GUEST: My mom gave this, what is now a vase-- it used to be a lamp-- to me.

It was my great-grandmother's, and she had it in her house as a lamp for many, many years, and when she went to the retirement home, my mom got to pick it out and brought it home with her.

A couple of years ago, she got two young boy cats and they were playing in the house and she came home, and it was knocked off, and it had broken the lampshade, but luckily, the vase was completely intact.

And a friend of ours had come into the house that works at UTC as, um, in the art department and had said, "That's a Newcomb Pottery vase.

I think you need to get it checked out and see what it is."

APPRAISER: This was indeed done at Newcomb College Pottery.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: It was done by one of their artists, Leona Nicholson.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And I could tell that because her mark is down here along with the Newcomb College mark.

She was a student at Newcomb College in 1896 and '97.

GUEST: All right.

APPRAISER: Then she went to the New York State Ceramic School at Alfred University.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: And that is a very prestigious school.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And then she came back to Newcomb College, and was there between about 1908 and the late '20s.

And she would have done this in about 1908.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: These are known as late glossy or carved glossy pieces.

It has everything that you want in a piece of Newcomb College.

This is one of the greatest pieces of Newcomb College I have ever seen.

GUEST: Yay!

APPRAISER: And I've seen a lot of them.

Okay?

GUEST: (laughing): Wow, that's wonderful.

APPRAISER: It's glossy, it's carved, it's tall, it has orange, which is so rare.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: It has these beautifully stylized trees.

It's awesome.

GUEST: Wonderful!

APPRAISER: Okay?

GUEST: I've always loved it, I think it's an absolutely beautiful piece of pottery.

APPRAISER: Now, you said somebody turned it into a lamp.

GUEST: It has a hole in the base, and it was a lamp as we saw it growing up, and we thought that maybe the fact that it had been turned into a lamp would have devalued the piece.

APPRAISER: Yes, it did devalue.

It's still worth, at auction, from $30,000 to $40,000.

GUEST: Really?!

APPRAISER: In this condition.

It would probably be worth about twice as much...

GUEST: Oh, my gosh!

APPRAISER: ...had it not been drilled.

GUEST: Oh, no!

Well, still, that's a lot for a vase that's been in our family.

It'll stay in our family.

It's been an heirloom passed down, and I wouldn't ever think of parting with it.

Thank you very much.