APPRAISER: I know you're a woman of very good taste.

GUEST: Thank you.

(laughing) APPRAISER: Can you, can you tell us how this came into your life?

GUEST: Uh, yeah.

This is a, a picture that was in my husband's family.

I believe, believe it probably belonged to his grandparents, and they were an old Seattle family.

And I believe that the photographer was in Seattle.

APPRAISER: This is a piece by Edward S. Curtis, who was a famous American photographer, and he lived between 1860s and he died in the '50s.

He put together a very famous volume called "The North American Indian," where he, he really... It was an ambitious attempt at photographing all the Indian tribes in North America.

To keep his project alive, he would print up some of the photography he had done and sell it in virtually any format he could imagine.

And this is one of 'em-- this is called a gold tone.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: Because this is a glass plate image.

You see Navajos going through the canyon here.

The frame is even original to the period.

Um, this is known as one of his batwing frames, because it has sort of a similarity, as you look at it, of bat wings, on the corners.

GUEST: Oh, I see it.

APPRAISER: This is a wonderful piece.

And there's a label on the back that mentions Seattle.

So this came out of the Seattle studio.

GUEST: I also understood that they, they did it in other colors.

Like, some were silver, or something else.

APPRAISER: He did a platinum tone, also.

GUEST: Platinum?

APPRAISER: And then he worked in three types of paper.

Um, two were vellum-quality and one was a tissue format.

But these were published in portfolios.

And the only reason they exist outside the portfolios, they were dismantled.

What you're looking at here for, uh, value, and again, you're talking about a glass plate image, it's signed in the negative, and they're highly collectible.

So the piece that you own, on a auction market today, would fetch between $5,000 and $7,000.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER: And that's a little conservative.

GUEST: Is it?

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

Because it is such a popular image.

GUEST: Oh, I see-- that's exciting.

APPRAISER: So... They were also heavily reproduced.

GUEST: What about this kind?

Were they reproduced, as well?

APPRAISER: They are showing up in the market... GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: ...um, as being, um, reproductions that are not, not marketed as reproductions.

GUEST: I see.

APPRAISER: So it is something that you do need a little knowledge to be careful of.

GUEST: Yeah, what would you look for?

APPRAISER: This is... What you would look for is crispness of image.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: Because they would have had to have photographed it, reproduced it, and put it to press.

We have no glitches in your sky.

There's no little particle of dust.

It's really a very beautiful image, and people would be very happy to come forward... GUEST: Oh!

APPRAISER: ...and give you that $7,000.

GUEST: Oh, that's exciting.

Very good-- thank you very much.

APPRAISER: Thank you for sharing it.