Antiques Roadshow

[boom3]

My favorite show and the only show I watch with any regularity. Which begs the question: Why doesn't the show ever feature any electronics? Do they not have any experts to appraise old gear?

Among my favorite moments:

Leigh Keno finding the husk of an insect in a pie safe and exclaiming that it had "great surface patina".

The Kenos getting a little old lady nearly half-a-mill for her 18th century card table.

Sisters dancing because their Tiffany lamp is valued at $125K.

The guy from FL who had made his collection of costume jewelery into a hat.

The tactful way the appraisers tell poor souls their items are repros or outright frauds.

[Ritz]

It is a good show and one can learn a lot. Your suggestion is a great one and I suggest you write it in and see if they bite.

[oscarsear]

They have had some electronic gear on the show. They did a 1930's baby monitor system that was very art deco and encased in bakelite. In the current running one of the Keno twins found a live cockroach in some ladies cabinet (boy was she embarrassed). And....the man who made a hat from costume jewelry was a woman, but very hard to distinguish (how about androgenous).

Been a favorite show of mine for years. One lady showed up with a Beatles "butcher" sleeve case album. She bought it a Sears for less than $3 the only day Sears sold them (prior to them getting recalled). It sold for around $10K at a later auction.

[Champagne taste beer budget]

A good show that I watch whenever I get the chance.

The best "find" I've ever seen was an old helmet a guy had found stuffed into the ceiling rafters in a house he'd bought. It was an OLD helmet, the kind you'd see in a painting of Spanish Conquistidors, (sp?) metal, curved brim, scroll work all over it. The appraiser was fawning all over it, telling the guy it was REALLY old, very rare, etc. Then he told the guy it was worth something on the order of $1,250,000. I forget the exact number, but the guy about died on the spot.

*edit* It was bugging me that I couldn't recall the appraisal, did a little sluething on the web. Turns out it was actually only $250,000. Still not too shabby for an old helmet stashed in the attic.

[ricktate]

One of the shows i liked was about a sword that the guy played with when he was little,,,cutting watermellons and such.The the road show guy puts on gloves hands owner gloves and says you might want to wear these when touching this sword....lol...turns out it was one of two he ever saw and said some high value and the owner went numb.Rick

[fini]

I remember that helmet show. The lady said she'd cleaned it with Windex, as I recall. It didn't hurt the value, though. Boy, sometimes the "sprucing-up" folks do to make their stuff look better really knocks the value down. That's why I am so afraid to clean my house.

A year and a half ago, the show was in SF, and my brother and I got a chance to go and have a few items appraised. It was pretty cool, seeing those dealers you see on TV. The host was real cute, too (Lara Spencer). I think she was checking me out, too.

Naturally, my stuff was not worth very much, but the experience was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to shoot photos inside the building (Moscone Center). It would have been fun to show everyone how the Keno twins are really just one person (they use some digital techniques to make it seem like there are two of them), and how most of the appraisers refuse to wear pants.

[Allan Songer]

The "helmet" was a plant and those involved were booted off the roadshow. Too bad--it really was a GREAT moment--that is until I found it that it was staged.

My favorite? The guy with the MINT first-phase Navajo Chief blanket (circa 1850) that used it as a throw over the back of his sofa--it had been in the family for about 100 years. Value? $300,000.

Second favorite? The guy with the 18th C. highboy who told the story about finding it in a barn and that it was covered in crappy fading red paint and that he stripped it to show the beautiful maple. The first comment from one of the Keno boys was "had you left it alone wiith it's ORIGINAL painted red finsih it would have been worth $80,000, but in it's stripped condition you're looking at about $25,000 in value." DOH!

[Grateful11]

The watermelon cutting sword was a fake.

Link:

http://www.cipbonline.org/news2000april.htm

They even removed the auctioneers part from the video so it wouuldn't be shown in reruns.

I agree that the best was the Navajo Blanket. The guy said his grandmother used to cover him up with it. They sold it. They were not able to prove the Kit Carson connection.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/series/highlights/2002/tucson/tucson_follow1.html

It's one of my favorite shows also. I have to feel that some of the prices quoted are a little inflated at times though.

Later,

Grateful11

[oscarsear]

Me again. Some guy brought in a pretty lousy and small painting of the Titanic he'd picked up in England. He was told that it was done by one of the survivors and he wanted to find out if that was true from the Roadshow folks. Well they couldn't tell him who painted it but they didn't care. Turned out that it was painted on a board that also had an original menu from the Titanic on facing the back. It was the dinner fare on the night the ship went down. That was extremely rare and ended up selling later for $80K.

[coda]

There's an encore of the Roadshow's Greatest Finds on May 3rd. Will plan on watching this again.

Those who have found unbelievable deals at yard sales should maybe be thankful that folks don't realize yet how valuable some of their vintage electronics can be.

[boomer9911]

I'd love to see some vintage Khorns wheeled in...ok, not that vintage...

[Tom Adams]

From my local newspaper:

"Finally, about 10 minutes before the end of the show, Frank appeared seated at a table with an antiques appraiser. Funny thing was, Frank's daughter-in-law had ordered tickets to the show. When the children couldn't go, Frank went along with Mary, who had gathered up a string of beads, a painting and a vase.

As the two were walking out the door, Mary suggested that they take along a bronze statue of a pelican that had belonged to Frank's mother, Concetta. They also owned a leopard done by the same artist, but left it at home.

Both pieces were signed by the artist, who Frank figured was Japanese because of his writing style.

The Finocchiaros made their way to the show, patiently waited their turn and showed the pelican to an appraiser.

"When the guy spotted it, he nearly blew his stack," Frank recalled. The man was visibly excited but didn't give Frank a clue as to what the pelican was worth.

"We talked about everything under the sun, but that," he said.

Frank and Mary were led to the green room where they waited for three hours. At one point Mary wanted to leave, but Frank persisted. "I said, 'No, we're going to stay because that guy was too enthusiastic (about the pelican).'"

Finally, it came time for Frank's appearance. When the cameras rolled, the appraiser made small talk and said that the pelican was done by Rembrandt Bugatti, an artist who died young, which makes his work extremely valuable.

Frank couldn't believe it when the appraiser told him the pelican was worth approximately $30,000. The leopard, he guessed, probably could sell for $100,000.

The appraiser asked if Frank's wife was with him, and Frank deadpanned that she probably was on the floor (having fainted from the shock).

Security escorted Frank and Mary - and the valuable pelican - to their car. Frank immediately put the valuable bronze sculptures in the safety deposit box.

His children began researching Bugatti's work on the Internet. Frank and Mary ended up contacting Sotheby's in New York, which sold the pelican and leopard at auction a year ago for a total of $132,500."

Tom