The 'Antiques Roadshow' Experience

This was at least the third season since I'd discovered how to get tickets, and the only East Coast city was Washington, D.C., not within the 50-mile radius to get on with an intriguing piece of furniture. But I had this glass hen on a nest, unlike any we'd ever seen in more than 30 years of antiquing, or in poring through books. Knowledgeable dealers' eyes widened when I would describe it. So when I got the e-mail saying that at last I'd won the lottery for a pair of tickets to 'Antiques Roadshow,' I figured we were on our way to PBS stardom.

Well, the ticket lottery is only the first ordeal. The tickets came, less than two weeks before the date, in an unmarked envelope. Apparently they're as highly coveted as new debit cards. I didn't throw them out, but I let the letter sink unopened into the morass of mail to be investigated when I got around to it. The Web site told me, however, exactly where the show would be taped, so I made hotel reservations and my husband Ed got off work. The Web site also told me how to call Roadshow Central in Boston to get in the "replacement ticket" category, to be picked up at the front desk.

The good news/bad news about replacement tickets is that they unbind you from the time of day you'd committed to back in January when you entered the lottery. But who knows when's the best time of day for a favorable appraisal of a glass chicken? Anyway, I found the tickets, so released the replacements and recommitted to 4:00 in the afternoon. As instructed, we showed up at the convention center no sooner than 3:00. We saw people coming out with stuff we knew wouldn't be on the air. We weren't quite smug, but pretty hopeful.

Each pair of tickets translates into four items for appraisal. Along with Grandmother Cassie's chicken, we had Grandma Myrtle's bisque doll in original box and clothes, a pair of goblets Cassie had claimed were antique when she got them, and Paw-Paw Baby, which I thought I had inherited from my Mother's family, and which I felt terrible about because he was somehow always sticky, no matter how often I washed him or where I displayed him.

We wheeled into the convention center and down into its bowels. We became part of the processing of thousands of appraisals into something less than three hours of television. On the bottom level of the convention facility, where two cavernous exhibit halls yawn side by side, our tickets were checked and double-checked to be sure we weren't rushing our appointment. We were pointed to the cattle runs for 4:00, sparsely filled at 3:00, but far from empty. There were several empty rows of dividers, and then several more where people moved fitfully back and forth, back and forth toward the far side of the hall. And there was one more set of rows beyond us, labeled 5:00.

Everyone was looking at everyone else's stuff. Most of ours were under wraps, but we freely acknowledged them. I was deeply disappointed, and a little offended, that no one noticed how I cleverly wore my Grandma Rose's wedding lavalliere as an earring, with an almost-match on the other side, but everyone noticed Ed's t-shirt and its irrelevant slogan about catnip. Scene-stealer. We amused ourselves making faces when a pair of women in front of us would tell yet another inquirer that they had a foot bath when they clearly had a chicken feeder.

Finally our 4:00 lines were permitted to temporarily unravel to join the distant back-and-forthers. We felt almost in sight of the preliminary sorting tables, where we would be given internal tickets for the particular altars on which we would lay out our offerings for the priests of appraisal. They shut down the concession stands while we were still snaking. A few people ducked out to restrooms, and one of our neighbors held a delicate older woman's slot in line so she could rest on one of the chairs that held up the dividers. People were dressed from the nines all the way down to, well, t-shirts about catnip.

We knew we were really close when we saw the signs that said going on amounted to consent to be filmed. The assignment to appraisal categories was pretty straightforward, though the interns at the tables had to actually see our items. Cassie's chicken and goblets: glass. Myrtle's bisque beauty and Paw-Paw Baby: dolls. And, the usher who met us at the gates of paradise reassured us, neither of those lines was all that long. He pointed out prints and paintings, which snaked out of sight beyond the surprisingly small circle of the actual set, those banners and curtains you see in the show.

We went to dolls first. Save the best for last. The usher planted us at a line marked on the floor just outside the set. When there was room inside, another usher beckoned us to approach. I must admit, that was the worst let-down of the day, finding myself standing there, on the set of 'Antiques Roadshow' but simply waiting in line ... again. The appraiser appreciated Myrtle's doll, but said she was fairly common. Actually, her original clothes were probably worth more than the doll, maybe $400. And poor Paw-Paw Baby? No value. Zip. Actually less than zip. He had probably been bought in the hospital gift shop when I was born. He probably came in blue for baby boys. His perpetual stickiness is because he's going up in possibly toxic fumes from the poor quality of 1950s vinyl. The appraiser didn't even want to touch him.

We went back outside the set to find the line for glass, but were almost instantly back inside to form the milling-about background crowds. The woman just in front of us was thrilled to have spotted one of the Keno twins. We could now see the collections of furniture in the middle, being arranged piece by piece for starring roles. And one of the furniture owners, who clearly had not been through the cattle pens, was arranging herself beside her settee for her own moment.

Finally we were there. Cassie's goblets were from about the time of her wedding, maybe $50 each, but nice enough. And then the chicken. Our appraiser actually said "Ooooh" as she took it out of the box that had so perfectly fit it. She'd never seen such a thing before herself. But she had to ask the advice of her colleague sharing the table for a value. "Sixty bucks" was the extent of the comment.

"But did you ever ...?"

"It's a home-paint job."

"But it's so well done, and in these dark colors. You almost expect it to peck at you."

"It may be a very nice home job, but it's a home job. They were never manufactured that way. Sixty bucks," and she turned, I thought with at least a sniff, back to a piece of glass of a higher art.

The nice appraiser shrugged and looked apologetic. She said it was also probably from around the turn between the 19th and 20th centuries. It mattered that at least she liked the chicken. I never did care for that other appraiser.

We left the set. We did not stop at the "Feedback Booth" with our failures. I felt only a little like crying, though I'm not sure whether it was for the chicken or Paw-Paw Baby. At least we wouldn't have to think about selling anything, or insuring it against theft after everyone knew we had it. We saw one of our favorite appraisers on the way out, where he was having a cigarette. Ed remembered the book he should have brought. Well, maybe next time.

Our Roadshow experience won't air until May, and as of the end of March PBS hadn't even posted the features. If we show up, it'll only be as "extras." There must be something really cool in hour 3, though, because it's being held to the other end of June, separated from the rest of us by three hours of encores. Or is that allowing for pledging? I did look at the list of venues for 2011, but I didn't enter the lottery. Maybe the next time they come within that 50-mile radius, we'll see what they think of the coffee chest.