My visit to the Antiques Roadshow
We were so excited to go to the Antiques Roadshow. We are HUGE fans and haven’t missed an episode. We donated $450 to Public TV to buy 2 tickets and we won 2 tickets in the lottery. We had exactly 8 items in our antique collection that we knew nothing about. (I’ve been in the antique business for 20 years buying and selling. With the intenet as a resource it’s hard to stump me.) I also had 1 jewelry item that a relative asked me to bring. The ticket says that you can bring 2 items and says that 1 item can be part of a collection. We had two sports items that we counted as a collections that my 16 year old daughter was bringing. So all in, we thought we had 8 items.
This is the program:
Signature on the bottom of the teapot:
We entered the antique’s roadshow at about 2:30pm. The first line that we stood in looked like this in front of us:
And like this behind us:
You can see the 2 big screens that showed clips from past Antiques Roadshow programs and quizzes about antiques. It felt like being in line at Disneyland. They weren’t selling food or drinks … which was ok because you were carrying so much that unless you were an octupus - eating and drinking would have been a big challenge. Some people had brought chairs and dollies to make their trip easier. I saw a lot of Portable Sport Seat Walking Sticks. I’d never seen them before but they look like this:
We finally entered the second staging area. This is where you get tickets to the new lines that you will face in the studio. Everything has to be unwrapped at this point. If you have packing materials, you’d better have somewhere to put them. The second staging area is where we encountered the angriest man I’ve ever met. My wife was so excited to be through the line, she was smiling ear to ear and said hello. He proceeded to ignore her and grumbled that someone had knocked down the skirt on his table. He very bluntly asked what we had. My daughter showed him her sports collection. He said, “That counts as two.” I showed him the rules on my ticket and he said the ticket was wrong. Then he began to lecture us on how many people were in line and how he wasn’t going to take any crap. It was amazing. To put an end to our misery, my wife said, “Fine, you are right, can we just move on?” He didn’t like that and continued his lecture for another 5 minutes. It was horrible.
After the second staging area we moved into the outskirts of the studio that you see on TV. There were no cameras allowed, so sorry, no pictures. Here blue shirted volunteers take you to long lines where you can get your treasures evaluated. The lines for Asian Art, Tribal Art, Paintings, and Posters/Prints were at least an hour each. The lines for metal, sports, dolls, weapons, furniture and jewelry were really short. I guess everyone has art and foreign stuff that they know nothing about.
When you are inside the studios you will get to see all the appraisers that you see on TV. Some are great, some are stand off-ish. We saw Leigh and Leslie Keno. One was very friendly, smiling and approachable. The other was on his blackberry the whole time with his back to the crowd. The folk art expert did offer to give my daughter a bite of his cookie when she said it looked tasty.
After getting through these lines, my hopes were dashed. I had expected to have the mysteries solved. Instead I learned a valuable lesson. I am every bit the expert that many of the Antique Roadshow appraisers are. Here are the answers I received …
- Picasso Print - yep it was a fake. My wife was right. We looked at it through a loup and saw the pixels. (Don’t you hate scam artists?) Worth $25 for decorative value.
- Eugene Boudin watercolor - we can’t verify or deny that it is an original Eugene Boudin without providence.
- Football Bronze - From the metal people. ”It’s a football bronze. We can’t read the signature, so we can only evaluate it for decorative value. Its probably worth $200 - $300.” They transferred us to the sports experts. (Ha! to the man at station 2 who told us it couldn’t be included in the football collection)
- Original oil painting of Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings Program - the sports guy was arrogant and did not want anything to do with our painting. He said, unless that’s Dick Butkus, it is worth $50. I explained that Dick Butkus was #51, this was Charlie Bivens #49 end in 1966. We showed him the program that matched the painting and he proceeded to tell us that the painting was clearly not the same as the program. I told him that I didn’t understand what he was seeing. He said, “Oops, I was looking at the program upside down.” Really?!!! Then he said, the hand is different. Again, I said that I didn’t see it. He said, “Well, I guess the program cuts off the hand.” He said that he couldn’t verify that the painting was the original so it was worth $50. I asked him what he would need to confirm that it was the original and he said, “I don’t know.” We showed him the Football Bronze. He said it was a Football player, but probably from the Franklin Mint. I told him that I had researched this for 15 years and had never seen another like it. I would assume that something that was mass produced by the Franklin mint would at least turn up on ebay from time to time. He did not like that question, and said, “I don’t know what to tell you.” What a bust!
- Western Folk Art painting by Pat deForest - at least the people in the painting line were nice. They used a database on their computers to research the pieces. For this piece they estimated $300-$500 because it had all the “bells and whistles that you want in a piece of western art”. They referred us to the folk art table for a second opinion. When we went to the Folk Art line, they agreed with the estimate, but couldn’t tell us anything else about the painting.
- Unknown old Dutch Oil Painting - the appraiser was very nice and knew immediately that this was a copy of a Vermeer (remember The Girl with One Pearl Earring). Note - someone in line told us the same thing. The appraiser couldn’t find the painting that it was a copy of - even after searching for 5 minutes through his database. I laughed out loud when I found it in 10 seconds on Google when I got home (once I knew to look under Vermeer). It’s a decent copy of “Girl reading a Letter at an Open Window” - that would apparently sell for anywhere between $250-$1000 depending on the venue. (auction, art store)
- Teapot of a Samurai Warrior - I stood in the pottery line, eagerly awaiting the answer to what this teapot was. I consider myself a pottery expert, with over 1000 pieces in my collection so not know what this piece is has been making me crazy for years. The first appraiser said, “I don’t know.” He asked David Rago who was busy with a Van Briggle pottery collection (clearly 10 pieces counted as 1 collection here) and barely glanced at the teapot before he said, “No idea.” I’ve purchased a few pieces from Rago over the years, so his disinterest in my mystery piece was a bit of a disapointment. Oh well, no mystery solved today!
- Asian Art original painting of two wrestlers - this appraiser was very nice. I’ve seen him on TV, he smiled, introduced himself and shook my hand. He said that my painting was from the 1950’s and was Japanese. He said that it was probably worth $50-$100. I asked him the artist’s name and he said that he couldn’t read it. I guess we’ll have to ask my daughter’s Japanese friend. LOL.
- My brother in law’s jewelry - the good news is that there was no jewelry line, so I just wandered over without a ticket. Again, they couldn’t tell me anything about the piece, but estimated the value of the aqua marine stones set in 14 kt gold at $800.
By the end of the day we were exhausted. I really felt bad for the older folks with health problems … the experience was much more taxing than I would have expected, and they were probably sore after standing on concrete all day. I saw one woman take a fall when her tiny chair collapsed. Even my 16 year old was exhausted by the end of the long day. ( We arrived at 2:20 and didn’t leave until 7:30pm.) Of the 5 hours, we probably spent 30 minutes with appraisers. The experience changed my opinion of the Antiques Roadshow. Not all the appraisers were quite as knowledgeable as I thought they should have been. And some were even rude and arrogant. I came to learn, and I did. From now on, I’ll be watching the Antiques Roadshow with a little more skepticism.
On the bright side, a lot of the guests were very knowledgeable and fun! We laughed while waiting in the lines and later compared stories … like survivors. My favorite was a woman that was very excited that her teapot was worth $100. She couldn’t have been happier. (Her husband looked less pleased)
Tags: Antiques Roadshow