AEDC employees get the ‘Antiques Roadshow’ experience

  • Published
  • By Raquel March
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. --  How many antique items do you have lying around your house, garage or storage that could be valuable? You just need the right venue to tell you the value of those Civil War pieces or of those Chinese rhinoceros horn cups from the 1700s.

And by the way, Chinese rhinoceros horn cups were appraised at $1.5 million at the Antiques Roadshow in 2011. It was the highest appraisal in the history of the show.

Three Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) co-workers were able to learn the value of their antique pieces at the Antiques Roadshow in Birmingham on June 21. The Roadshow, which is produced for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), is a 12-time Emmy® Award-nominated show which is in its 18th season.

The Roadshow adventure was a different experience than the co-workers expected.

"I was amazed at the number of people that attend each show that they don't showcase on television," said Jeff Haley, with the ATA Information Technology and Systems Department. "It was a great experience and probably a once in a lifetime ordeal."

Ben Partin, with the ATA Safety, Health and Environmental Branch, and Mike Northcutt, with the ATA Test Assets and Support Department, attended the show with Haley. They didn't attain their tickets easily. Haley's ticket was a surprise given to him by his wife. Partin gave one of his tickets to Northcutt.

Partin said, "When the Antiques Roadshow came to or near Tennessee, I decided to apply for tickets on their website. I tried to get tickets for last year's show in Knoxville but was not chosen. Then, when I saw that the show would be in Birmingham this summer, I applied for tickets and was lucky enough to be chosen to receive two tickets."

Tickets are given to a portion of the people who apply for them and you must have an item, or two at the most, for appraisal. Attendees without an item for appraisal aren't allowed into the Roadshow. For a one-day Roadshow appraisal in New York in August, 18,000 people applied for tickets and only 3,000 tickets were awarded.

Each of the co-workers took war memorabilia for appraisal and some family items.

"I took a hand-woven Navaho rug that I had purchased locally from a friend who had inherited it from his aunt," Partin said. "My Navaho rug was authentic with good colors and was 70-80 years old. Unfortunately, they made thousands of them and it was worth $200-300. My other item was a small collection (and collections count as one item) of Civil War artifacts I have dug up over the years."

Haley and Northcutt's war items were collections as well.

Haley's collection was WWII shoulder sleeve insignia that he had collected since childhood. He said he was surprised to find out the appraisal of some of the insignia.

Northcutt said, "I took an extensive collection of Jack Daniel Distillery memorabilia - bottles, jugs, family papers and pictures from the late 1800s. My second item was a collection of WWI items from my wife's step-great grandfather. He was a photographer during WWI and had authentic, original war pictures, some medals and paperwork."

Northcutt received an ample appraisal for the Jack Daniel items but he was "a little disappointed in the appraisal of the WWI items."

Although the group's items appraised well, they didn't qualify for filming.

There isn't a guarantee that Roadshow participants will be seen on the broadcast production of Antiques Roadshow.

Partin saw other Roadshow participants have their items filmed as he waited several hours and was directed to move from line to line in order to show his war memorabilia.

"While in each of the lines, I got to observe the filming of certain items in the center of the [production floor] area that could be on one of the future shows," Partin said. "But before items chosen by the appraisers could be filmed, they had to be approved by the [show] producer. They had to be 'show worthy.' That is, they had to be interesting, or rare, or worth a lot of money, or had a good story to go along with it.

"I saw the appraisals being filmed for a couple of small vases; a large, old document what had a long, red ribbon attached with a gold seal on it; and a small, silver loving cup that was appraised for $4,000 - 6,000."

When the appraiser sees an item that qualifies for filming, they alert the producer and the appraisal is held for an "unbelievable" reaction from the Roadshow participant.

Partin, Northcutt and Haley were able to learn more about their items and had an experience of a lifetime.

"It was a real learning experience and a lot of fun. I got to see how the whole show worked behind the scenes," Partin said. "I would like to do it again but this was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

The Antiques Roadshow that was filmed in Birmingham is scheduled to broadcast in January 2015.

(Partin resides in Tullahoma; Haley resides in Manchester; and Northcutt resides in Lynchburg.)