Let’s Be Antiques Roadshow

I'm worth $6.00.

I’m the update show estimate for R2: $1.26.

I’m the ignorant country bumpkins they always interview at the end of the show showcasing my crap.

I'm a spoon.

I was found in a dumpster.

I'm...veneer!

VENEER!

I'm the piece of tchotchke made in 1972, that my grandfather bought in China, for $6.00 in 1945. Right at the end of the war. It's from the Ming Dynasty.

I’m all the glass that my owner claims is Tiffany. I’m actually Loetz.

I’m myself, watching a poster I own appear on a television right next to the poster itself, and learning that in all the years I’ve owned it, it still isn’t worth more than I paid for it.

Wah wah.

I’m the funny “dwindling fizz” sound effect when the show reveals that an item appraised at $3,000 in 2001 is worth $130 today.

I'm Aunt Helen's cuff.

I'm a Keno brother, and when I saw you bring that card table in I practically fell over!

I'm the set-up "discoveries" - pump and dump- and conflicts of interest from appraisers who direct people to their fences.

I almost didn’t bring the item that got me on TV!

I’m “You’re kidding!”

I’m “I am not kidding.”

"Worth a fortune if only it were/weren't restored."

I'm the fat, old lady, on her Jazzy in the background.

I’m “even with the damage . . .”

70. The average age of everyone in the room.

I'm the comfortable shoes for standing in long lines all day.

I’m the trudging.

I'm the pussy drawings by Andy Warhol inside the cover of a book, and I don't mean cats. This fascinating object won't make the show.

I'm the Civil war guns and swords that fat blond southern appraisers drool over, in their thick, syrupy Beauregard accents.

Lost causers

I’m Noel Barrett’s fuzzy mustache and ponytail.

I'm the football or baseball jersey once worn by some famous player. No matter how many exquisite pieces of gem-studded, 18K antique jewelry, rare Tiffany vases, ancient Colombian fertility figures, or first edition Shakespearean plays are brought to the show, I will always be the big ticket item at the end of the show.

I’m the long apocryphal tale of an object’s history shared by the proud, hopeful owner, only to be shut down instantly by the appraiser. “These were sold commonly to tourists…it has a decorative value or maybe $30.00…”

I’m Nick Lowry’s suits.

Cover your eyes.

I'm Suzanne Perrault's elegant hands touching a piece of rare pottery. You don't get to see me enough.

I’m the wide-eyed head-shaking denial “Golly, nooooooo” when the appraiser asks “do you know anything about the history of this? Have you any idea of its value?”

I’m….PROVENANCE

I am the salt on the. balls of Leigh and Leslie Keno as I go from one to the other in the Roadshow booth.

I'm a humble-looking Native American blanket. I've only got maybe three different colors. I'm the most valuable item of the show.

I'm this glamorous archive...

I'm Leslie, or his twin brother.

I'm the bubblewrap.

I'm the smell of mothballs.

We're the moths.

I'm the nervous desperation.

I'm Noel Barrett's ponytail.

I'm the magnificent Art Deco jewelry that allowed the nibling who inherited from her great aunt to buy a house and travel to Europe.

I'm the young woman who inherited the Art Deco jewelry, only to sell it and learn it's doubled in price!

Woe is me, I sold too soon!

I'm a southern queen's costume jewellery hat.

I'm the piece of William & Mary silver the expert is having a meltdown over because it's so valuable, and then the owner says "does that mean the matching one I left at home is worth that much too?"

I’m “And I have 27 more at home!”

I'm all the mother fucking pearls.

I'm the valuable painting that's hung in the basement for 30 years because the owner thinks I'm ugly.

Now that they know I'm worth $20,000 they love me and will hang me in the dining room.

r48 There was this incredibly fucking ugly art in the office I was assigned to. Like 6 weeks after I started, I finally looked at it closer (my vision is very bad, even with glasses) and found the name: "Alexander Calder". I still thought it was fucking ugly, and it is.

I'm the dumbed down feigned ignorance at the question, "tell us what you know about this tea set" when in truth, I've had it appraised at least three times over the years and already have it insured the world over.

"...Well, Im really not sure, my great great aunt was a neighbor of Mary Todd Lincoln and they drank tea together every morning before eating each other out"

R49, did you replace it with a Thomas Kincaid?

Kidding, but you know of course, one person's trash is another's treasure and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm the silverplate tea set that my owner said she inherited from her great, great, great, great grandmother.

Truth is she bought me last month at an estate sale to resell at her space in an antique mall.

Appraiser was not fooled. Vintage, not antique, value $79.95.

It was this.

I’m the crushing disappointment concealed beneath a forced smile at the $1600 appraisal of my aunt’s ring.

I'm the lady in the very tight pants and copious ass, who steps into the upstage TV frame and no number of closeups of Great Aunt Lily's art deco diamond and calibre sapphire bracelet can get rid of my fat ass on screen.

I’m the much higher insurance value. You do realize it’s going to cost a fortune to cover me?

I'm the beautiful southern accent of older southern women.

I’m the glimpse of a guy in the background who may or may not be cute, but the camera isn’t focused on him, and he keeps wandering in and out of the shot so you can’t really tell. He’s wearing a polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts.

I think the Keno boys and Ty Pennington share a mutual enthusiasm for meth.

I'm the viewer crushing on appraiser Lark Mason III, the adorable son of Lark Mason

I'm the lie that Braylee could never part with Gam-Gam's sapphire + diamond broach ($60,000).

I'm my favorite visitors on the show, standing there with a fiddle and insisting it was a Stradivarius because inside there was writing that said "Annie Domini," who they said it was the maestro's wife's name.

When told their violin was comparatively worthless, they refused to believe it and the corrections they heard.

I’m the dumbass whose wife told him NOT to say, “Are you kidding?”

Yeah, Antiques Roadshow is not what it used to be. People are able to do online research, now, and have a better understanding of what their items might sell for.

I'm the Bon Ami Cleanser and Murphy Oil Soap that aunt Ida used to clean whatever the heck that thing is before she dragged it down to the Antiques Roadshow.

She should have NEVER done that.

"At AUCTION this could bring, mmmmmmmmmm ...." ARS ruined the antiques ecosystem. Now everybody knows to take their stuff to auction houses (booming) for appraisal or consignments but these places take upwards of 40 - 50% of the value of the consigned object between buyer/seller's fees. Only rarely did auction houses charge a buyer's fee prior to Antiques Roadshow. Christie's and Sotheby's colluded early on and everyone followed suit, and it just keeps going up and up. It's a license to steal and there's very little oversight or regulation in this industry.

I think the auction houses would have figured out the buyer’s premium even without ARS.

I’m the highly dubious quantity of WWs for r50.

Has anyone watched the British version of AR? It's on BBC America, Sunday mornings. It's so much more relaxed... the host is on camera (ny just that voice over the US version uses), I really enjoy her presence. And, as posters above have noted, the Brits dress better, have better conversations with the appraisers and aren't as large as Americans, so the visuals are nicer.

Everything is more relaxed once you get away from the money-obsessed.

The British ARS channel on Pluto TV is my go to bedtime viewing. The emphasis is on the stories and not the value but when they get to WW2 gas masks the Royal Children wore at Windsor, I click off

Something against Princess Margaret?

I love the old hard drinking, chain-smoking Princess Margaret Rose.

Not as much as the hard drinking chain-smoking Duchess of Windsor who left her estate to charity.

I’m the reproduction whose owner refuses to believe I am anything but authentic.

I’m the appraiser gentling poking holes in the family lore.

I’d like to scream out, “You’re entire life is a lie!”, but decorum rules.

I'm the production assistant who hands tissue to the antique owners when they start to cry.

I love how BARS mentions how fakes are illegal and how the item could be confiscated, they won't, but never sold.

If someone could only do a montage of 50 years of fake-reveal facial montage on British Antiques Roadshow, it would be horrifying.

They could do one with just fake silver hallmarks. So many.

I am the out of focus guy in the background holding a cuckoo clock and not exactly sure where to do.

or "go."

I'm the "well it's not for sale anyway and will stay in the family" when something is given a paltry valuation.

I used to play with it when I was a kid.

I'm the rare Palatial French Ormolu-Mounted Sevres Porcelain Hand-Painted Vase that the husband of my owner dropped and broke while waiting in line.

Never mind, they bought me at the Goodwill for $28 and never made it to the appraisal tables. May I rest in pieces.

I'm the ivory trade laws.

I’m the “I’m just happy to learn what it is” cover story for a disappointing 4valuation .

I'm the over-flowing dumpster outside the ARS venue.

I'm the unidentifiable piece of crap that's worth $400,000.

I did one of these events years ago. EXHAUSTING as we would say on DL.

I attended the RS in Rochester, NY. My collection of Golden Age All Star comics was quite valuable but not as interesting as a hand-made weather vane that made the on air show. I wasn’t even Junk in the Trunk.