GUEST: This is a chalice that's been in my family for at least four generations.

My great-grandmother was gifted it by the nanny that looked after my grandmother, because she arranged to have the nanny's daughter, uh, received in America when they were fleeing after World War II.

My great-grandparents were stationed in Germany shortly after World War II.

I believe it's from Germany.

It was gifted to my great-grandmother by a German resident.

Um, it actually comes apart in three pieces, and the nanny that gifted it to my great-grandmother said that they used to take it apart so that each family could leave with a piece after they had had communion in secret.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: And that way, if they were stopped by the Gestapo with each of the pieces, it was less apparent what it was and what they were doing with it... APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: ...because my great-grandmother was Catholic and so was the nanny, and they were being persecuted for that.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

And indeed, uh, Germany is where it's from, but it's from a very specific place in Germany called Augsburg.

It was described, Augsburg, as the, uh, center of capitalism in Europe... GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER:...in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

Uh, so, it was a very important manufacturing area.

When I saw you bring it towards us, I thought, "Oh, my gosh, it's probably a 19th century Renaissance copy."

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Uh, but in fact, this piece is a period piece.

Uh, it is 16th and 17th century.

There are marks on it.

The first mark that we see is for the city of Augsburg.

There's like, a pinecone shape.

It looks like it's cross-hatched.

And then the second mark appears to be a "KB" or a "BK."

You can see that the "K" is backwards.

There's still a lot of research that needs to be done on who exactly this maker is.

You can see all along, the animals.

So, it has this sense of, uh, hunting.

As you can see, there's a little bit of religion going on here.

We, we have a cherub with angel wings.

I wonder how much of it was actually used for religious purposes, ecclesiastical purposes, or whether it was probably just a... a guy who had made a lot of money in Augsburg (laughing) at the time... and was kind of showing off to his friends.

This is a silver gilt goblet.

It probably originally had a lid to it.

It was an expensive piece in its day.

I mentioned silver gilt.

So, you see, it's golden... APPRAISER:...but there's silver underneath.

And then, along these edges, you see they haven't gilded that little frill.

So, they're giving you this two-tone effect of silver and gold.

It's just a, a real masterpiece of... of silversmithing.

We're looking at a piece 16th, 17th century.

It's missing its lid, however.

APPRAISER: So I would probably put an auction estimate on it of $5,000 to $7,000.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: Yeah, yeah.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: It's really quite, uh, quite wonderful.

GUEST: It's pretty astounding... APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST:...to have something that old.