Antiques Roadshow; Appraisal

You brought me an album of orange greatly. You're a collector. I am. When did you start collecting. Twelve years ago. OK. The lithographs. They were put on the ends of the crates and they were used to sell the oranges to the wholesalers. What do you usually pay for these. Anywhere from a dollar to $5. When they first came onto the market. They were discovered in the late 60s several huge batches were discovered in warehouses. And then big bundles of them were discovered in the groves. So there are many of the labels like these. There are quantities of them out there. We were selling them all for a dollar back then 1969 70 71. Then slowly we began to realize that not all the quantities were the same. So there were some labels were scarcer than others so price started to go up and certainly bills were trading for $50 $100 which was astounding towards a label like this. I can remember I've sold that one for as much as $35. Then. Internet auctions came along. And with as with many collectibles it crashed the market.

There were just tons of labels out there. Even more than we realize. And it drove the prices down. Except for. Unique labels. Now. Could you explain what you have here. This is a salesman sample dated one thousand twenty seven his distinctive labels of the Union with the Kraft company. There's 20 labels in this when he labels a number and what you pay for them. $4 a piece. I found the manner of an antique shop in Rosenberg Texas. OK. First of all salesman samples in labels are. Beyond rare. They're just nonexistent. You find some salesman samples on Cigar labels. This was the book that the salesman would bring around to the growers. And show to the growers who want to have this brand as your label. What you have here is a group of labels that are as far as I can tell. Unique. For example this zebra label here.

You're looking at a label that would sell for fifteen hundred dollars. Vigilant. $2000. A thousand dollars. Orange King. A thousand dollars. Mesa. $500. Now fearless has appeared. But this is a very early printing. The fearless that's on the market and sells for over $500. Is a later lithograph. So it's a restrike of the original. This is a fifteen hundred dollar label. Mardi Gras. At least $2000. Oh my gosh. Half Dome. You're looking at a thousand dollars right there. Pegasus. $2000. Crimson crane fifteen hundred dollars. Cleopatra at least a thousand fifteen hundred. Now the fearless before was an orange label. And this

is a lemon label. The orange is is much more valuable than the lemon. And then. This final one here. Chinese girl has got to be a fifteen hundred dollars. Oh my gosh. You've got 25 to 30 thousand dollars worth of labels in the set plus the sample cover is one of the rare cases were sold as a unit would most likely do better than if you sold them individually because it is a whole salesman sample book. And those have just never been found with orange privily. I'm blown away by the price. Oh yeah you just. Have an unbelievable treasure. It's it's. Never been seen before. I can't believe. I had no idea. I knew that they were good. I didn't know how good. My wife told me no matter what the cost is we're not selling us really good theater.