5 Ways 'Antiques Roadshow' Continues to Mesmerize
Now almost twenty years old (more than 35 in the U.K.), the Antiques Roadshow format couldn’t be any simpler: Someone brings in something old and an expert appraises it. But it somehow manages to be a deeply satisfying show in ways that completely defy simple explanation. It’s a show you can get lost in for hours, even days at a time. The anticipation builds for each appraisal like it was a game show, but with the rhythms of a quiet visit to the museum. We gathered five of the best clips from two decades of the PBS series — including one from the upcoming 20th season — that best display what makes Roadshow great.
1. When the Family Story Checks Out
A lot of people have family stories tying them into American history. Maybe they’re pretty sure a relative was the inspiration for one of the verses of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” or that their great-great-great grandfather polished George Washington’s first set of wooden teeth. This woman’s tale of Pancho Villa killing a man and trading her pocket watch for a Buick seems every bit as fanciful, but appraiser Fred Nevill confirms the origin of the watch which makes the story of its owner a bit more plausible.
She suggests that Nevill use the serial number to track down the first owner and, while it doesn’t look like he ever did, PBS created History Detectives a few years later which does just that sort of thing — tracking down actual events through historical artifacts. Some of the show’s original hosts were actually Roadshow regulars.
2. When You Get to Touch History
Even though it’s just a rebound fragment, to hold pages from Shakespeare’s “First Folio” (the first collected publication of his plays, printed a few years after his death) is to physically connect with 400 years of the history of the English language. He invented hundreds (some say thousands) of words and phrases that we still use today.
That experience in and of itself would be a fine story. But then to find out that the financial value of the book had appreciated some thirty times over in the last twenty years? That’s enough to add swagger* to anyone’s step.
* Yep, Shakespeare invented that one too.
3. “We’re Going to Acapulco for the Weekend!”
It’s hard not to get swept up by the enthusiasm of some of the antique owners. The story here — chatting with Andy Warhol in a night club, bringing his family to Warhol’s studio, Warhol gleefully defacing his own work — is delightful enough. But when the man finds out that his $125 investment is now worth as much as a new mid-sized sedan, his joy is positively overwhelming.
4. There’s Treasure Everywhere
Sometimes, the show begins to feel a little like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Da Vinci Code. “Whereabouts Unknown” has an air of mystery that seems almost fantastical. The idea that a lost early work from a modern master could just be hanging, forgotten, behind a door somewhere must be a sickening thought for art historians.
How many people have been sent scurrying for their attics hoping to find some hidden gem because of segments like this? How many paintings on Grandma’s wall have been given the extra once-over to see if it’s actually a Diego Rivera original? Stumbling on something like this is equivalent of winning the lottery — only classier.
5. When Childhood Dreams Come True
You don’t have to have been a nerd to have wished you could stumble on an old Action Comics #1 or an Amazing Fantasy #15 at a yard sale and buying a house with the proceeds. While a couple of worn copies of The Avengers #1 and #2 won’t buy a house, their value isn’t anything to sneeze at. It’s also a fun (and jarring?) visual reminder of the roots of the modern Avengers franchise; does anything about those four-color characters even hint at the spectacle of the Age of Ultron movie?
As an added bonus, it’ll probably keep hope alive for another generation of young comic book fans hoping to make a profit on their childhood obsession.
Antiques Roadshow’s Season 20 premiere episode airs Monday, Jan. 4 at 8 p.m. on PBS.
