Some stories worth more than artifacts at SC State Museum’s antique appraisal roadshow

Some stories are worth more than any dollar value.

The story behind Matthew Hicks’ Buddha statue is priceless to him.

It was 1993 in the parking lot at a Grateful Dead concert in Seattle when Hicks won the statue – and a tattoo! – in a poker game.

The Buddha didn’t bring a lot of luck to the man Hicks won it from, apparently, but the story has brought Hicks a great deal of enjoyment in the past two decades.

The statue, which could be as old as hundreds of years, might draw anywhere from $100 to $2,000 at an auction, depending on the audience, art appraiser James Brannock told Hicks on Saturday at the S.C. State Museum Roadshow for heirloom appraisals.

But Hicks won’t ever sell it.

“How many people do you know can tell a story about winning a Buddha and a tattoo in a poker game?” he said. “And if I ever sold that Buddha, then I could only tell about winning a tattoo in a poker game. I could never bring him up again.

“(The story is) priceless, invaluable – as is, I believe, the statue.”

There were stories behind dozens of items brought to the appraisal event where, in the style of PBS’s popular “Antiques Roadshow” television show, experts examined items – from paintings and dolls to books and jewelry and more – brought by people who suspected they may be worth more than a spot on a shelf in the attic.

But not everything that looks old and valuable is as old or as valuable as some people would like to believe, said Thomas Rose, an expert in Revolutionary War and Civil War memorabilia. Many items that circulate the military artifacts realm of collecting are fake, he said.

“You have to be real careful with Civil War originals,” Rose said, “because there are a lot of people out there who think they have originals. They’re not. That’s why it’s so important to have them appraised by an expert or someone who can simply say sometimes, ‘I don’t know, but let me get you to someone who does.’”

One woman came to Rose Saturday with what she thought was a $500 Confederate bank note.

She handed the faded brown paper, covered in a plastic sheet, to Rose, who, immediately coming to his own conclusion of its value, passed the note to Jack Meyer for a second opinion. Meyer, a trained conservator, a collector and a 40-year veteran appraiser of military artifacts, weapons, coins and other currency, took only a moment to say to the woman, “If this were real...”

The woman had found the note tucked into a book she purchased some 30 years ago, she said, and assumed it was as old as it looked.

Meyer quickly pointed out three clues that gave away its inauthenticity: The ink on the signature was not faded and matched the color of the rest of the ink on the note, meaning it was not signed by hand; the note was printed on parchment paper, which is heavier than bank paper; and the serial number printed on the note matched the serial number printed on many copies he’s seen.

If it had been real, it would have been worth about $100, Meyer said.

“You never know,” Meyer said. “I do this. The average person wouldn’t know.”

This story was originally published July 11, 2015 at 8:01 PM.