awake for a couple of hours mug. But what i find fascinating is the story of how you acquired them because you were right there skippering all these boats. Thats right. And so little is paid in the attention of what the harbor pilots do for transporting cargo traffic up the chesapeake bay. And its really, thats a big part of marylands history, has been it as a major seaport on the eastern seaboard. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely fabulous. Thank you, sir. The expression old money has a certain meaning in various social circles. But when it comes to chesapeake collectibles , it takes on a whole new definition. Mpts john davis discovered a collector of Maryland National currency thats both beautiful and a History Lesson tucked in a wallet. Money makes the world go around, the world go around the world go around money makes the world go around it makes the world go round money, money, money, money, money john money is a subject that piques everyones interest but few of us are experts in money. But im here with mark hotz who is bonified expert in money, but more specifically, paper currency. Mark, what are we looking at . These are some of the most unusual bills ive ever seen. Mark well, thank you. These are Maryland National bank notes, a series of currency that was issued between 1863 and 1935 by National Banks around the country as a way of getting money into circulation. John why did the federal government allow the banks to actually issue their own currency. Mark when the civil war started, the government needed to sell bonds to pay for all the weapons, and they couldnt find enough people to buy bonds, so they simply made it available for people to start up National Banks, people bought bonds, and then they were allowed to issue currency up to 90 of the value of the bonds that they bought. John a lot of these particular bank notes have a lot of local interest. Point out some of the details that people would be familiar with. Mark heres one. It was issued by the first National Bank of baltimore. This is from the first series of National Currency issued. And this note was issued around 1870 or so. And its signed, here at the bottom, by thomas swann, who was the president of this bank, but had been the mayor of baltimore before the civil war and was governor of maryland from 1865 to 1869. John theres an enoch pratt in here somewhere, isnt there . Mark yeah, right here. This is a 5 bill that was issued in the series of 1882, note that has the portrait of president garfield, who had just been assassinated the year before. Enoch pratt, one of the biggest benefactors of baltimore and also of its Library System thats named for him, was the president of the farmers and planters National Bank of baltimore, and here is his signature as presint. This was the size of all u. S. Currency issued prior to 1929. They were all this big size notes. John this is where we get the term folding money . Mark folding money. Also we used to refer to them as horse blankets. Its what we used to refer to them back then. And you could see notes like these. This is from towson. This is from cockeysville, which are local, but there would be notes from all over the country; minnesota, oklahoma, california, that look exactly the same as this but just have different town names and bank names on them. John some of these bills have incredibly ornate engravings, art work. Where did these engravings come from and do they exist as art in real life. Mark okay, on the very first series of notes, this series we call the first charter series, or issue of 1863, all the notes have these elaborate paintings on the back; the landing of columbus, de soto discovering the mississippi, and these were all designed from large mural paintings that you can find in the rotunda of the capitol in washington. But these were only used on the very first series and were never used on notes after the 1880s. John so this is all still legal tender . Mark all legal tender. Everything the federal government has issued since 1861 still retains its legal tender status. However, all of these notes have a premium value to collectors and you wouldnt want to actually want to spend them. Plus, i cant imagine if you took a large note into any store that anybody would be willing to accept it. Theyd all think it was counterfeit. John so a five dollar bill from this period could be worth as little and as much as what . Mark a note from a big city, from new york or philadelphia, might be worth as little as 25, 30, 40. Notes from really rare towns, or territories, or places that are highly collected and very few notes available, could be worth upwards of tens of thousands of dollars. John mark, they say its only money, but to me this is a very special array of currency and thank you very much for bringing it to us and helping us share in your experience. Thank you for coming in. Tell us what youve brought in today. Well, this is a swagger stick that my father obtained during world war ii on a liberty ship that he was commander of the naval armed guard. It was coming back from north africa with 1,001 prisoners of war and i presume that the german artisan made this for my father for a pack of cigarettes or some such thing. It was made from this shell, or a shell similar to this, with a 50caliber machine gun shell at one end, a 30caliber on the other end, and the swastika at the top. Handinscribed on here in pencil is the history of the voyage. Okay. And youve transcribed it. Yes, i did. Its in english. Yes, it is. And youve wrote it to this 3 x 5 card. So the text on the stick reads, ss Lewis Marshall , thats the ship on which they traveled, sailed from north africa october 27, 1943, lieutenant j. G. H. Ross black, jr. U. S. Naval armed guard commander. It arrived at newport news, virginia, u. S. A. November 13, 1943 with 1,001 prisoners of war. So most of these were germans, i presume. Presumed, yes perhaps some italians. All right, well, let me tell you a little about what you have. You have something that in the antiques trade and the appraisal profession we call trench art, even though it may not have been made in a trench, and because it was made by maybe a skilledhand, but not by a trained hand, its also considered folk art. Okay. So it has crossover potential from trench art collectors, which are sort of niche military art collectors to the folk art collectors as well. Then you have subcollectors that would also be interested. You have baltimore, lawyers, navy, world war ii, canes, walking sticks, all sorts of different crossover interesting groups that would all bid on this if it were presented to the marketplace in auction format. So, because of that, it doesnt have ordinary demand, it has enhanced demand in the marketplace because of the crossover potential. Now, the other pieces of trench art that are in the marketplace, for instance, this artillery shell here, which is a practice round casing, theyre often decorated, and they were often decorated in world war i. My mother decorated one. Oh, she did . She painted it pink and used it for mops and brooms. Is that right . And they would use tools to dent it and pierce patterns into it. It could be flowers, it could be animals. It could be artillery, cannons. Tanks, all sorts of things. Often it will say verdon or some other town in france, if it was a world war i shell. So these collectors of trench art would be very interested in this. Now, there are two values for this; an auction value and then a replacement value if you were to have to replace this. Now, you couldnt replace this precise stick because this was a custom made swagger stick. Youre not going to find another one like it, but you could find others that are just as interesting, but different texts, different lengths, different casings on either end of it. So, in an auction market, in a military auction, or a folk art auction, i would expect this would probably sell between 3,000 and 4,000. Im probably going to donate these to project liberty ship, the john w. Brown in baltimore. Oh, thats very good. Well, when that comes to pass, then youll need an appraisal for. Tax purposes. For tax purposes, so you might be considering that. Now, a retail replacement value would probably be twice that, maybe even higher. It depends on the time that you present it. In this current economy, it might be less. If you wait a little bit longer it might be more. This is all written in pencil. What can i do to conserve that. Dont touch it. Dont let other people touch it. Now, if you have a pal that can work with metal, he can take an artillery shell or another brass object and cut it up and make a little stand, so this can stand vertically, like this. And the stand needs to be heavy enough in order to keep it vertical instead of tipping over. And then you put it in a glass case at the museum with a little plaque that you donated it in your fathers name, or Something Like that. So youll get credit for it, and since its a baltimore piece it will have a lot of interest to local collectors. Thank you very much for bringing that in. Thank you very much. Welcome to chesapeake collectibles. Thank you very much. What did you bring in for us to look at today . Well, i brought three items. The two larger ones would be explanation or provenance for the smaller one. This large one is a headline from the new york worldtelegram and it talks about a meeting between churchill and Franklin Roosevelt on the uss augusta , a secret meeting actually in the north atlantic. This photograph is onboard the uss augusta after i believe a banquet. This here is an obituary of my mother, who died in 2009. The reason thats significant is she worked for Averill Harriman. Averill harriman was the lendlease coordinator for churchill, and this smaller item is an original menu from one of the banquets onboard the uss augusta. I believe it was august 9, 1941, which was before we entered the war. The whole story and the interest in world war ii right now has skyrocketed internationally. And here were dealing with the era before the United States got into the war. We were bound by the neutrality laws to be able to get directly involved because at this point in time france had fallen and england had been brought to its knees. And the question was, was democracy going to continue to survive in europe and what were we going to do . The neutrality forces in the United States, in part Charles Lindbergh was involved with that were very strong. And roosevelt was bound by law that we couldnt sell military equipment, we couldnt give money to england. Thats when he came up with the unique idea of lendlease. Well, well lend you stuff. Well rent it to you. So they signed a lendlease agreement. But as time went on, churchill and roosevelt decided that they really needed to be able to talk to each other facetoface. So, yes, youre absolutely right, they had this secret meeting. Roosevelt saying he was going fishing at the time and this meeting on this ship generated the Atlantic Charter, and the Atlantic Charter was not a legal treaty, but it was an agreement between the United States and england of what their goals would be with the future of the war, in part that we had no designs on acquiring property and that if any borders were to be shifted it would be through the approval of the citizenry, freedom of the seas. All of these ideas were bound into the Atlantic Charter. And thats what came out of this meeting. And when you laid down the menu and i looked at that, very interesting. Then i opened up the menu. Well, you look at the menu and they had a nice dinner, and i found it interesting there too, at the very end they had cigarettes and cigars. Cigars for churchill, cigarettes for roosevelt. But what took my breath away is all of the principles and their staffs names on the lefthand side and they have all autographed it. These are the exciting things, the pieces of history with the connection of the story, the connection of your family. How did your mother acquire it . My mother worked for Averill Harriman in the early 80s. He lived in georgetown and she was his personal assistant. You can imagine that this man was history personified. And he had stuff all over the place. And she was admiring it and he said, oh, what are you looking at. And he gifted it to her. Well, for documents that relate to such incredibly important moments in history, theres not many of them to start with, undoubtedly rare, undoubtedly historically important and then it becomes interesting for these oneofakind things to be able to place a value on them. And in a good auction i would conservatively, conservatively put a value on this of at least 20,000, and i would go up from there. If you got two people who were serious you had, at one time you had the forbes, serious collectors of this type of historic americana. Some of that collection has been dispersed here recently. But you have people that would really appreciate Something Like this. And so i emphasize and up. I would expect to see Something Like that in a showcase at the national archives. Its that important. And it just excites me to be able to look at it and figure that all these men, that they had held that document at this very critically important meeting. This is what history is all about. And i thank you very much for bringing that in for us today. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I hope youve enjoyed this weeks exploration of our history through our heirlooms. Now, heres whats in store for our next show. Winfield scott clime was painting primarily in connecticut, and what fascinated me was that in 1913 he spent a little bit of time in the d. C. Area. And this depicts harpers ferry. Keep in mind, you have other photographs tied into this magnificent story. I do. And as soon as we get home, were going to start looking for them. This is what artifacts in connection with interpreting history is all about. You have an incredible story here. See you next time on chesapeake collectibles. Im rhea feikin. Announcer chesapeake collectibles is made possible in part by the mpt new Initiative Fund founded by irene and edward h. Kap