An Ohio man was stunned to learn that a book about his passion project would sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction during an episode of Antiques Roadshow.
The popular television show has been airing since 1997 and follows specialists at auction houses across the country who offer free appraisals of antiques and collectibles.
During a trip to Ohio, the PBS series encountered a man who had purchased a worn book dating back to 1792 and was fully aware of its importance.
“I brought a very old book, which is an essay on watchmaking that I found in an antique mall,” the guest said. He shared that his “main interest” was collecting watches, particularly those related to sailing.
‘I saw this book. What caught my attention was “Essai d’Horloge” on the outside cover, which is French for “An Essay on Watchmaking,” the man explained, sounding like an expert.
The man identified the object as a book written by French watchmaker Ferdinand Berthoud.
The guest said he had purchased the book at an antique mall in Canada and shared that his “main interest” was collecting watches, particularly those related to sailing.
He opened the book and was surprised to discover that it was handwritten by Ferdinand Berthoud, a legendary Parisian watchmaker who was involved in creating the first marine chronometers, specialized devices used to find longitude at sea.
Devon Eastland, senior specialist in antique printed books at Swann Auction Galleries, agreed that the item was “really important to our whole sailing history.”
Back then, he explained, “there wasn’t a way to determine longitude on a moving ship in a way that we now take for granted knowing we’re traversing time zones and so on.”
Addressing the guest, he said: “You know more about the subject than I do.”
The man intervened to explain that King George put up a prize after a shipwreck “to see who “It could solve the problem of determining longitude at sea so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen.”
Eastland said British watchmaker John Harrison “discovered it” before turning his attention to the century-old book.
“Inside there is original material like these drawings,” he said, reiterating that the article was handwritten and not printed.
“This is a very unusual fact, because sometimes we find handwritten versions of printed books but, as far as I know, I cannot find a printed version of this book.”
An Ohio man was stunned to learn how much a book about his passion project would sell for at auction during an episode of Antiques Roadshow.
Appraiser Devon Eastland agreed that the book was “really important to our sailing history.”
She was impressed by the book’s content, identifying “original material” as hand-drawn illustrations.
Eastland estimated the book would sell for between $40,000 and $60,000 at auction.
The guest seemed visibly stunned. “Wow, I had no idea how much it was worth,” he said.
He explained that a Swiss company named after Berthoud still makes watches by hand.
“They have a bibliography and they don’t mention any work by this name anywhere that I can find, which is, again, very unusual,” he said.
‘I also looked in library catalogs and can’t find it. It appears to be, for all intents and purposes, something he is directly working on.”
To make the find even more “extraordinary,” Eastland said, there were apparently working notes at the back of the book.
The guest shared that he closed the sale for only $200 Canadian dollars.
“There is a lot of interest in this collecting area,” Eastland said before estimating an auction price between $40,000 and $60,000.
The guest seemed speechless. “Wow,” he finally blurted out. “Wow, I had no idea how much it was worth.”
The show is known for capturing guests’ surprised reactions, for better or worse. One of the most memorable was during a 2012 episode in which a Texas man discovered that a piece of art left collecting dust behind a door was the most expensive painting ever appraised at the show.
After receiving a retail price of between $800,000 and $1 million, the man opted to donate the painting to the San Antonio Museum of Art, saying he was “too afraid to take it.”
