GUEST: I got it at a thrift store.

I was looking for frames, actually, 'cause I'm an amateur artist, and I saw this old frame, and it had been painted black.

Had overpainted the painting, as well.

But I bought the frame.

I paid, uh, three dollars for it.

And that was about ten years ago.

I took it home and deframed it, and, uh, I could see the color on the edge of the, uh... Where it was overlapped, it was still bright.

So I got some acetone and cleaned it up.

And I got down to the signature, and didn't know who that was.

Looked it up on the internet, and I said, "Oh, he's a known artist."

(laughs) APPRAISER: Right.

Good for you.

GUEST: So that was fun, yep.

APPRAISER: Yeah, well, you found something nice.

This is a painting by Edgar Payne, and it depicts the Canyon de Chelly in Northern Arizona.

It's an oil on canvas board, and probably executed in the 1930s to early 1940s.

Edgar Payne was born in 1883 and he died in 1947.

He only studied art briefly at the Art Institute... GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: of Chicago.

He was mainly self-taught, and earned a living painting murals and signs and houses.

And then, eventually, in 1917, he got a big commission through the Santa Fe Railroad to go to tour the Southwest and paint, as a form of advertising.

APPRAISER: And that's the first time that he visited the Canyon de Chelly.

And he loved it so much that he revisited over and over again, until the early 1940s.

GUEST: Mm.

APPRAISER: One thing that is notable about these paintings is the majestic mountains and the colors that he used.

He was known as a plein air painter, and he would go outdoors and paint at all different times of the day.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And another thing that he's known for is the scale and the discrepancy in the scale of the mountains and the figures.

GUEST: Oh, really?

(chuckling) APPRAISER: Do you have any idea, um, what the value is on something like this?

GUEST: Uh, no.

APPRAISER: Have you researched it, it at all?

GUEST: Well, a local art dealer in our town, he offered me, like, 14K for it after I found out who the painter was.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: But I wasn't interested in selling it, so... APPRAISER: Well, uh, at auction, it would easily sell within the range of $15,000 to $25,000.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Many of these paintings ha, that have come up for auction have gone for much more, in the 30s and even low 40s.

GUEST: That was a good three-dollar investment, anyway.

(laughing) APPRAISER: Right