It's one of the most popular shows on PBS. Antiques Roadshow, now in its 29th season, continues to shuttle its massive field production unit all over the United States, assessing the value of artifacts and heirlooms discovered in basements, barns and attics and capturing the stories behind them.
This week, for the first time, the show visited Maine. Three thousand people converged on the grounds of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay on Wednesday along with their personal treasures.
Among the hundreds of people standing in a line that snakes around the entrance to the Botanical Gardens’ visitors center are Daniel and JC from Topsham. Daniel is holding a musical instrument case with a shape that gives away its content.
“I’ve a Bacon Belmont clawhammer banjo that I think is from the 1940’s? I don't really know what it's worth but that's what I'm here to find out.”
Once they work their way inside the visitors center, they’ll show the banjo to one of eight appraisers in what's called "triage."
Appraiser Felicity Wilmerding is greeting a woman from Walpole Massachusetts and her mother who have brought some paintings. Wilmerding will inspect the art, ask a few questions and send them on their way.
From here visitors are sent to one of five appraisal areas, depending on the type of object. In all, there are 65 expert appraisers on site.
"It takes you two or three seconds to know whether something's really good," says David Walker, who specializes in decorative arts and silver. "Sometimes you look more closely and see there is something wrong with the condition and it starts to unravel. But you can make your immediate assessment in 3-5 seconds."
But Walker says the story behind an object is also important. In fact, it's part of what the producers of Antiques Roadshow say the show is all about.
"Story is king. That's true," says executive producer Marsha Bemko.
But Bemko says the show is also about history and about the value of objects, even to those who insist on national TV that they will never sell a family treasure.
“Believe them when they say they won't sell it. I know because we keep track of this stuff. You think you’d sell it. I would too if that was a $500,000 painting that came across my desk. But it wasn't my great-great-grandmother's painting.”
Of the thousands of items appraised on Wednesday, only about 30 will make it into each of the three episodes that will be produced from the Boothbay event. They will air next year starting in January.
