NARRATOR: Major funding is provided by... Alex Cooper Auctioneers, appraisers and auctioneers of fine art, jewelry, and collectibles online and in person gallery auctions every month, serving buyers and sellers in Maryland and around the world for over 100 years.

♪ ♪ Second Story Books, celebrating 50 years of dedicated book selling.

GENICE LEE: Coming up on "Chesapeake Collectibles."

FRANK SHAIA: This is what I love the most.

I'm, I just, when you walked in and laid this out on the table, I was just overwhelmed.

This is so fabulous.

AMORY LECUYER: It does reflect a piece of erotica, and erotica was often, during these times, hidden away, but ever present.

GENICE: She studied abroad in Paris and was also the first African American woman in 1907 to be commissioned by the U.S. government for a piece, so...

GUEST: Wow.

GENICE: That's pretty impressive.

GUEST: So this is the very first medical book published in America expressly for the use of American surgeons during the Revolutionary War.

DENNIS HARTER: This was something that was not a purchased souvenir; that it actually had been flying on board the ship because it's got all sorts of wear and discoloration from the, the time that was out at sea and the times it was operating in the Pacific Waters.

(theme music playing).

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ AMORY: I want to thank you for coming out to "Chesapeake Collectibles" today, 'cause this was one of the best things I saw come across my table.

Tell me a little bit about how it got here with you.

GUEST: My son-in-law, his grandmother.

AMORY: Grandmother.

GUEST: Immigrated from Austria.

AMORY: Okay.

GUEST: In the run-up to World War II.

AMORY: Well, this makes sense.

This is an Austrian cold painted bronze.

It is in a neo-Egyptian style, when in the, in the late 1800s, as Egypt was opening up for exploration, there was a real surge in decorative arts that reflected the Middle Eastern culture.

The, the Austrians became very well known for cold painted bronze, which is a form of, of like almost enameling is where the color embellishment is applied to the bronze.

This is a particularly good example of a dancer.

And we can see down here this elaborate detail in the carpet that she's dancing on.

We can see jewels in the headdress and color through her, her outfit.

And then we get to a point where it is also a little risqué, because we get this sort of hidden attribute of the dancer lady.

This is a work done by Franz Bergman.

Bergman was one of the best designers and artisans in this cold painted bronze tradition.

This is a, this is an important piece.

It is a piece that I've seen come up to auction occasionally.

And even one more thing, I'm gonna turn the piece now to give a little bit of detail on the back, which is also where we can see the signature of Nam Greb.

That's the foundry mark that made the piece.

Absolutely outstanding.

It does reflect a piece of erotica.

And erotica was often during these times hidden away, but ever present.

It is a piece that has come up at auction a number of times over the last decade.

The last time I saw it come up, it fetched right at $4,000.

And right now cold painted bronze, maybe not as in, in the entirety of fashion, but the, the, the artisan work that goes into it and the erotica aspect to it, I would, I would expect it, bring that every day.

I wanna thank you for bringing it out 'cause it's a wonderful example of both cold painted bronze and erotica.

GUEST: Thank you very much.

AMORY: Thank you.

(cash register bell).

♪ ♪ FRANK: Welcome to "Chesapeake Collectibles."

GUEST: Hi.

FRANK: You brought a very unusual set of clothing, tell me a little bit about it.

GUEST: It's all from Uzbekistan and it's a combination of, most of it is, this is all silk.

Everything else I think is a silk cotton blend.

FRANK: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: Which is called "adras."

FRANK: Adras, and this is called "ikat?"

GUEST: The print is ikat, so it's very similar to what they do in Indonesia.

The threads are dyed and then woven into this cloud pattern.

FRANK: And what's unusual is when you find silk ikat.

Of course I sell oriental rugs and I'm an oriental rug dealer, which is mostly commercial end of the weaving.

But every now and then we see tribal things that are so outstanding and this is what I would refer to as tribal things.

So whether it's a tint bag or a saddle bag or clothing like this, it's all tribal and the market's not as big for it.

But personally myself, this is what I love the most.

I'm, I just, when you walked in and laid this out on the table, I was just overwhelmed.

This is so fabulous.

So you have a couple jackets, of course this is one too.

This is sort of the traditional rug dealer jacket because the markets were outside, so you had to wear something to keep warm.

And by the way, I'm very hot in this, so, but that's all right.

But this one fascinates me the most.

This is just so fabulous.

Can you tell us a little bit about this?

GUEST: Sure, so what this looks like is the neck, it actually is worn on the top of the head, and then the arm holes are here and the arms come out.

It is traditional.

I don't know much more about the history.

It's, probably it's, I believe hand woven and hand embroidered.

And then I know you love the lining.

FRANK: Yeah, this, this is this...

GUEST: The, the lining is the same ikat pattern and you can see the embroidery that goes all the way through.

FRANK: The embroidery is just amazing.

I mean, you could turn this inside out and it would be a beautiful jacket, but it's beautiful.

This, I don't know how well you can see this, but it's all silk woven and it's just a fabulous piece.

It's called a "Chapan."

And one of the things about these kind of outerwear like this is, it was a social status, so the higher up you were, you would wear nicer things like this.

This one of course is just suzani, right?

GUEST: Yeah, suzani pattern, yeah.

FRANK: And "suzani" is just the Russian word for embroidery, essentially.

So, but this is all beautifully embroidered.

And what do we have here?

GUEST: We have a hat.

FRANK: Isn't this a cute little hat?

I love this.

So tell me, how did you acquire all of this?

GUEST: I was living in Uzbekistan and like you, I like to collect textiles and I like older things, things that look like they were traditionally worn.

FRANK: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: And not just made for the tourist market.

FRANK: Let me just ask you, did you pay a lot of money for this?

GUEST: I, I'm pretty cheap, so probably not.

I don't recall what I paid.

FRANK: Well, to be honest with you, when I saw this, I wanted to put it on the set, not because of any monetary value, but because of the aesthetic pleasingness of this.

This is just gorgeous stuff, anybody that loves textiles could not resist this or any one of these.

I did a little research on some of this stuff and I did have to research it because this is not the kind of stuff I sell every day, but, robes like this or this one or this one are usually anywhere between 200 and $500.

GUEST: Well, that's definitely more than I would've paid for... FRANK: But this one I would put a, a higher value on it, this is probably around $1,500 and maybe even in the proper little boutique in New York City or something, you might even find that for 2,000 or something.

But thank you so much for coming in and bringing this wonderful collection of coats and textiles.

GUEST: Well, I'm glad you appreciate it 'cause I do, so.

FRANK: Okay.

GUEST: Thanks.

FRANK: Thank you.

(cash register bell).

♪ ♪ GENICE: Hi, and welcome to the show.

I see that you've brought for us two pieces by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, tell us how you got these pieces.

GUEST: So actually I came to visit my mother here in Maryland just for a few months.

And I actually won an auction.

This art right here was actually a collection from Jane Hinton.

Jane Hinton was the first African American veterinarian, she also helped with curing of syphilis and other sicknesses that people had during that time.

GENICE: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was from 1877 to 1968.

She studied abroad in Paris and was also the first African American woman in 1907 to be commissioned by the U.S. government for a piece.

GUEST: Wow.

GENICE: So that's pretty impressive.

She did works in plaster, which we can see that these pieces are plaster.

I love the religious icon that we have here, we've got the Three Wise Men, we've got Mary, and what lets us see that these are made of plaster is a little bit of wear on the edge here.

There was one more thing you did before you came on the show as far as that research that I think would be fascinating for people to hear.

You reached out to an institution that had some pieces by her, can you tell us a little bit about that?

GUEST: Yeah, so I reached out to the museum in Framingham, Massachusetts, and I spoke with Rachel, who is a specialist in actually Warrick Fuller's work.

And she actually told me she had, she actually had a molds to these pieces right here.

GENICE: And I think that adds even more to substantiating that these pieces are by that artist.

There are no markings on the back and so your research helped us to be very comfortable with saying that these pieces actually belong to her and were made by her.

So if I were to give a fair market value of both pieces collectively, they would be assigned a value of $12,000.

GUEST: Good, good, nice.

GENICE: So thank you for bringing them in today.

GUEST: Thank you.

GENICE: And I hope you enjoy them.

GUEST: Thank you, thank you.

(cash register bell).

♪ ♪ DENNIS: Welcome to "Chesapeake Collectibles," it looks like you have a number of items here related to the Second World War.

Can you tell me a little bit about them?

GUEST: Sure, my dad had enlisted in the Navy in June of 1945.

DENNIS: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: And he brought this back, he ended up going to Japan in September of 1945 on a minesweeper.

And he served there until he was discharged the following June.

And these are items that he brought back that he had saved all these years.

DENNIS: That is a picture there.

GUEST: Yeah, that's my dad when he enlisted in the Navy in 1945, he was just turning 18 years old.

DENNIS: Okay and I gathered the ship is the, the minesweeper there and you told me earlier that that was a wooden vessel.

GUEST: Yes, it was made of wood.

He told me that if it was metal, it would attract the mines and that would defeat its purpose and they... DENNIS: Absolutely surely.

GUEST: ...wouldn't have made it.

DENNIS: And what about the little cards with the aircraft on them?

GUEST: There's a whole deck of cards with all different types of aircraft so that all the seamen could identify the different planes and know what was our plane and what might have been an enemy plane.

Although thankfully the war was over by the time he got into it.

DENNIS: Sure, sure, sure, sure.

And your father was also in this photograph down here below?

GUEST: Yes, this was, he went to school up in the Great Lakes, he was supposed to be in charge of radios or something and that's my dad right there.

DENNIS: What I was particularly interested in were the things that are here also too on the table.

Let's start with the American flag and what that represents.

GUEST: My father loved to collect things... DENNIS: Uh-huh.

GUEST: So he brought things back.

So this actually flew while he was on the minesweeper working.

DENNIS: Well, you, you can see from the condition of the flag that this was something that was not a purchased souvenir, that had actually had been flying on board the ship because it's got all sorts of wear and discoloration from the, the time that was out at sea and the times it was operating in the Pacific waters.

This is a particularly interesting flag during the end of the war period in Japan and all of the various areas where they still had combat activity.

Many of the Japanese troops were told to, sacrifice themselves as part of their protection of the homeland and their protection of the emperor and all things Japanese.

This particular flag is interesting because everything on it is written in Chinese.

There is nothing in it that has the Japanese kanji characters.

This particular flag, I believe, was something that a land-based soldier would've carried as a way to show to Chinese on the mainland if he were captured that he was an honorable person, but at the same time also having prayers related to his, his mission and everything of that sort.

And the little pin that is down there in the box and this paper here is actually related to the imperial honors and awards that were being given out to various levels of the military who were being asked to sacrifice themselves for the government, the emperor, the honor of Japan.

And it has on it the imperial dates and the imperial inscriptions and the chrysanthemum symbol, the rising sun flag and the anchor that is on there is an award level of the Order of the Chrysanthemum that was specifically designed for people in the navy who were at that point being told it may be necessary for you to die for the country.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

DENNIS: And the Japanese government has an association in Japan called the Obon Society.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

DENNIS: Which is looking to repatriate these kinds of flags that were carried by Japanese troops.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

DENNIS: And then later disappeared and went with people who had captured them, found them, and took them back out of the country.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

DENNIS: And the Japanese Association is looking to repatriate these and then treat them with the proper respect and honor related to the now long deceased serviceman associated with this particular flag.

So this is something that you might want to consider talking to the society and for these other things, I would say your interest in the history and your father's association with it is something that would very much be of interest to the Naval Academy.

GUEST: Okay.

DENNIS: Any naval museums.

But there's also a potential monetary value associated with something of a collection of this sort.

Collection of this sort would have a monetary value of somewhere between 10 and $15,000.

GUEST: Wow.

Wow.

My father would be thrilled.

But I think things belong in a museum.

DENNIS: It's really an exciting thing to see, to get a chance to talk to, to you about it.

And I thank you very much for bringing it to "Chesapeake Collectibles."

GUEST: You're very welcome, and thank you.

(cash register bell).

♪ ♪ ALLAN STYPECK: Welcome to "Chesapeake Collectibles," tell us about this extraordinary collection of books.

GUEST: Yes, so I was fortunate to discover online a couple of books that were signed by surgeons who had served in the American Revolution.

The first book here is, was signed by, by William Dexter, who is one of the only surgeons who served, both, attended wounded, both after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

And after the battle of Bunker Hill.

I was able to identify him by the inscription in the book, which tells that another doctor, who also was a Revolutionary War veteran, bought the book at the auction of his estate and gave the date of his death.

And so I was able to prove that this William Dexter was the same William Dexter, who was a surgeon in the American Revolution.

And this, the other book here I brought, which is signed by Samuel Whitwell.

What struck me about it is when I saw, I had asked the dealer for a photograph of the title page, and I saw they were written at the top "Camp at Saratoga."

Of course Saratoga was the turning point for the American Revolution, after that battle, the French came in as our ally and helped us to secure the victory.

This, when I saw Camp at Saratoga, I thought, "Hmm, who was this guy William Whitwell?"

When I did the research, I discovered that he was in fact a surgeon who had served at Saratoga.

Interestingly, he was from Boston, but he went to Princeton.

That is also unusual because most Revolutionary War surgeons had no academic education at all, they were trained purely by apprenticeship.

He had academic background, went to Princeton, did not get a medical degree there.

But then went back to Boston and apprenticed in Boston.

At the time of the first Continental Congress, John Adams went to Princeton and I saw reading John Adams diaries, I saw he visited this young man Whitwell at Princeton.

ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: He was a Bostonian, Adams knew his father, who was a wig in Boston.

And, and Adams said that "I brought a letter to young Whitwell from Boston and young Whitwell has told me that they're all Sons of liberty there."

Of course the Battle of Saratoga was, in addition to being the turning point of the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold was the hero of that battle for the Americans.

ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: And he was wounded.

ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: After the battle, Whitwell went to the Albany Hospital where Arnold was treated ultimately for several months.

And Whitwell was one of the surgeons who cared for Benedict Arnold.

ALLAN: Wow, that's unbelievable.

And both of these books you found by doing really good book mining, correct?

GUEST: Correct.

ALLAN: Explain very quickly how you did that.

GUEST: Well, I, I noticed the signatures and... ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: Whenever there's a signature in a book of this period, I try to investigate to see what I can find about the, the owner.

ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: And in these cases, I was able to determine that the owners played a significant role in the American Revolution.

And in this particular case, I called up the historian at, at the battlefield at Saratoga, Eric Schnitzer, who's, regarded as one of the experts in Saratoga, he told me that he's absolutely confident that this inscription "Camp at Saratoga" means that the book was captured by, from the British Camp at Saratoga.

ALLAN: So let's go down to the next two books that are associated with the American Revolutionary War.

GUEST: Now, this particular book is very important because it was written by Joseph Jones.

Now Joseph Jones was the first American physician to write a medical book published in America.

So this is the very first medical book published in America expressly for the use of American surgeons during the Revolutionary War.

This was published by John Bell in Philadelphia, who is the same publisher who released "Common Sense," the same year American doctors were having a very hard time getting books, so what Bell did was he put together an anthology of several medical books, mostly published by Europeans or British on treating gunshot wounds and things that the Americans were not used to treating.

ALLAN: Right.

GUEST: These guys, you know, as they had learned by apprenticeship, the trauma they were used to treating was broken legs and, and not gunshots, not amputations.

These were not done by the average doctor.

So this, these books were very important for them to kind of give them the background and a step by step instruction.

ALLAN: In field medicine.

GUEST: In field medicine.

ALLAN: Right, and the other book that you brought that is "The Association" is?

GUEST: Yes, "The Association" is, this was published by also John Bell, and this was the first book he came out with, with, which was the anthology of all these different medical books.

And then as soon as he got the opportunity to put the John Jones book in there he published it again, inserting Jones into the middle of the book.

ALLAN: Right.

You have a background, obviously in collecting medical books.

Would you say Bell was the first official field manual used by the United States Continental Army?

GUEST: Jones was.

ALLAN: Yes, Jones.

GUEST: Jones was the, was the first I would say American Medical book.

ALLAN: Medical book.

GUEST: And this, and this anthology probably the very first one, definitely the first one expressly published for American surgeons to use in the war.

ALLAN: In the field, right.

GUEST: Yeah, absolutely.

ALLAN: So an incredible collection and, well, you know, your stuff, so you, you're not gonna be totally surprised with my pricing, but the fact that you were able to find two extraordinarily important books with provenance from the time period in association with the ability to make the first two American medical field manuals back to back and put them all together as a collection.

So I'm a bookseller, I see these four books, I look at 'em differently than individual books.

I look at 'em as a collection and as a collection, I look at 'em at about $50,000 as a group because the provenance and the historical aspect of it should take priority of a book, by book, by book.

They should stay together.

GUEST: Well, as long as I'm living they will.

ALLAN: Okay.

This is great.

I have to tell you, thanks very much for coming, it's been a pleasure.

GUEST: Thank you very much.

ALLAN: Thank you.

(cash register bell).

ED MORENO: Next time on "Chesapeake Collectibles."

ALLAN: What did you bring us?

GUEST: I brought you a British first edition of the "Lord of the Rings," hopefully you'll find in, in dust jacket.

ROSS KELBAUGH: This is the first World Series baseball ring that I've ever seen.

GUEST: And then I got a golden pocket watch that was purchased in July 26th, 1876.

AMORY: Okay.

GUEST: It's golden, it has the key and everything.

And I believe that this is a cherry box.

GUEST: I asked this gentleman who I had never met in my life, why he collected sheet music and he said the artistry.

GUEST: I am surprised.

ED: Yeah, it's still, it's a really nice piece.

A lot of hand work, all of this is done by hand.

NARRATOR: Major funding was provided by... Alex Cooper Auctioneers, appraisers and auctioneers of fine art, jewelry, and collectibles online and in person gallery auctions every month, serving buyers and sellers in Maryland and around the world for over 100 years.

♪ ♪ Second Story Books, celebrating 50 years of dedicated book selling.

GUEST: Yeah, I was happy, it was a great experience finding out the value of this piece.

GUEST: We didn't know what quite what to expect, and it was just nice coming in.

I almost wanted to gawk at what everybody else was bringing in.

GUEST: I had a great experience, it was very interesting, not only having my items, appraised and, and examined by the expert appraiser, but also to see the very interesting things that other people had brought in to have looked at.

GUEST: If you think it has value and you love it, the whole experience is great.

GUEST: They really do have a, a panoply of, of experts here that, that seem to know the most arcane things about almost everything.

GUEST: Fantastic experience, it was a "wow."

NARRATOR: Stream anytime, anywhere with the free PBS app.