GUEST: I brought an original Howard Finster piece that I purchased in 1993 when I visited Paradise Gardens in Summerville, Georgia.

I was a high school art teacher, and I was bringing my students for the day to walk around.

And at the time, they didn't charge you admission.

You could just walk around.

And I was told that sometimes he'd be in the shop, and you could get him to sign pieces and I happened to look out that day.

He was there.

I saw him sitting in the rocking chair.

He was very engaging, and he talked for a really long time and he let us take a lot of pictures and he signed our pieces that we bought.

APPRAISER: Finster was born in 1916, and he pretty much had a religious life.

Early on, he had a Baptist radio show.

GUEST: Oh, I didn't know that.

APPRAISER: Uh, in the '30s and the '40s.

He started to create art, and this garden became a, a destination for a lot of people that loved what at that time, and still to this day, they call "outsider art."

APPRAISER: He operated outside the boundaries of the normal art world.

In the 1980s, he did an album cover for R.E.M.

and an album cover, a great one, for Talking Heads.

APPRAISER: And that's what put him on the, on the map.

And then everyone started to come to the garden.

And was the garden just, like, overflowing with artwork?

GUEST: Yes, everywhere you turned.

He turned anything he could grab into art.

There were piles of bicycles, what people would call junk.

APPRAISER: When you read about Paradise Garden, sometimes the account is, there were over 40,000 pieces of art that were installed there.

GUEST: It was everywhere.

APPRAISER: It's, it's mind-blowing.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: It really is-- so this is a wonderful little house.

He used very light wood, it's almost like balsa wood.

It took paint easy, and he used paint, and in this case, he used glitter, which is kind of nice.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And a magic marker.

And on the back, it's dated when you bought it, in March of 1993.

And it has biblical sayings on it.

"Set thy house in order."

"Kingdoms divided cannot stand."

"Families who pray together stay together."

It's signed on the bottom, "To Evelyn."

APPRAISER: So he personalized it.

In the back, we see a priced tag.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: And how much was that?

GUEST: $35.

APPRAISER: And you didn't ask for a discount?

GUEST: No.

(both laugh) GUEST: We weren't allowed to.

There was a little sign that said "priced as marked."

(laughs) APPRAISER: Ah, okay.

He's had a bit of a resurgence and there are a lot of new collectors that want a piece of his work.

I think people are familiar with his angels... GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: ...and his Coca-Cola bottles.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: So I'm going to say, in a retail setting, I feel comfortable placing a value on this somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000.

GUEST: Wow.

(laughs) I'm-- everybody says wow, but wow!

(both laugh) GUEST: I had no clue.

My, my family's made fun of me for years with this, that ugly piece of art that I've had on a shelf.