GUEST: I actually inherited them almost 20 years ago.

It was on my mother's side.

They got to my mother from her Uncle Robert, and then before Robert, it was with George.

So, from what I understand, these spoons were part of a, like, story time.

So, for instance, Uncle Bob would, you know, sit all the kids down, and he would display the spoons.

He said that they were Revere spoons, as in Paul Revere.

APPRAISER: And how did he know that?

GUEST: Because he had inherited them from his father.

APPRAISER: So as you know, these are marked with the name Revere.

This is a set of six spoons that is also engraved with the letters "A.A." at the downturned tip.

That "A.A." may relate to a family in Boston, Anna Amory.

And I don't know if there's any relationship between an Amory family and your family, but Paul Revere's record books show a great deal of silver made for Anna Amory and Anna Amory's family in 1796, much of which was marked with this same "A.A." intersecting at the bottom.

We'll date these right around 1796, because of the possible connection to the Anna Amory service.

So besides being a patriot and a Son of Liberty, Paul Revere also came from a silversmithing family.

His father, Paul Revere, Sr., was a silversmith in his own right, and I believe died just before Paul could legally take over the business.

So he had to apprentice for a little while.

Then of course, there was an American Revolution in the middle there.

Paul Revere, Jr.--this being Paul Revere, Jr.'s work--has certainly emerged as the more desirable of the Revere silversmiths.

What I'd really love to be able to do with these is to dig into that history.

His account books are fascinating.

They list somewhere around 5,000 silver objects that he made.

He was one of Boston's most accomplished silversmiths in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Spoons like these don't come up very often.

They're an unusual size, about seven-and-a-quarter inches, which is sort of in between a tablespoon and a teaspoon.

APPRAISER: So we'd call these a small tablespoon, rarer than teaspoons and rarer than tablespoons, but tablespoons still are the most desirable.

Were these to come up in an auction of like property and well-publicized, we'd expect them to carry an auction estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Wow.

Really?

APPRAISER: If you were to want to have these insured, you'd probably be looking at a value closer to about $50,000 for the set of six.

GUEST: Wow, that's amazing.

(laughing): That is--that's amazing.