'Antiques Roadshow' guest asks 'are you kidding me?' after hearing the value of Marvin Gaye's passport
A lot of guests who come to "Antiques Roadshow" bring items that they've collected, inherited, or have had lying around in the attic for a long time. But sometimes people just pick up a random but interesting item for a low price, which turns out to be precious. Similarly, a guest found a Marvin Gaye memorabilia worth $20,000 by 'pure accident.' The expert Laura Woolley was astonished to come across the original passport of the artist whose memorabilia is one of the most sought-after items in the collectors' market. However, it was the guest who was left stunned at the end after the appraisal.
The guest shared the interesting story of how he found the passport of the soul singer and record producer. "It came to me by pure accident. For years, I worked for the Motown Museum here in Detroit, starting when I was 18 years old. I was a Motown collector, and after a Motown musician had passed, we had gone to their house to pick up some items the family wanted to donate to the museum," he said. While the family presented the guest with some albums, he didn't take any as he felt there was enough already at the museum.
However, he shared that he still went down to the estate sale and bought some of the albums personally. "So I went back to the estate sale and bought some albums and 45s. When I got home, I was going through them, and out of an album fell this passport," he told Woolley. "And so it literally fell into my hands," the guest added.
"We don't know how it ended up in his house in an album that got stashed away, and luckily, you found it. The thing I'm in love with is how young he is here," Woolley noted, looking at the musician's picture on the document. She went on to note that the passport was dated 1964, and it was in great condition. Luckily, the document was made after the artist added an 'E' at the end of his name. "Because when he was signed as a solo artist with Motown, he decided to add that E, and there are a lot of different theories. People say it's because he wanted to separate himself from his father or because he actually liked Sam Cooke so much, who had an E at the end of his name, that he wanted to imitate his idol," Woolley explained.
Talking about the artist's history, the expert added that he had a great run with Motown, starting out as a session musician. "He's on Stevie Wonder's 'Fingertips, Part 2,' the live version, doing drums," she told the guest. "He played drums on 'Please, Mr. Postman.' He did all these great things, and then he slowly worked his way into the duets, and then in this era, you've got kind of a sweet spot, I think, one of the happiest times in his life,1964. He's still in the prime of his life and having the best time. His career's really starting to take off. But this is such an innocent time," she further noted.
The appraiser shared that collectors particularly love passports because they show where the artist went around the world in their career. "People also like them because we know that they're real signatures, because you have to sign your own passport," Woolley added. When asked about the amount the guest paid for the items, he revealed that it was only 50 cents for an album.
This amazed the expert, as she knew how valuable the passport was. "Wow! For insurance, I wouldn't put less than $20,000 on the passport if you were to insure it," she went on to reveal. This left the guest in disbelief as he said, "Are you kidding me?" Woolley assured him that she wasn't joking, as there are very few items of Gaye that come to the market. "It's not a really common thing to see Marvin Gaye memorabilia," she said.
In the end, the guest expressed his shock, saying he could never imagine how valuable the item was. "I mean, I'm just shocked. I mean, I... Wow. Oh, gosh, thank you," he said in the end.
