'Antiques Roadshow' guest gets a whopping 6-figure appraisal for his childhood birthday gift

To a child, a birthday gift is the most special thing that becomes etched in memory, and it remains associated with the best moments in life. It turned out to have a huge monetary value as well, for an "Antiques Roadshow" guest. The guest brought something that he received as a gift for his 15th birthday, and it wasn't an ordinary item but a handmade sculpture from Alexander Calder, one of the leading sculptors of the 20th century. The show's expert, Eric Silver, was amazed to come across the unique item and claimed that it could be worth more than $250,000.

In the episode, the guest shared his special childhood story where he met with the great sculptor. "When I was 14, I traveled to Europe with my parents. We stopped to visit a friend of my father's from after the war, in the south of Paris. And it turns out his friend was married to the daughter of Alexander Calder," he told Silver. He further shared that their family stayed at the compound where Alexander Calder lived and worked at the time.

"And I was a 14-year-old boy getting around, and I happened upon his studio, and peeked in and watched him working. He had Parkinson's at the time, but when he worked, his hand would be still. I had my 15th birthday while we were there. Thus in July of 1969, he presented me this sculpture as my 15th birthday present," the guest claimed.

The guest noted that his sculpture was smaller than the usual items made by Calder, but he had a habit of making smaller versions of items before scaling them. "I don't know if this one has a larger counterpart somewhere. I don't know," he said. Silver then took over to elaborate on the significance of the sculpture. "Calder is one of America's leading sculptors of the 20th century," he said. He explained that Calder came from a family of sculptors, started as an engineering student, and brought those learnings to his sculptures. "He studied at the Art Students League, and he actually went to Paris in the late 1920s, and stayed there for the early 1930s. And he was part of a whole group of American expatriate artists who were living there," he noted.

The appraiser confirmed that Calder's work started with the smaller things, or "the maquettes", and then they transformed into 20 to 30 feet high sculptures. "There are a lot of things that hang from the ceiling and move all the time. This is wonderful because you have the base and this amazingly balanced piece," Silver noted.

He added that the amount of movement in the piece was extraordinary, and that it was a mix of a mobile and a stable. "They're all handmade. You can actually see and envision him cutting it out of a piece of tin, and then they're painted. There's a great craftsmanship. It's signed, so it has his monogram on the side that's been pressed in," the appraiser noted.

Before coming to the appraisal, Silver told the guest that the item still needed to be submitted to the Alexander Calder Foundation for authentication. "It's almost impossible to sell them without the certificate," he said. In the end, Silver told the guest that after authentication, in a gallery setting, it would be worth $250,000.

Despite knowing the provenance of the item, the guest was shocked and he said, "Wow. Jeez, that's amazing." However, he noted that it was much more precious to him just for the memories.