Japanese Copper Spiny Lobster, ca. 1900

ANTIQUE ROADSHOW APPRAISAL

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Appraiser

Lark E. Mason

Lark Mason Associates

APPRAISED VALUE (2024)

$2,500 - $3,500 Auction

Event

Littleton, CO (2024)

Date Range

19th Century, 20th Century

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APPRAISAL TRANSCRIPT

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GUEST: It came from an estate sale in Boulder in the '80s. It was somewhere between $60 and $90 at the absolute most. I just find it fascinating, all the little joints.

APPRAISER: The figure is articulated, so it's made of very small metal components that have been put together that required enormous skill. Look at how flexible this is. All the different elements move-- each of those little joints. And in this case, the metal is copper. When you open it up, we're rewarded with the signature of the maker.

GUEST: I've never noticed that.

APPRAISER: Right there on the breastplate.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Who's not somebody who's well-known. His name is Masa-Aki. This is Japanese, and Masa-Aki, I'm confident, was Japanese. And I'm also sure that he was one of the people who was displaced during a huge industrial change in the culture of Japan during the late 19th century. The people that were not needed for their skill sets in their original training were those who were armorers, those were engaged in making the armor for the samurai. And some of them became very famous at making other kinds of things, such as models of naturalistic forms.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And the names are, we know. Others were not known. And this is one of the people who is not known. It would have been sold to someone who was likely outside of Japan, primarily in the U.S. or Europe. So it dates to around 1900. I think that, reasonably, one could expect to get $2,500 to $3,500 for this.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: At auction.

GUEST: Uh-huh. Thank you very much.

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