[music playing]
MIKE: I'm feeling the sign here.
Ooh.
Oh, you've got the-- all with the flame in it.
Wow.
The guy swore it came out of Times Square.
Yeah, really?
That's the story.
MIKE: For me, this piece is the definition
of the word artifact.
It's cultural, it's historical, and it's man-made.
TOM: What I like, Mike, is look at the middle of the A.
MIKE: Yeah.
TOM: How quickly would you lose that?
MIKE: Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You get that down around any kind of human level,
it's gonna be poked out. MIKE: Yeah.
TOM: So this is up.
MIKE: If this hung in Times Square back in the day,
maybe in the '70s, someone hung it to make a statement.
This was a piece of art that represented a higher power.
This is my--
$650.
Can you come up to 7?
MIKE: $675.
[chuckles]
- All right. - It's all right.
We're doing it.
DANIELLE: And I'm gonna be quite honest.
The Bert Grimm flash is the reason I'm here.
When Tom sent me photos, that was the first thing
I locked in on.
What do you got to have for this piece of Bert Grimm flash?
TOM: 18 on that.
That's a solid.
First of all, it's large and it's absolutely beautiful.
It's, like, a best of the yellow rose,
red roses, the girl in the moon.
DANIELLE: It's such a beautiful piece of classic tattoo flash--
it's such a wonderful collection all put together.
And it's kind of every piece of flash
that you would expect to be on a poster like that.
18 on this? TOM: 18.
18 on this.
TOM: Yup. - And--
6 on that.
DANIELLE: You wanted 6 on this one.
Yeah. That's kind of low on that one.
DANIELLE: All right.
If I do 'em both, can you do better for me?
I have to hold at the prices.
No, I'm sorry.
You're holding it those prices.
[laughs] I'm sorry.
But I'll tell you what--
so my struggle is I absolutely love the Bert Grimm pieces.
TOM: Right.
DANIELLE: And there's so much history to them,
and they're beautiful, and they're, original
and they're not prints.
But that Percy Waters right there--
- Yeah. - --I'm in love with, as well.
TOM: Wow.
DANIELLE: So I'm having this internal struggle.
TOM: I feel your pain.
DANIELLE: The difference is that's a blueprint,
these are original pieces of art.
And I'm gonna have to go with the original pieces of art.
I'm gonna have to leave the Percy Waters behind.
And I know I'm gonna cry about it later, but that's--
TOM: Well, it'll be here.
I see where you're going I can understand your reasons.
It makes sense.
You know, you want original, real art.
You want something you're not gonna see anywhere else,
it's yours. - Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And, yeah, I think you made the right choice.
All right.
Oh, we're in it to win it, man.
- OK. - OK.
[sighs] - Good.
Good. Went to a good home.
I'm glad. All right.
Digging it.
DANIELLE: I mean, to be able to walk out
of here with flash art pieces by Captain Jack Howard and Bert--
it's been a big day, and I've seen a lot of rare art here.
MIKE (VOICEOVER): This is the kind of stuff
that you do not want to make a mistake with because it
can be really expensive.
Thank god I've got Danielle here,
because she is so much more knowledgeable than I am in
regards to flash art.
All right.
I got to ask about the Uncle Sam, man.
This is an incredible piece of Americana.
TOM: Papier mache.
MIKE: It's papier mache.
So this is made by a company called Old King Cole,
and they made a lot of store displays.
They made a lot of point of sale pieces for different companies.
And this is, I feel like, right around
the turn of the century, like leaning into, like,
maybe '05, 1910.
TOM: Yeah. yeah.
MIKE: It's early.
If you had a storefront in the early half of the 20th century,
your store displays were probably made by Old King Cole.
It was a huge, successful company.
OK.
So right here there's two holes.
Yeah.
That's the only damage that I see.
And then, obviously, with this much paint flaking,
that's gonna continue.
You know.
TOM: That's the thing.
It's corn flaking a little bit. But it's--
DANIELLE: I mean, but man, it's--
anything Uncle Sam is hot. - I know.
I know.
And he's got that whimsical look about him.
Yeah.
He's got age, the fire in his eye,
and his whole glance is good.
The Uncle Sam piece, I love.
It's just absolutely one of those things that's a miracle,
number one, it's still alive.
You can see the pattern here that was there.
Like, you can see a few stars.
But it's wear. You know?
Yeah.
No, it's great patina.
You know what?
It's amazing that it even still exists
because of what it's made of. - Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
MIKE: You know.
TOM: And it hasn't been restored.
MIKE: So what are you thinking on it?
What are you thinking for something like this?
Do we have smelling salts handy?
Yeah.
I'm thinking, like, $8 grand.
OK.
I-- I think that you wouldn't be out of line--
Mm-hmm.
--if it wasn't for its condition.
MIKE: Tom is looking at this piece as an artist.
Him and I are on the same page in regards to patina,
it's showing it's history, all of that stuff.
I'm coming at it from a collector standpoint
in the back end of it, where it's
like, whoever's gonna to look at it in my shop
it's all about condition.
You know, it truly is.
Because when you talk about high test stuff, you know,
people say the good stuff's always good.
What they're talking about is not just the item.
They're talking about the condition of the item itself.
After looking past the idea that it still exists--
TOM: Yeah.
--you still have to look at the condition of it.
Yeah.
So when you're talking, you know, $6 grand, $8 grand,
whatever it is, you have to take that into account.
TOM: You're probably right.
I like stuff that's beat up.
I like stuff that survived.
If it were perfect, I probably wouldn't even want it.
It has a presence about it that I don't think--
MIKE: You're right. You're exactly right.
I mean, to be honest with you, it commands the room.
I mean, I know you and Dani are into the flash art and stuff.
Yeah. MIKE: And I can appreciate that.
Your eye goes go that.
MIKE: But when I walk in here-- TOM: Yeah.
MIKE: That's the first thing I see.
TOM: Yeah.
I'd do 6,000 bucks on it.
It's all about the condition.
Yeah.
It holds a room.
I'll meet you halfway.
What, you're talking about 7k?
Yes.
MIKE: It's the condition, when you start talking into numbers
like that, I have to consider.
To be honest with you, it's the first one
I've ever physically seen.
I've seen pictures in books and maybe something in an auction
a long time ago.
But this is-- it's right in front of me and I can buy it.
It's obtainable.
To me, it's like a weathervane.
And in a weathervane--
I'd do-- I do 6,500 bucks.
68.
66.
We're 200 apart.
All right.
- Are we doing it? - All right.
Thank you. - All right.
I appreciate you.