By Pat Brown
Contributing Writer
When NRV residents travel to Salem for free antique appraisals this week, they got advice from their neighbor, Bob Miller.
The people seeking Miller’s advice were traveling with Montgomery County Parks and Recreation. They met up with Miller at his place of post-retirement employment, Farmer Auctions on Midland Road in Salem.
Miller, a life-long educator and former principal of Auburn High School, worked part-time for 15 years with Farmer Auctions, when it was located in downtown Radford. After Miller retired from education, he became a mainstay in the Farmer antique business, now headquartered in Salem.
“I grew up in a collecting family,” Miller said, noting that he still has half a dozen pieces that were handed down by his parents, grandparents and an aunt. After his marriage to wife Susan, the couple collected antiques together.
Miller said he and Susan got rid of his mother’s Victorian furniture, which they did not prefer. “We saved all the furniture from the 19th Century, but some pieces were relegated to the barn,” he added.
In 1963, Miller went to Winston- Salem to teach. He became interested in appraising when he was living there because that was the time when Old Salem was being researched and restored by the Museum of Southern Decorative Arts. Additionally, he worked with Reynolda House, the home of founders of the R.J. Reynolds tobacco empire.
He pursued certification by USPAP (Uniform Standard of Professional Appraisals Practices) and has become an expert at evaluating 19th Century paintings, silver and furniture, among other treasures.
“Southern material is getting more and more rare,” he said recently. When young people decide to hold onto family heirlooms, those items go out of circulation, he explained. Other pieces have found homes in the lobbies, board rooms and collections of universities and museums, so they are also off the market.
Miller scored his first antique when he was only six years old. At an auction on Mud Pike Road, a Giles County auctioneer was offering items from Miller’s great aunt’s estate. Miller bid 25 cents on a kitchen press that had belonged to his great-grandmother. (A kitchen press is similar to a pie safe except that it has solid paneled doors rather than decorative tin doors, Miller explained.)
“It’s still in our house,” Miller said of the piece he won at auction.
Lately Miller says 19th Century Victorian prints and lithographs have limited value, even when they are surrounded by elaborate frames. But attractive frames are still important, especially when they contain the large studio portraits that Miller keeps an eye out for these days.
He sees a loss in value for Depression glass and carnival glass that were so popular a generation ago. Instead, folks are looking for farm-related items like antique tools.
“People don’t think about it, but letters make good collection items, Miller said. And gold and silver coins continue to be popular.
“Militaria is always collectible, especially if it accompanied by documentation,” Miller noted. “That (documentation) always adds value to any antique.
The canning jars of yesteryear have been less sought-after recently. Instead, buyers search for pieces of grey salt-glazed pottery with cobalt blue decorations.
Primitive paintings “done by the Sunday painter, have charm and folk art quality,” Miller said. “And whittled items like canes or small sculptures are charming and one-of-a-kind.”
Always the educator, Miller has mentored some young people who were pursuing auctioneer and appraisal credentials.
Miller says he is always on the watch for fossils, but that pursuit is inspired by grandson Amos Miller, age 6, who loves them (along with dinosaurs.) Like his grandfather, he is expressing admiration for antiques at an early age.
“Grandpa, you have beautiful pictures,” Amos Miller tells his grandfather.
When the group of visitors traveling with Montgomery County Parks and Recreation arrived, at Farmer Auctions in Salem, they were carrying their carefully wrapped treasures for appraisal.
Jarrod Hines, owner of Farmer Auctions for the past two years, invited the visitors to sit in chairs on the other side of the table from Miller and two other appraisers. There were bright lights set up to make it easy to see maker’s marks, dates and flaws.
Kathy Talbert brought along a sword from the 1800s and an oil lamp. “I was very impressed with them,” she said of the appraisers. Nola Elliott brought some figurines that looked like animals dressed as clowns. She picked them up at an antique store and was pleased to learn that they might bring as much as $45 each.
- G. Duncan of Radford bought in a picture she found in an abandoned house she had bought. “It was in a sealed closet and was kind of sooty” before she had it cleaned. Miller said it was a silkscreen done in Pablo Picasso style, but produced in a later period.
Several cut glass and copper candle holders that Duncan brought were estimated at $100 each in value. She said they were from a hotel in Front Royal. Miller advised her not to over-polish the copper. “Collectors don’t want it too look like it just came from the department store,” Miller said.
Miller spent some time telling Karen Maher how to take care of several cut glass pieces. They should not be placed in direct sunlight, he said, as they could absorb enough heat to make them crack. Cracked crystal pieces “are almost valueless,” Miller advised. He admired the graceful lines of a vase.
Examining a gold bracelet, Miller said it was very likely 18 karat. That might put its value at between $200 and $400. Franklin Moreno said his wife got the bracelet more than 40 years ago. He also brought along some leather chaps he inherited from his father. “The only time I’ve had them out was for costume parties,” he said.
Another piece of art, purchased for $4, turned out to be a seriograph, meaning it was a printed design on silkscreen. It was dated 1994, and Miller said its colors were vivid enough to make him think it had been embellished by hand. Value? Between $100 and $200.
“I remember when my aunt gave it to my mother,” said Mary Atkins of a lusterware set she treasures. Its appraisal wasn’t high, but sometimes sentiment trumps value.
After appraisals were over, owner Hines gave the visitors from Montgomery County a short course in antique marketing and trends.
He will send his appraisers on the road in a month when they visit the Floyd Country Store on March 7.
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