I've been in the business for a long time and I've always told people they are nothing more than a quess. The value of any item is what someone is willing to pay. That changes every day. You can look on Ebay for one sold for, but that was the highest buyer and he now has one, so it is now only worth what the losing bidder offered. The market is fluid and always changing. There is a range that depends on many things, at best.

I always wanted to go there and them say my item is worth $10,000. to which I would reply, give me $2,00 and it's yours and see what happens.

years younger than originally thought, and now we know it was made by a 'nobody' (so to speak), and that cuts the guess by 90%? But it's still the same jug, with the exact same aesthetic values as before.

Seems like the original appraisal breaks down to $3,000-5,000 for the jug, and $25,000-47,000 for the story...

I have a multi-media painting and bas-relief of the Virgin Mary encased in barbed wire that a friend painted about a decade ago. I paid $50 for it because someone else offered her $40 for it. That same person, saying the painting has haunted her for years and she needs to own it, offered me $1000 for it. Now, Ellie isn't some great artist...she's good enough to have a gallery showing but she's no Julian Schnabel or anything...but she's good enough that my painting is worth at-least $1000 now.

As a collector who has four more of her pieces and as a friend, I should probably sell it, if only as a favor to her, as it establishes a market value for her work far above what she sells for now.

and the real Dick Cheney.

and to a lessor degree on the general public.