Value proposition: appraiser Nancy Escher sorts through facts and fiction to help determine the true worth of property owned by well-heeled collectors.

FROM a small Beverly Hills office brimming with books, Nancy Escher has appraised the personal property of some of L.A.'s largest art collectors. Her clients include the Huntington Library, the Eli Broad Family Foundation and the Internal Revenue Service. She has also appraised the estates of Ansel Adams, Cary Grant and abstract artist Sam Francis, one of her largest assignments to date. Starting at $200 per hour, Escher crafted a niche in fine art and books. She is married to Christopher Trumbo, son of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo ("Roman Holiday") who was imprisoned for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.

Question: How did you come to be an appraiser?

Answer: My mother's side of the family worked for a wonderful company that supplied door-to-door essences and cooking spices and herbs. In 1910, the founders of the company did the grand tour in Europe, buying 19th century European paintings with a few impressionists. Many of the paintings were divided among my grandfather and his siblings, so there were a few things remaining my mother inherited. There was something signed by (Paul) Gauguin that turned out to be wrong. At that point, I realized maybe there was some social redeeming value for this kind of work. From generation to generation, stories get passed down and embellished along the way. It's up to the appraiser to sort out the mythology from the reality.

Q: How long does it take to appraise a piece of art?

A: When I was working in an antiquarian bookshop, you had three minutes per book to catalog it. So I just use that as a rule of thumb. You write down the size, the artist's name, and you take the painting off the wall and see if there's anything on the back.

Q: How often do you see forgeries?

A: Just in the last month, I've seen two fake (Francisco) Zunigas of bronze and a fake (Auguste) Rodin watercolor and a fake Egon Schiele. Fakes and forgeries are a big problem. People will try to get me to write an insurance claim on a property with no value, or get an insurance policy they can use for collateral. When a client doesn't take his sunglasses off the whole time you're talking, you don't want to take his business. I met with one such photographer who wanted to get his transparencies insured. One of them was a color photograph of the New York City Marathon, taken from the top of a bridge. It was great photograph, but he was so suspicious, I told him I couldn't help him. A week later I opened the National Geographic, and there was the same photograph by a different photographer.

Q: How do you know if something is a forgery?

A: You have a suspicion. The Zuniga sculpture wasn't in the catalog. I've worked on Schieles before, so I have familiarized myself with the work. In this one, I went to a catalog, and it was a similar drawing but with a different style signature. If it's not in the catalog, you go to the author or the foundation of the estate of whoever is responsible for the catalog and submit it to them. It was a celebrity estate, so I spoke to the business manager who talked to the widow. I think she knew she paid very little for them.

Q: How often do you appraise something that ends up being worth very little?

A: It happens more than you would think--just about every time somebody calls and just wants to know what they have. Those blind calls rarely tuna into something significant. There ate people who have unrealistic expectations.

Q: How has the appraisal business changed?

A: In the past, it was pretty much a sideline. The dealers would do appraisals. Since I started out in the early '80s, I've seen this go from a trade to a sideline to a profession with standards and educational opportunities and organizational associations.

Q: How do you get business?

A: I do virtually no advertising. I get my work when one of my clients sees my reports. When an insurance company of a law firm sees a qualified appraisal, they remember the work. It's through referrals.

Q: Describe your typical day.

A: If I have an appointment, I get in the suit, put on tasteful accessories and clean the car. I have two very hairy dogs. And then I get my equipment. The tape recorder, the camera, the tape measure, the black light, the microscope lens, white gloves, the job sheet, the clipboard, a pencil--never use a pen around art--and then I figure out where I'm going.

Q: What was your first professional exposure to the business?

A: I was living in Vermont in the early '70s and I was hired to work in a bookshop. I was asked to do an inventory for some tax purpose and started finding first editions. I had graduated from college with a history of art degree, and I was looking to see how I could do something with historical preservation. When I got divorced, I moved to New York and worked at the Gotham Book Mart, which is a historical landmark in American modern literature. They specialized in modern first edition poetry and theater and film. Gotham Book Mart is where all the poets would come in, like Allen Ginsburg and Patricia Smith. Then I got hired by a bookseller out here, and that's how I moved out here.

Q: You do some work for lawyers and law enforcement. How is that different from regular appraisals?

A: I like working with law enforcement because you feel like you're performing some sort of duty. When somebody's rich and wants to know how rich, you're not changing the world. The issue of identification is the most important when working with law enforcement. You can't value something unless you can accurately identify it. And very often, the accurate identification has to do with the authenticity or attribution.

Q: What was the hardest thing you had to appraise?

A: A client who was not knowledgeable of Old Master paintings had apparently taken a group of them in lieu of debt. One was an Anthony van Dyck. It was a beautiful painting, but it was not signed and we needed to get the attribution from an authority. I went to all the published sources, all the exhibitions and then collected a pool of experts. I found out it had been in a show at Princeton 20 years ago. There had been a question of its attribution at that point. The person who had questioned its attribution was doing a graduate thesis on early van Dyck. I found her in Texas and asked her if she still considered her attribution from 20 years ago to be accurate. She came to Los Angeles, looked at the painting, and decided it was (genuine). That painting went from being worth maybe $100,000 (without authentication) to a great deal more.

Q: Why do you charge so much?

A: I charge as much as I do because of the liability. When you're talking about millions of dollars, that liability lies right on my shoulders. All the taxes, the way the properties are distributed to the heirs, how the foundation will be set up, will all be based on the value of that property. If I say this painting is not a Zuniga, and you sell it, and it turns out to be a Zuniga, then I'm liable.

Q: What did you appraise for the Cary Grant estate?

A: After he died, his wife Barbara (Hutton) gave some things to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There were two large, autographed photographs of Mae West. There was a lot of photography, letters and some photos of Cary Grant as a young man. He was English, so one of the things that was very appealing was his English driver's license with his real name (Archibald Alec Leach).

Q: What's it like to be married into the Trumbo family?

A: I never met Trumbo. He died in '76 and I met Chris in '79. Chris has been a very important part of my business. He introduced me to the woman who worked for my first employer. It was an immediate fit. It was one of those light bulb moments.

INTERVIEW

Nancy Escher

Title: Founder and Chief Executive

0rganization: Escher Associates

Born: Englewood, N.J., 1948

Education: Bachelor's degree in art history, Briarcliffe College, 1970

Career Turning Point: Elected to the personal property committee of the American Society of Appraisers in 1994

Most Admired Person: Her husband, Christopher Trumbo; and Richard-Raymond Alasko, former president of the American Society of Appraisers

Hobbies: Swimming, gardening and walking her dogs

Personal: Married