GUEST: My grandmother, um, and grandfather were missionaries to Japan in 1910.

APPRAISER: Really?

GUEST: And they were invited to the emperor's palace for tea one day, and the emperor served um, tea on this tray, and my grandfather happened to, um, be so impressed with it, that he commented on how beautiful it was, and the next day, the emperor sent a messenger out to his home with it, so.

APPRAISER: Really?

That's really interesting.

Now, I-I think that, you, you know that this is a Japanese lacquer tray.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And that they originally used lacquer as a way to protect wood to keep it from splitting and cracking as the seasons changed.

And as that lacquer protection became more and more prominent and proper, then they be-began to use the lacquer as actually an art form.

So that actually, layer after layer of lacquer were put on the piece to make these interesting designs.

And one of the most popular designs in all of Japan were, uh, scenes from nature, beautiful things.

And here we have a few birds in an idyllic garden setting.

You can see the details with gold highlights and lacquer, as well as your dark black lacquer, a lot of brown lacquer.

And then you have this kind of burgundy lacquer ground on it.

What's unusual about this tray and what I really like about it is this built up tree trunk, kind of, effect along the edges.

It's very unusual to find a tea tray like this just because mostly they're very utilitarian, in other words, just flat with double handles.

But this gives it a real kind of slice of the tree and hollowed-out feel that, uh, I think makes it very unusual.

Now, one of the things that affects value on something is condition.

And I noticed that we do have some, some damage here.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Which is common with older lacquer--where were the damaged areas?

GUEST: Uh, right down in... APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: ...in the ba-- uh, bottom area.

Right down in here.

APPRAISER: So we're going to show you the bottom corner.

GUEST: So it really doesn't show that much visually.

APPRAISER: So you see here in the repair... ...that really no effort was made to continue this design.

It was just kind of repaired and they tried to match color.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Unfortunately, that, that will affect your value of the piece.

GUEST: Sure.

APPRAISER: Uh, still, the rarity of the piece, um, and also the story behind it, which I think is a great story, uh, would make this something very desirable to a collector today.

And we would imagine a piece like this, even with the damage, would be between, like, $3,000 and $5,000 at an auction.

GUEST: Pretty good.

APPRAISER: It would be worth a lot more than that if we did not have the damage.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Um, do you have any kind of paperwork or things that, uh, back this up?

GUEST: No, I don't.

No, uh, other than it is, um, I do have a photograph at home, and I tried to find it before I came, with, uh, the house that my grandparents were in, and this was setting in the house at the time, so.

APPRAISER: That's a great photograph, a photograph of the piece... GUEST: So I have to find it.

APPRAISER: ...in the period is something very important to have.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right, right.

APPRAISER: I'd find it and keep it with it.

As well as anything that documents their experience in Japan, and this piece in Japan.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: It can only add to the value of it.