Well that was a fun experience. I brought an old miniture Singer sewing machine. It was my grandmothers and made in the 1920s. It was an extremely good conversational pieces. All these women kept coming up to me and asking me about it, if it worked. A whole lot had one of them when they were kids.
I also brought andold lead coin bank my dad had. It was about the size of a silver dollar and about half an inch deep. Something I kid would have got when he opened a savings account. The collectibles guy was very funny and identified it as having been made from around 1900 to 1910. Probably due to the Indian Head design on the front.
Thankfully I didn’t have any Asian stuff as that line went half way around the extremely large room we were in.
The best part was talking to other people there and seeing there stuff. We stood next to this lady who had all these photos/postcards taken in the 1910s mostly on Kauai. And just tons of other neat things all over the place. Some were just huge though. I knew I wouldn’t make it to the TV part but you might see me in the background or over the credits. I understand they’re making it into 3 different shows. So if you remember when it comes on I’m a really tall guy in a tan shirt and jeans.
It did make me sad to remember all the neat old things I’ve lost. All my old MAD magazines and comics from the 50s.
So were your things worth anything? Or was the best part of the experience the fun you had? From all accounts, I hear it’s a great experience. Did you see the Keno brothers?
The singer was said to be between $50 and $100. It’s seen a lot of use and spent the last 60 years in the salt air of Hawaii. A good quality one was said to be worth about $50 more.
My little coin bank was about $15 to $20.
The neatest thing my sister had was an old portrait in this small case. I forget what he called it. The case was about 150 years old and the painted portait inside was a lot younger. He said it would sell for between $200 and $300 dollars.
But it was definitely a fun experience. Everyone there was really into it and would just go up to random people with neat stuff and start asking them about it.
I’ve actually never seen the show so have no idea who were hosts and who were guests. The collectibles guy had a website and seemed like he would have a good camera presense. He had grey hair and a ponytail. He was a great tease. Told me my bank’s price was dependent upon how much money I had inside of it.
I went to the AR about five years ago. I took a couple of small metal figurines (one of a butterfly and the other of this weird rat/aardvark looking thing that I’d wanted for as long as I could remember) that I got from one grandmother when she died and a glass fish dish that I found in a box of stuff that had belonged to my other grandmother before she died and that my parents were going to throw out.
The metal items stumped the expert. He thought the butterfly might have been Japanese and the ratvark German, although when I said that I’d always thought the ratvark looked Moroccan he said “yes, that could be too” so obviously he had no clue. He valued them at $30-50 each which struck me as something of a “I have no idea so here’s my default estimate” answer.
The glass fish dish turned out to be a Greentown dolphin. The pictured one is in chocolate. Mine is the much rarer amber. An ex-boyfriend of mine broke the lid, the clumsy cow, but I have all the pieces. The appraiser valued the dish by itself at $300 and said that if the lid were intact the piece would be worth over $1,000. I kind of felt like if I’d had an intact piece she might’ve recommended me for the show.
Her appraisal inspired a brief glass collecting phase, with me buying several (repro) dolphins in various colors and some other glass pieces.
He’s such a cool guy! Or he comes across on TV that way, at least.
I’m so glad you got to go. AR came through Indianapolis a few years ago, and I really really wanted to go, but didn’t get tickets. My mom has a family heirloom cameo that I would love to have checked out.
A little tip about Singer sewing machines. If you go to here and enter the machine’s serial number it will tell you in which factory it was made and the date of manufacture.
I went to the one they had in Las Vegas about five years ago - it was fun, but the lines sure were long.
I took a little souvenir from the Chicago World’s Fair, in the original box, that my grandparents had sent to my father when they went there…it was worth only about $50. Also took an old cast iron bank that was worth about the same. My SO took a pair of bronze, German wall sconces that were worth $300 each. He was quite happy as he had only paid about $50 for the pair.
Still, it was a lot of fun to go and see what other people had and to watch the whole process - would gladly go again if it ever comes back to Las Vegas.
The collectibles line was very short so I only got to listen to him do one other person then me. He did seem cool. And quick witted and a real tease.
Neat! I can’t wait to try it out. Thank you.
Well I did say I never watched the show. You see, I used the apostrophe correctly in that I meant to say “The roadshow of the antiques” but that isn’t the name of the show. Hmm, saying “The Antique Roadshow” doesn’t sound as nice to my ears.
It happens to the best of us. I work in a museum, and we often call in experts when we can’t identify a piece. Once in a while, even they will be stumped-- we have one item which we recently took off display because several experts studied it minutely and couldn’t say if it was authentic or not.
The AR guys are in a tough position. They’re expected to come up with an answer even if they don’t really have one. All they can give you sometimes is a best guess based on the quality of the piece and what similar oddities have sold for in the past.
I’m certain that 90% of what they see is the same-old-same-old. We get the same thing at the museum, in which people bring in what they believe to be rare and priceless items that were actually quite common and of low value. I’ve had people get angry at me, insisting that they know something is of a different age than it is. (Like the lady who brought in what she believed was her great-great-great-great grandmother’s wedding dress. She claimed it dated to 1810, when her ancestor married. It was hard to find a gentle way to tell her that they didn’t have zippers or sewing machines in 1810. She was positively incensed at me.)
Very cool! Do you know when the show will air? I like the Roadshow of the Antiques. I’ll be happy when they start showing some new ones–we’re in reruns now, old shows with Dan Elias. But it’s later Dan Elias–I can tell, because his hair is a little fluffier and he’s wearing cool sunglasses in the outdoor bits.
I’d like to go to the Roadshow, but I don’t have anything worth taking. None of my costume jewelry is worth much, but it would be nice to know more about it.
Am I the only one who wants to see a picture of Otto’s ratvark?
