The Phenomenon that is the Antiques Road Show

Word spread quickly among the 5,000 people lined up at the Richmond Centre that a woman had passed out in the nearly 100-degree August heat. An ambulance came, but the woman wouldn't let the paramedics take her away. She didn't want to lose her place in line to get her heirlooms appraised.

Welcome to the final stop on last summer's Chubb's Antiques Roadshow tour. Collectibles-carrying enthusiasts looking for their few minutes of fame--and perhaps a small fortune--had started camping outside the arena at 3 A.M. By 6:30 A.M., the line had grown to 500 people. By 9:30, two huge rooms in the Richmond Centre were packed, as the rest of the line streamed around the side of the building, down a block, around a parking lot and under an overpass. Some people were lugging tables and large urns. One had a giant bird cage.

A similar scene greeted the Roadshow in every city it visited. So many people swarmed to the Portland, Ore., filming that traffic outside the exposition center came to a standstill. In Los Angeles, the doors were closed at 10 A.M. when the crowd reached the 7,000 capacity, leaving thousands of disgruntled antiquers on the streets.

Why the incredible buzz? Roadshow is a little bit game show, a little bit history lesson, a little bit pop-culture phenomenon. Those who tune in can easily get hooked when they see, say, a $25 garage-sale table appraised for more than $200,000, or a strange flea-market hat that's identified as an Eskimo hunting helmet worth up to $75,000. And there's the suspense that builds as the appraiser talks up an item, asks the owner what he or she thinks it's worth, and then reveals it as a valuable collectible--or a nearly worthless reproduction. (For a schedule of the show's 1999 stops, which should be available soon, check the Antiques Roadshow Web site; go to www.pbs.org, then click on "Antiques Roadshow.") It gives us all a little hope for the stuff collecting dust in our own attics. Maybe a bit too much hope.

FEW ARE CHOSEN

The way the show is edited, it looks as if everyone has either a great find or an embarrassing fake. But of the 7,000 people who get appraisals in each city, only about 50--the ones with the most interesting objects--are filmed, and only about 30 survive the cutting room.

If you get in the door, you're directed to an appraiser who specializes in your type of item--and you stand in line again. If your antique looks as if it would make good television, the appraiser asks you a few questions about its history, then you wait while the appraiser has a private powwow with executive producer Aida Moreno (of Championship Ballroom Dancing fame), who decides what gets filmed. She usually looks for objects with good stories, such as the acoustic guitar at the Houston filming that was signed and damaged by Jimi Hendrix, who played with the owner's uncle. If your item is selected, you sign a release and are whisked away to the green room without learning anything about your object, so that you will be surprised when you're in front of the cameras.

After three seasons on the air, the appraisers have mastered the art of suspense. With the cameras rolling, they draw the story out of an object's owner, ask for a guess about its value, then explain each clue to its history before revealing how much it's worth and capturing the owner's reaction. The price even pops up on the TV screen.

The remaining 6,950 people get about $10 worth of an appraiser's time for free. Each person may get two oral appraisals (some brazenly pull more objects from their pockets) from one of the 70 professionals. The appraisers become experts at rapidly identifying the object, then explaining its history and value at breakneck speed. Only the furniture appraisers view any of the objects in advance (before the show, people send pictures of their furniture to WGBH-TV in Boston, where the show is produced; the station will pay for shipping if a piece is selected).

Kathleen Guzman, managing director of Phillips/ Selkirk auction house, says she appraises about 150 pieces of sports memorabilia, collectibles and "everything that doesn't fit into another category" at each Roadshow. She may spend three to five minutes with each person. Even at that brisk pace, she talks for more than eight hours straight. Most people leave the set without a new-found fortune. "Only about 5% of the items are worth anything," says Frank Boos, who owns the Frank H. Boos Gallery in Bloomfeld Hills, Mich., and has appraised silver, furniture and paintings on the show.

Most of the appraisers are from elite galleries and auction houses, such as Sotheby's, Christie's, Butterfield & Butterfield and Skinner--appraisers who can command more than $100 per hour. "These people are superstars in their field going out of their way to tell someone about his $15 chair," says John Buxton, who has appraised items on the show.

In a business not known for its celebrities, these superstars attract loyal fans. For example, furniture-appraising brothers Leslie and Leigh Keno--known as the Furniture Twins--make antiques about as scintillating as they can be. "It's very sexy in the leg," says Leigh about an 18th-century walnut Queen Anne chair worth $40,000. "It reminds you of the curve you see in a beautiful woman's back." The twins breeze through the set acknowledging their adoring fans with a nod and smile.

"You start to get groupies, for lack of a better word," says Frank Boos. "In Nashville, two elderly ladies said they drove all the way from Chicago to see me."

The appraisers aren't compensated for their time or travel expenses. They donate their services for the publicity; some large auction houses make it part of the appraiser's job. It's also a chance to uncover truly surprising finds that no appraiser has ever seen before, such as an original menu from the last luncheon served on the Titanic, which Rudy Franchi, a collectibles expert and owner of the Nostalgia Factory in Boston, found on the back of an oil painting of the ship at the Houston show.

ARE PRICES FOR REAL?

One of the biggest problems with Roadshow is that the appraisers don't always explain what the price represents, says International Society of Appraisers board member David Maloney, who otherwise likes the show. "I would like the public to see the difference between what they could buy it for versus what they could sell it for," he says.

Antiques dealers tend to give retail prices; employees of auction houses tend to give prices they've seen at auction; and full-time appraisers often give insurance values, says Franchi. The differences can be dramatic. For example, if you sell an item to a dealer, you might get only 30% to 40% of the retail price or insurance value, says Maloney. You may make more money if you sell it yourself, but you'll need to pay advertising costs and you could wait a while to find a buyer. If you sell it at auction, you'll usually pay at least 20% in sales commission, plus transportation, insurance and photography charges, he says.

Most appraisers provide prices based on values in the big cities where they work, which can lead to unrealistic expectations if you try to sell something to a local dealer or at an auction house in your area, says Terry Kovel, coauthor of Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price List. Franchi usually explains the context to owners, giving auction for large items and retail prices for smaller ones. "If it's worth less than $300, very few of the large auction houses will touch it," he says.

And with spur-of-the-moment decisions, the appraisers are bound to make some mistakes. One appraiser said a sperm whale's tooth engraved with a whaleship was of no consequence, reports the Maine Antique Digest. Since then, the tooth has been authenticated by scrimshaw experts as a sought-after Frederick Myrick work and added to a display at a Massachusetts whaling museum. In Richmond, Roadshow taped what was thought to be The Who's original, signed Woodstock contract, worth $10,000 to $15,000, which was found in the sleeve of an $8 flea-market record. Before the segment aired, the real original was found at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cleveland.

But in most cases, outside experts support the appraisal prices. Terry Kovel plays "guess the value" when she watches the show on TV. "I agree with them a lot," she says. Harry Pinker, author of the Harry L. Rinker Official Price Guide to Collectibles, says the appraisers match his predictions about 80% of' the time.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Appraisers are prohibited from doing business with collectibles owners until the Roadshow has left their city. That minimizes the potential for conflict of interest--if an expert gives an appraisal, then offers to buy the item, there's no guarantee that the expert hasn't underappraised it to get a better deal. The appraisers' business cards are on a table as people exit, and their bios are on the Antiques Roadshow Web site.

Although complaints are rare, a recent lawsuit has given Roadshow some bad publicity--even though the suit doesn't directly involve the show. Russ Pritchard of the American Ordnance Preservation Association, who appraises Civil War artifacts on the show, went to George Pickett's home to appraise a trunkful of Civil War memorabilia that belonged to his great-great-grandfather, General George Pickett. Pritchard bought the artifacts for $87,500, then sold them to a Civil War museum in Harrisburg, Pa., for more than $800,000. Pickett claims Pritchard and the AOPA defrauded him.

Fortunately, most people seem more interested in the history than in the value of their stuff. "We attract people who want to hold on to their things," says Guzman, who gets calls to do insurance appraisals but hasn't been asked to auction any pieces she has seen at the show.

Often the pieces have too much sentimental value to give up. One woman who drove to Richmond from New Jersey brought a picture that included an ancestor who was involved in negotiating a late-19th-century Native American peace treaty. "We just want information because we're doing a family tree," she says.