GUEST: These belonged to my great-uncle.

He was an antique collector.

I remember them as a child, sitting up on shelves, very high up.

You didn't touch them.

There was a built-in bookcase on top, and he had a mirror that was custom made.

And the mirror sat, like, vertically behind the vases.

That way you could see the backside of the vases, which are also very interesting.

APPRAISER: Absolutely.

GUEST: And then when he passed away, he gave them to my grandma, left a note that when she passed, they were to be passed on to me.

My grandma passed in 2012, so I've had them since she passed.

APPRAISER: So what we have here is a matched pair of vases.

Now, many pairs of vases made by all kinds of manufacturers are exactly identical.

But these are companion vases.

Each one has a different scene on the front of similar birds facing in.

And this technique is really interesting, it's called "pâte-sur-pâte" which means paste on paste.

They originally was just a vase that was kind of this lavender color.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: And then the decorations were added on top of that.

It was painted in layers with white slip.

And they were inspired by Japanese design, so we call them Japanism.

They were made by Minton.

Who was located in England.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And this is something that Minton was known for.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: When they were new, they were very expensive.

This was a very tedious, time-consuming process.

We have the initials of the man who painted it, and his name is Henry Hollins, and he started working at Minton in about 1873.

There's raised, enameled flowers.

It's a repetitive pattern in these wonderful greens and turquoise blue.

And one color that Minton is especially known for is turquoise.

There's not a lot on here, but that's a really nice feature.

Then if we turn to the back, we have a completely different "pâte-sur-pâte" design of the same flowers GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: with a wonderful insect.

But my favorite part is next.

GUEST: (chuckling): Okay.

APPRAISER: So we turn this one around to look at the back.

And there's a wonderful spider web with a spider, and I'm crazy about that.

And that makes them so much more interesting... GUEST: It does.

APPRAISER: ...than just flowers.

Flowers are good.

Birds are good, too.

The spider web definitely helps the value.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: And they both-- the marks are a little hard to see.

Mintons with an S. GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: It went from Minton to Mintons in the 1870s.

And normally there is an impressed symbol for a date.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And these just don't have it, but we still pretty much know where they're from.

GUEST: Okay.

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Pretty much probably the 1870s or maybe very early 1880s.

There's a chip on the top edge.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: It does affect the value some.

A retail price for the pair would be somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000.

GUEST: Okay.

Wow.

APPRAISER: If we didn't have this chip... GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...I think we could add another $1,000.

GUEST: Wow.