GUEST: It's hard to say where I got it.

It was at least 30 years ago.

I'd go to estate sales sometimes.

I bought items in, um, boxes, or just a whole bunch of stuff on a table.

But I, I saw that was special to some degree, so I kept her.

(chuckles) APPRAISER: We know this artist.

Definitely is by Andrew Clemens, who was from McGregor, Iowa.

GUEST: Wonderful.

APPRAISER: And he had a disease as a child that caused him to lose his hearing.

So he went to the Iowa School for the Deaf and probably learned the basics of doing something like this there.

But he took it to another level, and he's become very well-known, much more well-known than he was in his lifetime.

He only lived to 37.

Born 1857, died in 1894.

Most of the time, he put pre-printed labels on the bottom of 'em, and it probably had a paper label on it at one time.

He perfected the art of harvesting the limestone off the walls near the Mississippi.

GUEST: Amazing.

APPRAISER: He... And he and his brother would pick things for certain colors, and then they would grind 'em up to a fine powder.

And every bit of that is done by compaction.

He did these in different sizes in pharmacy or apothecary bottles.

This is the smallest size.

He did 'em up to about ten inches.

And you could actually order one that had your name on it, or a date, or... He put eagles and locomotives and all kinds of stuff on there.

But what makes this an Andrew Clemens bottle?

First of all, it's the precision.

To me... GUEST: It's amazing.

APPRAISER: Yeah, he-- some of the bottles... GUEST: I can't even imagine how he could do that.

APPRAISER: Well, and that's why people love 'em so much.

He would pack it in there so tight with so much great detail-- he even shipped 'em.

This geometric stuff, like you see along the bottom and the top, and the flowers, were one of the things that he started doing pretty early on.

I think the cool thing about this is the sailing scene.

GUEST: Oh, that is neat.

APPRAISER: And we know that this one is probably from the 1880s, 'cause by that time, he had developed the technique of doing these nice floral scenes and the scene with his little sailing boats on the back of it.

I talked to my buddies at the folk art table, and we're very comfortable with this being in a retail range of $25,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Ooh, wow.

(laughs) (laughing) I'm thinking again about that selling... No, I'm not.

(chuckles) Maybe-- I, that's a lot of money.

That's great.