- All right, what do you have here?
I've got a handwritten letter from George Washington himself.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Where did you get this?
So I found it at an estate sale in Richmond, Virginia.
Bought a nice decorative mirror.
Get to the house, go to put the mirror up,
and the cloth that covered the back of it ripped open.
And taped underneath, down at the very bottom,
was that guy right there.
This is really interesting.
How much you want for it?
About $3,500.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Something like this that deals with historic events,
we're probably talking a lot more.
My best guess at the moment is, if this letter is all legit,
it should be worth at least $100,000.
Wow.
I'm just not buying the fact that a handwritten letter
from George Washington was just found in the back of a mirror.
People spend a lot of money faking things that
are worth this kind of money.
So I'm going to call someone up.
I'm going to get him down here.
I'm going to get him to look at this.
OK.
Just the thought of leaving here today with a big sack of cash,
it gives you a lot of anxiety.
But it makes you excited too.
Stuart.
- Hey, how are you, Rick? - Good.
Hey, Corey.
Good to see you again.
With this much cash on the line, I need to be 100% sure.
And Stuart is my go-to guy on historical documents.
STUART: I was really excited when you called me
over because this is actually pretty
important American history.
This is one of the first times that George
Washington really used the power of the federal government.
People were uprising--
OK.
--in Western Pennsylvania, didn't want to pay taxes,
tarring and feathering the tax collectors,
which may still be a famous American pastime these days.
I don't think it's a bad idea.
[LAUGHTER]
All right.
What questions can I answer for you, Rick?
OK.
Is it really signed by George Washington?
And how much is the damn thing worth?
OK, in the pantheon of American
presidential autographs, there are three at the top--
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.
About 10 years ago, there were a couple George Washington
letters that dealt with the Whiskey
Rebellion that sold for about $120,000, $130,000 at auction.
It would probably be higher now.
There are few things I use to authenticate
these types of documents.
So first, I'm looking for period paper.
They used what's called laid paper back then.
So there should be parallel lines about an inch apart,
if you hold it up to the light.
See those lines that run down?
Oh, yeah.
So that definitely is period paper.
That's a good sign for you.
The next thing I want to check is
to make sure this is in George Washington's handwriting.
So I brought in an example here.
Let's look at a commonly used word like "the."
So we can find a word "the" there, and a "the" there.
And if you start looking at the overall feel of it,
the letter formation, completely different.
So unfortunately, this is not in George
Washington's handwriting.
One thing this could possibly be is the body of the letter
is in Washington secretary's handwriting,
and Washington signed the letter.
All right.
Let's come over here and look at the George Washingtons side
by side.
And here, he signs "GEO Washington," where in life, he
usually signed "GO Washington."
You can see that it's very different than the way
it's written over here.
Yeah, so I don't think this is in George
Washington's handwriting or signed by George Washington
at all.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Ah, that sucks.
You have a really nice napkin.
However, I do believe it is old and antique.
This is called a contemporary copy.
It probably is 220 years old.
If somebody wanted to keep a record of the original,
they would make a copy for themselves.
This probably has a retail value of about $4,000.
Nice.
So you're telling me that a copy is actually worth $4,000.
STUART: Right.
Copies can be worth money.
And this one has really terrific content.
This would be about as good a contemporary copy
as you can get.
All right, well, thanks for busting his bubble.
STUART: Anytime. - [LAUGHS]
Thanks, bud.
STUART: Nice to see you again.
When I came over to the shop, I knew
that the original George Washington letter
was in the Library of Congress.
However, sometimes famous people make more than one copy
of famous letters, and I thought perhaps
this would be one of them.
For example, Abraham Lincoln actually
wrote out five different copies of the Gettysburg Address
in his lifetime.
I don't mean to beat you up, but I'd
give you 1,000 bucks for it.
Uh-- I feel like that's leaving $3,000 for you
to just snatch up the next time somebody comes along to buy it.
Let's go $2,000.
I'll be out the door right now with two grand.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you 1,500 bucks.
That's the best I can go.
Look around my shop.
You'll find all kinds of things from the 1700s.
With $1,500, you got a deal.
All right.
Write him up, Corey.
All right, man, come with me.
$1,500 is a lot of money.
And to be able to walk away with just that today,
I'm pretty satisfied.
It feels good.