I am a HUGE fan of Roadshow, especially since I grew up with parents who are antique dealers. Mom and Dad have a shop back in Maine (I have posted a pic in the sidebar.)
When you get to the first "check point" you go to one of 10 tables and you are asked to show what you have brought. Then you are assigned tickets that tell you which appraisal category line to get in. I brought several Civil War items; here are my "Arms & Militia" tickets:
I took my friend Mel with me. Here she is with a dollhouse that I brought.
Here she is following one of the volunteers into the taping area:
When we walked in, we saw that they were already taping a segment with this gentleman and his beautiful piece of furniture. The only thing was that there was so much noise with all of the appraisals going on that we couldn't here what was being said about the piece!
First Mel and I were directed to a table where my blue and white homespun coverlet was appraised. I got a decent appraisal for it, about $350-$400. The dollhouse appraised for between $75 and $150.
Here is a picture of the table where the Arms and Militia appraisals were taking place. The gentleman in the navy suit jacket with the purple tie initially welcomed us to the table. Then, when I started pulling out all of dad's items, a bunch of other appraisers ran over and started DROOLING.
Three appraisers came over at once and said to me "Who are you ad where did you get these items??!!" I told them that they were gifts from my Dad.
Here is a fox horn. It was valued at $300 to $500:
Here is a Naval belt buckle circa 1850. It was valued at $300:
Next is a powder horn. The appraiser was very excited about it. He said that without the carvings on it, it would probably be worth about $75, but with them it was $1,000, and if the "Hills Bros" were from the Bedoni Hills family, it was worth $3,000!
Here is a Civil War era flag topper. They loved this piece, and appraised it at $3,000 to $5,000.
Now, the piece de resistance, the drinking horn. This was carved from a cow's horn, and was used for an infantry man to drink out of while on march.
The appraiser, Ken Farmer, was really interested in it. He told me he needed to take it away to look at it, and he would be back. Mel and I anxiously waited for him to return. Meanwhile the men that had appraised the other items were still discussing what I had amongst each other and whispering. IT WAS SO EXCITING!!!
Finally he came back and he said, "OK, we would like to put you and this item on the show. Would you do it?" I was like "SURE!!!" (Of course that had been my hope the entire time.)
They prepped me for the filming. They miked us both, got us situated, and then the cameras started rolling. That is when I got the appraisal. Ken said that it would be $3,000 to $5,000 on the LOW END and would likely get FAR HIGHER than that at a really big show. WOW!!!
He also said that in the 12 years that he had been working on Roadshow he had NEVER seen anyone come in with a drinking horn. WAY TO GO DAD!
The horn is from 1766. It has a beautiful sun carved into it, and a great little saying, "Drink Ye Thirst Away."
What a great experience. It was really fun looking at what everyone had brought along. When we were leaving, we saw the host of the show, Mark Wahlberg (no, not from New Kinds on the block) taping the opening segment. When the show airs, we will have to keep our eyes out from Mel, as she was tiptoeing behind him during one point of the taping.
My segment may or may not air (keep your fingers crossed that it does) and if it does it will be sometime between January and May of 2008. When the schedule comes out, I will let everyone know!
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