11-Year-Old Buys A Painting For $2, And Then The Appraiser Noticed A Key Detail

Padlo was just 11 years old when he was on an episode of Antiques Roadshow. And the aspiring collector may have brought along his find in the hope that he’d make a small profit. That way, he could go to another yard sale and pick up more cheap antiques. But his mind was left blown when he heard the true value of what he’d discovered.

Padlo — who comes from New Jersey — may have been one of the youngest antiques buffs in the country at the time. With the support of his dad Frank, he had even traveled to a few Antiques Roadshow events in the past. But until that moment, he had never made it in front of the cameras. And when he did get his time with an appraiser, he knew his collecting habit had paid off.

Padlo particularly enjoyed finding pieces made from sterling silver, glassware, and art. Attending auctions in his hometown, he picked out the best items and then sold them online — just like many other folks. The difference, though, is that this sharp-eyed collector was only in the sixth grade.

But despite his young years, Padlo was confident. And he traveled a couple of hundred miles south with his dad to another Antiques Roadshow event in Richmond, Virginia. This time, he had his bargain find in tow: a charming watercolor painting.

“This piece was found at an auction down in South Jersey,” Padlo tells David Weiss in the clip. “It was so hot there my dad didn’t want to stay to get it, but I wanted to. So we waited an hour or so, and I got it for two bucks.” And clearly, the piece and its young owner stood out among the Antiques Roadshow crowd.

Padlo certainly caught Weiss’ attention. With more than 30 years in the business, the Philadelphia-based auctioneer knows his stuff when it comes to prints, paintings, and Oriental rugs. And when he met the ambitious boy, he seemed intrigued. Perhaps he wondered how an 11-year-old had already picked up such a great find.

“You must be the youngest collector that I’ve seen,” Weiss tells a beaming Padlo as they sit down in front of the cameras. Unphased, the boy simply replies, “I think so.” But it wasn’t just Padlo’s tender age that generated excitement. It was also the watercolor itself, propped up behind the pair in a wooden frame.

The painting depicts a mother and child, both seated on wooden chairs. Looking down, the woman appears to be engaged in some kind of chore, while the smaller figure at her feet gazes up in adoration. There isn’t much to go on — but that didn’t stop Weiss from doing his thing.

“I thought it was a watercolor, but we couldn’t tell because of the UV glass,” Padlo confesses to the expert on the show. Happily, Weiss was able to confirm this. He had also spotted a signature in the bottom right-hand corner of the piece.

According to Weiss, the signature reads “Albert Neuhuys” — the name of a Dutch painter from the 19th century. He’d gone to art school as a teenager and had embarked on a career as a lithographer. After his employer declared bankruptcy, however, Neuhuys began to focus on his art instead.

At first, Neuhuys painted people and historical scenes. Then, in the late 1860s, he moved cities to hone his craft at the Antwerp Academy — helped, perhaps, by a little money from the royal family. There, he switched his focus to domestic scenes instead.

Then Neuhuys’ passion drew him back to the Netherlands, where he joined a community of artists who would become some of the most influential painters of their age. Alongside such talented men as Josef Israëls, Jacob Maris, and Anton Mauve, he was one of the leading lights in what was dubbed the “Hague School” — named after the Dutch city.

As The Hague grew as a city, though, Neuhuys began to look elsewhere for inspiration. And eventually, he found it in the pretty village of Laren, where a traditional way of life still flourished. Along with Mauve, he founded an artist colony in the region, and this functioned as a sort of rural branch of the Hague School.

For decades, the so-called Laren School was key to the Dutch Impressionist movement, and the paintings created by its artists can still be seen hanging on gallery walls across the globe. Clearly, Padlo’s watercolor was a significant find — but just how much was it worth?

Well, unlike many famous painters, Neuhuys achieved commercial success during his lifetime. In fact, his work was so sought after that he often made replicas of his more popular pieces. And it’s not unusual for these to emerge at auction today — although they may cost a pretty penny.

In 2005, for example, Neuhuys’ Mother’s Little Helpers was auctioned at Christie’s in Amsterdam. Painted in oils, it depicts two small girls engaged in chores — very similar to the painting Padlo found. And in the end, it drummed up an astonishing $17,105.

At other times, though, Neuhuys’ work has fetched as little as $100. So even with the name of the artist locked in, Padlo was far from assured of making the big bucks. At least he got to be on TV — and, luckily, Weiss was on hand to tell him more about his painting.

Speaking to Padlo, Weiss compares Neuhuys’ work to that of Israëls and Bernard Pothast, who also specialized in domestic scenes. Then we get to the crux of the matter. Padlo confirms that he paid just $2 for the piece. According to the appraiser, however, it is worth much, much more.

“What do you think it might be worth today?” Weiss asks Padlo in the clip. With his hands clasped anxiously in front of him, the boy replies, “150 bucks.” But his guess is a little off the mark. The appraiser tells him, “I think it’s worth 150. I think it’s more than 150.” Just how much more, though?

“Today, if your Albert Neuhuys watercolor came to an auction,” Weiss continues, “it would probably sell for between $1,000 and $1,500.” In other words, Padlo is set to make a hefty profit should he decide to sell. And given the boy’s startled reaction, that may well be on the cards.

In the clip, Padlo raises his hand to his head, miming the gesture for “mind blown,” in response to Weiss’ healthy estimate. Smiling, the appraiser admits, “That’s a lot of money. Not bad for two bucks.” And if the painting does sell for $1,500, the aspiring collector will have made a staggering 75,000 percent return on his investment.

“Well, if you keep buying things like this, I think you’ve got a good chance at being rich,” Weiss said. “You’ve got a head start.” Pablo could have a future in appraising with his knack for spotting diamonds in the rough, but he still has a long way to go to match the keen sense of one of the Roadshow's most qualified assessors, Lark Mason. It was Mason who identifed one of the show's most spectacular artifacts of all, and it brought him to tears.

From the moment Mason spotted one woman's object, a marble lion statue, he has eyes for nothing else. It was obvious from the initial establishing shot that Mason was bursting to get to his part of the interaction. Suspense building, the woman explained how the artifact on the table came into her care.

The statue was a family heirloom, passed down to the woman by her mother. They'd first noticed the intimidating artwork on a trip to China decades before, but she wasn't exactly sure when. Mind you, she thought she may have an idea about the object's past.

A friend who had a better understanding of Chinese art had looked over the statue and guessed that it traced back to the Ming dynasty. That would mean the lion was a relic from between the 14th and 17th centuries. But what was it about this statue that made Mason so excited?

When the appraiser started his regular spiel, he was overcome with emotion. His voice broke, and he had to take a moment to compose himself to get the right words out. “Okay. Well, I’ll start out by saying when this came up, I could barely…” he said. And again he choked up.

Clearly, the item on the table was causing this unusual break in composure. Then Mason explained the lion didn't date to the Ming dynasty after all. What the pair had before them was something truly exceptional.

“It’s fantastic. This is truly… Sorry, I’m a little worked up. This is among the finest examples of Chinese art that we have seen on the Roadshow. The carving is beautiful. The workmanship is stunning,” Mason said, adding to the tangible hype.

Mason pointed out the incredible detail — specifically the carved muscles in the lion's back. The marble, too, was of a high standard — the best kind money could buy. But he did need to correct one part of the statue's owner's story.

Getting corrected isn't that annoying, though, when the truth raises the stakes. And Mason told the woman that the statue was older than she'd thought. “This dates from the golden period of Chinese art, which is called the Tang dynasty — between the sixth century and the ninth century,” the expert explained.

Mason said he'd seen other similar statues come to auction, but those were usually much smaller and less grand than the one the woman had brought in. In fact, he let it slip that they were dealing with an object of museum quality.

There were several clues that tipped Mason off to the statue's extreme age — primarily the rough chisel marks on the bottom and the lack of signature. The texture and color of that high-quality marble also confirmed his suspicions.

At long last, Mason spilled the detail that everyone was waiting for: how much was this thing worth? Well, he conservatively guessed that the statue could easily fetch between $120,000 and $180,000! And the good news didn't end there.

Mason continued that the insurance estimation for this fearsome lion would be even higher — between $150,000 to $250,000. For years, the woman unknowingly had a small fortune collecting dust.

The statue's owner thanked Mason for the information that no doubt changed her life forever. And in the end, she actually decided to keep the statue rather than cash out. But while the team at Antiques Roadshow are usually great when it comes to valuing objects correctly, they don't have a completely perfect track record.

One of the most special items Antiques Roadshow has ever seen really doesn’t seem like much. In fact, at first glance, it looks like a dime-a-dozen wooden box your grandmother once used to store things like bobby pins or fancy soap...

But this wooden box goes back further than bobby pins. In fact, it goes back even further than your own grandmother. The small box, which can fit in the palm of your hand, is engraved with the year 1785 — almost 235 years ago. 

Still, its age isn’t what makes this box so special. The truly captivating characteristic of the box is the numbers engraved around the lid. They made for a beautiful design, but as it turned out, they were much more than just decoration.

When Antiques Roadshow viewer Paul Wisken started the episode featuring the box, he figured it would be like any other — except it wasn't. As soon as the mysterious box appeared on screen, he was intrigued. The numbers stood out to him.

Meanwhile, the box’s owner and Antiques Roadshow experts answered the easy questions: It was a Georgian cosmetics box, and as the tradition of that romantic time period goes, it was probably a gift given from a gentleman to his lover.

The box was purchased for around £20 ($30) by the owner’s father. That was all they knew about the box’s lineage of owners. Then, they looked to the outside of the box, where a romantic message was clearly engraved.

“The ring is round and hath no end, so unto my love, now my friend,” the engraving read. What left even the Antiques Roadshow experts stumped, though, were the weird assemblage of numbers on the lid of the box. 

That said, Antiques Roadshow expert Jon Baddeley was able to give some insight as to the box’s centuries-old origin. He knew it once held rouge or makeup patches, and Jon was even able to confirm the name of the original gift-giver.

The name was J Jones. As for the numbers, Jon was as flummoxed as everyone else. “You’ve brought in this tiny little box and many many questions,” Jon told the owner. He was forced to say something no historian ever wants to say.

“I think with this one I’m going to be at a bit of a loss,” he said. He estimated the box’s value at $1,500, adding that it had “sentimental value.” Everyone wondered if cracking the code would add to the monetary value, but there was no Rosetta Stone to reveal the answers.

There was Paul, though, who, back at home, had hatched a plan. “As soon as I heard them say ‘we can’t solve it,’ I thought, ‘I bet I can,’” Paul said. As confident as he was, the retired engineer (and prolific war reenactor) had his work cut out for him.

His natural affinity for numbers and his love of crossword puzzles made this “too much of a challenge to resist, ”as Paul said. He hoped that his lifetime of amateur code-cracking would help him solve the puzzle once and for all.

The grandfather created a system to match digits with letters, starting with double 8s he assumed represented LLs. From there, his complex number system grew. J Jones kept floating into his mind — what was he trying to conceal? 

Even after five hours of work, Paul was unconvinced that he had cracked the code. He had a smattering of words, including “small” and “love,” but couldn’t figure out what the message truly said. Days went by, and still Paul was stumped...

Until a few nights later, that is. He woke up “with a click,” as he said, and realized the word that had eluded him: “gift.” As a whole, the message read, “The gift is small but love is all.”

Finally cracking the code was a triumphant moment for Paul, but he was modest about his accomplishment. “It was a beautiful challenge thrown in my lap,” he said, and he even proclaimed himself as “a bit of a nerd.” 

The fact that the message could be cracked at all was important, since secret codes are pretty much created to be broken. This certainly brought to light even more questions about the lovers who first exchanged this small gift. 

The biggest question is, why hide the lovely message behind code? The only answer that made much sense in this case — or, at least, the answer that had the juiciest implications — was that the couple was in an illicit relationship. 

When Antiques Roadshow was informed of Paul’s discovery, they dubbed him a “genius” — and estimated an added 10-20% to the monetary value of the box. Still, Jon thinks that the box’s significance goes beyond money.

He feels that the cracked code adds even more to the box’s incredible story. With a backstory involving mysterious codes, centuries of secrets, and possible illicit lovers, the vintage box spun quite a mystery! The Antiques Roadshow team appreciated Paul's help. It was a rare miss by them, as the team never misses a beat when it comes to antiques.