July 19, 2014 Antiques Roadshow Albuquerque 2014

July 19, 2014 Inside the Antiques Roadshow, Albuquerque 2014

We arrived at the Convention Center at 6:15 a.m. for breakfast before reporting for our triage duties began at 6:55.  Breakfast was terrific: Scrambled eggs with green chili, hash brown potatoes and crisp bacon, fruit, bagels with cream cheese and jelly, orange juice and tea and coffee.

At 6:55 we were at the Triage area.  The Roadshow was located in the large room of the Convention Center that has been expanded lately.  The large room was divided into two areas by a wall.  On one side of the wall was the area where people line up to wait for their appraisals and another closed area for the production area where production staff that create the show work to edit the filming as the Roadshow is in progress are located.

On the other side of the wall was the large appraisal area and a set for shooting appraisals and the feedback booth with bathrooms, water fountains and a concession stand.   On the waiting room side of the large opening between the two rooms, before people entered the appraisal area room with their treasures, they had to go to one of five or six tables set up with boxes of cards, each printed with the name of a category.  

When a person arrived at one of the tables at the end of the waiting area line they presented their items to one of the generalists who examined each item and assigned an appraisal category to each item and gave a card to the person for each item’s category.  

We stood on the appraisal area side of the large opening and when a person walked into the appraisal area it was our job to greet them and escort the person and their items to the location at which their items would be appraised in the Production area where the appraisers were seated and conducted their appraisals and the filming occurred.  There was a filming area inside the circle of appraisers and one outside with better lighting and tables on which items could be displayed better.

Here is a sheet of paper with the instructions and the lay out of the appraisal area with the categories.  

To give you an idea of the scale of the event, there were over 13,000 requests for tickets for the Albuquerque filming.  Of those 3000 received tickets plus there were some VIP tickets given with each ticket allowing each person to bring two items for appraisal.  That meant that there were between 5000 and 6000 persons attending with between 10,000 and 12,000 items to be appraised in one day.   To give you an even greater understanding of the magnitude and democratic nature of this undertaking, there was no charge for anything and the only persons who are paid besides the obvious ancillary service providers such as the people who provide security, food and staff the Convention Center are the permanent Antiques Roadshow production staff.  That means that beyond the 20 or so paid staff, the entire show is produced by 200 volunteers and the appraisers, none of whom are paid.  When Marcia was asked, “What is the incentive for an appraiser to pay their own way to Albuquerque?” (the Roadshow provides each appraiser a room at the Hyatt and all their meals), Marcia answered simply, “Being seen by 7 to 8 million viewers on TV.”  When Marcia answered that question, I remembered seeing the name and affiliated organization of each appraiser at the bottom of the screen during each appraisal.  That is how the show seems to work.  There are free benefits and incentives that motivate each of the participants, and whose collective actions when coordinated by the production staff creates one of the most popular show on TV in the U.S. at a very low cost to PBS.

Anyone can bring almost any kind of item to be orally appraised for free, although if you need a written one for insurance or tax purposes you will need to engage an appraiser (like the appraiser who made the appraisal for you at the Roadshow, whose cards are sitting on the table where they make the appraisal) to write a written appraisal.  At the orientation Marcia, the Roadshow’s director, spoke and encouraged people who had not yet decided what to bring, to bring items that they did not know the value of or know what they were.  That seems to achieve two purposes that make the Roadshow so much fun to watch.  First, we in audience get to experience the excitement of people discovering that they have something interesting and because people are encouraged to bring stuff they do not know, we the Roadshow TV viewing audience learn, as do the attendees, what some of the weirder items are.  Marcia also went through her selection process.  Of the 10,000 to 12,000 items brought to the Roadshow today there will only a few that each appraiser thinks have merit because of originality or value or because of an unusual historic connection and that appraiser will try very hard to get Marcia to show them appraising those items for the show.  Out of all the items appraised only about 100 are filmed and fewer than that number make it into the TV show and Marcia decides which those are.   

At the reception and at the volunteer orientation we were also told by Joachim, the director of KNME, which sponsored the event, that KNME tracks the number of viewers of each of its shows and they carefully analyze which shows viewers select to watch.  There is a ranking of the 100 most watched shows on KNME and 80 of them have been Roadshow programs.  “That compares to an average of 69% ranking of Roadshow program in other areas”, Joachim said.  So the Roadshow is more popular in Albuquerque than in many other areas of the country.   Joachim and Marcia both mentioned that Albuquerque is among a small number of cities that have hosted the Roadshow three times in the Roadshow’s slightly over twenty year history.  

We were among the majority of persons who did not receive tickets, but because Suzette’s Center for Ageless Living is a supporting sponsor of the Roadshow, which means she pays for KNME to run a 15 second advertisement about the Center at the beginning of each Roadshow presentation on TV, she was allowed to volunteer.  At the Reception on Thursday evening and the volunteer orientation on Friday we met several other persons affiliated with KNME in one way or another who were selected as volunteers or invited to the Reception.  For example Mayor Berry attended the Reception and was a VIP guest at the Roadshow on Saturday.     

I wanted to do a good job for the benefit of Suzette, KNME, Albuquerque and the folks who were seeking appraisals.  Also, there was a big benefit for volunteering.  Each volunteer was allowed to obtain 2 appraisals without waiting in line near the end of the day. 

As the people began flowing into the appraisal area at 7:30 we began taking them to their designated category areas.  The central appraisal area was a circle of tables that surrounded a TV filming area set In the middle of the immense Convention Center hall. 

Here is a picture of the Triage Volunteer Map of the appraisal area.

We got to meet many people and saw many of their items during the eleven hours that I worked as a triage.  

Two folks we knew had items selected for the show.  Anna Barnett presented one of Richard’s mother’s pieces of jewelry, an art nouveau necklace and Buddi Hindi who had a clock with an intricate mechanism that she had been given by Yelli’s wife.  I was really happy for them.  We had to walk past the larger filming booth and one item caught my attention, two tall narrow full size posters of the Lone Ranger and Tonto in mint condition.  The owner was being interviewed by the poster appraiser.

By 11:30 I was sore and hungry.  Kim brought us a basket of chocolate candy bars and after that there were people walking around with baskets of candy.  So I made it to lunch at 1:15 without any further problems.  I had trouble moving but we made it to the lunch room where there was a sumptuous lunch of taquitos of both chicken and beef, both chicken and beef fajita, refried beans, Spanish rice, salad, guacamole, sour cream and shredded lettuce.  There was also a table with lemonade and coffee and desserts, mostly lime and tiramisu mousse.  I ate my fill and drank several glasses of lemonade and began to feel a little better after I stretched my feet out for a few minutes.  The Chinese art appraiser sat at our table as did the heir to the Lucero Ranch in the White Sands who I discussed the lease of the Ranch by the U.S. before the First World War and how the U.S. has not given it back yet.  The appraiser told me about the horrible new laws regarding ivory that make it virtually a crime to own any of it, because now the burden is on the owner to prove where and when it was imported that has killed the market for ivory objects.  He has a blog at FIXESA.com or net.

I was tired but I was enjoying helping folks get to their correct appraisal line so I kept going with longer and longer food and rest breaks.  Finally at 5:30 Kim said we could go get our pieces and have them appraised and then leave.  We went to the car and I put my two paintings and Suzette prints on the dolly we had brought and took them to the front of the line.  We went first to Paintings.  The lady appraiser I got was very knowledgeable and looked up my first piece’s artist, Peter Hayward.  It was a many palette knife impressionist picture of the houses and building in the East 60’s in New York that my dad had bought in the 50’s or 60’s the appraiser thought.  She knew the area because she lived in NYC.  She looked up the artist on her computer and immediately found a piece that looked incredibly similar by Peter Hayward that sold for $1.500 last year.  I was thrilled.  I think Dad had bought it from the artist on the street, so I was not expecting anything.  Then I uncovered the big Swiss Chalet painting by H. Hörst that Peter Eller had been unable to find any values on several years ago.  When the appraiser punched in H. Hörst she found an almost identical but smaller painting of a Swiss Chalet that sold in Salzburg, Austria in 2010 for $1,000. The internet also had biographical information and I found out the artist was born in 1876 in Germany and is known for his Swiss Chalet paintings.  So we agreed that the size I had should fetch at least $1.500; another success.  I was thrilled that I had left home with nothing and returned home with $3,000 of art at wholesale.

We drove home and fell into bed.    

Viola! Antiques Roadshow