How's it going?

HEIDI: Hi.

RICK HARRISON: So what do we have here?

HEIDI: I brought you some beautiful historical books.

These are the 1814-1815 publication

of the "Naval History of the United C

that are signed by President John Adams.

RICK HARRISON: Oh, sweet.

So this is the history of the United States Navy?

That's cool.

HEIDI: Yes.

We've had the most high-tech ships in the world.

The USS Constitution had the nickname Old Ironsides.

That's because in the War of 1812,

a British frigate fired on it.

The cannon balls bounced off the side of it.

HEIDI: That's awesome.

RICK HARRISON: And they got the nickname Old Ironsides.

So we have--

HEIDI: Inside of each book is a book

plate from the personal library of President John Adams.

RICK HARRISON: Whoa.

That's fancy.

HEIDI: The publisher signed these books

and gave them as a gift to President John Adams

right here.

RICK HARRISON: OK.

HEIDI: There's one other additional fact, too.

Right here, the books have been given

to Lieutenant Charles Thomas Clark,

and they are signed from President Adams.

That is cool.

How much were you asking for them?

$200,000.

I've sold books that belonged to early presidents

for a lot of money before, so let

me call up a friend of mine.

If there's anybody on the planet who will know everything

about these, it will be her.

OK, sounds great.

I look forward to talking to an expert to see what they think

about these amazing books.

[ding]

This is the uber book nerd I was telling you about.

HEIDI: Wonderful.

And you have something for me to nerd out?

Um, yes.

We have two books from President Adams' library.

She wants a lot of money for them, and I don't know.

They're books.

There's a million and one questions.

Oh.

"Presented as a mark of respect to his excellency, John Adams,

Esquire, by the publisher."

That's nice.

I mean, it's part of the history of how this book

came to be in the first place.

This is "Clark's Naval History."

There's a close connection that John Adams has to this book.

So Thomas Clark was an acquaintance of his,

and he encouraged Clark to write this naval history

in the first place.

Oh, that's so cool.

This is post-War of 1812.

This is the second edition.

And the first edition was only in one volume.

And the second edition was greatly revised and expanded.

And you know where those revisions

and expansions came from?

Hmm?

John Adams talking to both Clark and the publisher Carey

about what he felt should be included.

So as far as the type of volumes you

could have that were once in John Adams' library,

this is pretty interesting.

RICK HARRISON: OK.

People love presidents.

And the founding fathers in particular

formed a nation based on intellectual ideas

that they were reading.

So if you have a book that one of these founding fathers

was reading, it's kind of a big deal.

But this, kind of a problem.

Because when the provenance is here

and then it is modernly attached here,

there can be questions about whether this

originally went with that.

Lucky you, this has evidence of offsetting,

which is only going to happen over

a very long period of time.

These were together.

And this is the right book plate for John Adams.

And there are no red flags for me

as far as tampering that it could

have been added on modernly.

RICK HARRISON: OK.

But there is one problem.

The thing that gets people really excited

is when you have writing in the person's hand.

This is not John Adams' hand.

And this is 1817.

Adams suffered from palsy.

He very often wouldn't write things himself.

You can still find letters from his time.

But he had secretaries do a lot of his writing.

That means you're losing one of the major reasons

that people collect such a volume.

So for that reason, I would evaluate

this more around the range of $10,000 to $12,000.

RICK HARRISON: OK.

Wow.

Thanks.

You're the best.

REBECCA ROMNEY: Glad to help. Thanks.

Thank you.

Take care.

Where I work, we sell autographed letters

by John Adams.

I'm very familiar with his autograph.

I'm very familiar with his handwriting.

It's something that I can recognize immediately.

And that's what I did not see when I opened the book today.

So do you have another figure besides $200,000?

[laughter]

[music playing]

The lowest I would go is about $50,000.

Yeah, the most I'm going to go is 10.

There you have it.

- Thanks for bringing them in. - Hey.

Well, cool.

Nice to learn about them.

Thanks for your time.

RICK HARRISON: Thanks.

It's unfortunate that we couldn't make a deal.

But I'm pretty sure I'll find a good home for them anyway.