Antiques Appraisal Day returns to Dennos

By VICTOR SKINNER
vskinner@record-eagle.com

May 18, 2008 04:00 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- Candace Ashley always wanted to know more about a woven wood egg basket that for more than a century has been handed down through her family.

She suspected it was Amish-made, but it wasn't until a recent trip to an Appraisal Day event at Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City that local appraiser Don Butkovich confirmed her hunch and put a price on the heirloom.

"I knew how old it was because my grandmother was ... using it in the early 1900s," Ashley said. "He was able to say he was almost positive it was Amish because of the style and the way the handle was put on. It turns out it's worth about $85."

Butkovich, of Traverse City, will return today to Dennos, where he expects to meet with dozens of area antique enthusiasts to assess everything from pottery and historic artifacts to fine art paintings.

Similar to the popular Antiques Roadshow program on public television, participants pay $5 per item to reserve time slots with Butkovich and learn the culture and history behind their treasures, how much they are worth and how to maintain the value, said Diana Bolander, museum curator of education and interpretation.

"It was popular from the start and it hasn't waned at all," Bolander said of the program that began last year.

Jerry and Peggy Edwards are looking forward to a verbal appraisal of photographs, spoons and coloring books that the Traverse City couple has collected over the years depicting the Dionne quintuplets, the first set of identical quintuplets known to survive infancy. A Chinese Mahjong game also might be worth some money, Jerry said.

"The Mahjong set is made of all kinds of material. We don't know if it's bone or ivory ... but we know it's old," he said. "The material it is made out of would determine its value, I'm sure."

But Butkovich, who donates the appraisal fee to the museum, said the worth of many items he reviews can't easily be calculated.

"A lot of people ... have been told a story about an item being genuine and it's not. I hate to debunk things like that," he said. "The basic value of the item is emotional."

Other collectors, like Ashley, are less concerned with the cash value.

"I think everybody always hopes that they are going to have one of these Antiques Roadshow moments that they are going to have something ... worth thousands of dollars," she said. "But I'm always more interested in when it was made and who made it."

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