This vase is worth how much?

This is the kind of story where you can't help but imagine (your name here) every time it mentions Jim or Tina Landeen.

For if good fortune can shine on the Landeens, why not on us? We have ugly vases, too -- or tarnished platters, or spindly tables, or weird mustache cups. Maybe, just maybe, someone will also offer to pay (your name here) thousands of dollars.

There is, of course, some disagreement as to whether the vase in question is ugly. Jim, who's 69, said he's had it since he was a little kid growing up in Thief River Falls, Minn. He's not sure how the vase came into his family, but figures that a neighboring farmer, the classic Norwegian bachelor, gave it to his mother. The farmer raised turkeys and the vase actually is an award of some sort. Around the rim are the words: For Excellence Awarded By The 1934 All American Turkey Show Grand Forks N.D.

At any rate, Jim claimed it for his own and parked it on a shelf in his bedroom. "I've just always loved it," he said, with its greenish patina and image of three turkeys roosting on a tree branch silhouetted against a full moon. Still, while disputing its ugliness, his favorable adjective goes little further than "intriguing."

When he and Tina were married 42 years ago, the vase came with the husband. Tina, 66, is an artsy sort whose bangs are streaked with red dye. You get the feeling that she's always regarded the vase with a sideways grimace. She freely calls it ugly. "Don't you think it's ugly?" she asked.

Over the years, the vase moved in and out of sight in their modest Burnsville home. Tina would bury it in the basement for a while, then Jim would spirit it back upstairs. Its usual upstairs perch was atop a rickety sideboard whose corner the kids would always bump as they tore around the house.

"Why it never fell and broke, I'll never know," Tina said.

Life probably would have gone on like that -- up and down, back and forth -- had the Landeens not gone to the annual Junk Bonanza at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee. They both like to poke around old stuff and it was in mid-poke that they ran into Carole Kralicek.

Kralicek appraises antiques, an interest throughout her life that became more serious after she retired as director of North Dakota's small-business development center. Having moved to St. Paul to be closer to her grandchildren, Kralicek began working at charitable events modeled after the popular "Antiques Roadshow" program on public TV.

At the Junk Bonanza, she was handing out her card, telling passersby of an upcoming "Roadshow"-like fundraiser for the Burnsville Lions Club. Jim remembers her asking them if they had anything valuable at home and he laughed, telling her they had an ugly old turkey vase.

"She grabbed my arm," he said, then asked him if he knew where it was from. "When I said North Dakota, she grabbed my arm even harder. It was like being on TV, only not. But it still was quite a surprise."

Bom, bom, bom is how Kralicek recalls her heart beating at the mention of "ugly turkey vase." When Jim said it was signed by a Margaret Cable, "my heart really went pa-DUM," she said. "Signed, dated -- I knew it was good."

Cable was known as "the North Dakota poet of the potter's wheel," from 1910 to 1949, when she taught and led the Ceramics Department at the University of North Dakota School of Mines. From its beginning in 1898, UND was known for its pottery, and North Dakota clay became known for its superior qualities. Potters worked with clays named Dickinson, Beulah, Hebron, Mandan, Weigel, McCurdy and Hettinger.

The state's clay industry actually was rooted in economic development, making sewer tiles and bricks, according to Donald Miller, a professor of art at UND who recently curated a centennial exhibition featuring the school's historic art pottery, including creations by Cable. (To learn more, visit www.pottery.und.edu.)

Cable's position as director of a university's ceramics department was unusual for a woman in the early 1900s. Miller said that part of an instructor's salary came from commissions, so she would have welcomed a turkey association's request for a commemorative vase in the midst of the Great Depression. Such a vase wouldn't have been especially indicative of her artistry, given that its purpose was purely commercial, he said, "but I'm sure it was done with the same quality and care for craftmanship."

The Landeens' vase is likely to be one of two commemorative turkey vases that Cable made. The other sold last year at an auction in New Jersey. Appraised at $4,000 to $6,000, the winning bid was $14,400.

The Landeens no longer have the vase at home, but in a safe deposit box. "I hate to pick it up now," Jim said.

After being the featured "lucky people" at Saturday's benefit, they will happily field bids from interested parties, unencumbered by family history or sentiment. "It's nice to find something that's so precious," Tina said. "But even to Jim, it's just a vase he likes."

"It's so intriguing, it can't be worth nothing," Jim said, with an optimist's logic.

(Your name here) couldn't have said it better.

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185