Trash or treasure? Fans get some surprises on ‘Roadshow’

Appraisers looked at 12,000 items in 11 hours in Louisville, Ky.

McClatchy Newspapers

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The copper bean pot-looking lamp with the mica shade that sat in her son’s bedroom for years wasn’t really to Jane Harcourt’s taste.

But the Louisville, Ky., woman thinks a lot more highly of it now — now that she knows it’s an early Dirk Van Erp lamp worth $40,000 to $50,000, and maybe more.

Shirah Grant of Jessamine County, Ky., was happy to learn that her little drypoint engraving titled “Le Chapeau Epingle,” or “The Pinned Hat,” is an authentic Renoir and worth $4,000 to $6,000 — far more than the approximately $500 she and her husband, Shawn Grant, paid for it.

On the other hand, she was disappointed to learn that a handful of sketches that came with certificates of authenticity when she and her husband bought them a couple of years ago for about $2,000 are inexpensive reproductions.

“You feel kind of burned for what you thought were authentic pieces,” Grant said.

Harcourt and Grant were among the thousands of people who toted treasures and junk to Louisville last summer to have them appraised by the professionals of the popular PBS series “Antiques Roadshow.” The two women were among several dozen people chosen to appear on the show with the items they took to be appraised.

The first two of three episodes of “Antiques Roadshow” based on the show’s Louisville visit aired for the first time last week on Kentucky Educational Television. The other will be shown Monday.

“‘Antiques Roadshow’ is KET’s highest-rated program. It’s extraordinarily popular in Kentucky,” said Tim Bischoff, KET’s marketing director. “The Louisville stop revealed a number of exciting hidden treasures with local Kentucky roots.”

KET had volunteers to help with the crowd at the July tapings of “Roadshow.” And it hosted a “Roadshow” reception and a “Roadshow” premiere in Louisville, which were fundraisers for KET.

Nearly 18,000 people requested tickets for the show’s second Louisville visit in nine years; 3,400 were selected to receive two tickets each and 5,922 showed up, according to “Antiques Roadshow.” Only Spokane, Wash., had more people in attendance — 281 more — when “Roadshow” came to town last summer.

The show’s appraisers looked at 12,000 items in 11 hours while in Louisville in July.

Not to spoil things for those who are eagerly waiting to see the Louisville episodes, but items related to boxing great Muhammad Ali, and a silver mint julep cup made in the mid-1800s were among the pieces brought in for appraisal that give the three shows a Kentucky flavor.

Marsha Bemko, “Antiques Roadshow” executive producer, said the trip to Louisville was “full of delightful surprises” and was one of the “most enthusiastic stops” on the show’s 2007 summer tour. Among the lessons that “Roadshow” production team members learned were just how deep Louisville’s historical roots are and that Kentucky has an impressive tradition of furniture making, she said.

Harcourt and Grant were among about 80 people who were motioned aside and ushered into a “green room,” where they were fed and makeup artists prepared their faces for harsh TV lights. The selectees watched others being taped while waiting their turn.

“Roadshow” workers didn’t give any of them any hint why they were pulled from the crowd, Grant said. About 45 of those who were selected will appear in the shows to be aired.

Harcourt said she was a nervous wreck when her turn with appraiser David Rago finally came. “Roadshow” workers told her to sit down, then stand up, then sit down again while preparing for the segment featuring her and her lamp, which her mother bought many years ago, probably in Eastern Kentucky, for $100 to $150.

“I just hope I didn’t act like a complete idiot on TV, because I was so excited,” she said.

Harcourt decided to try to check out the value of the lamp on the Internet the day before the Louisville event, and she was more than a little surprised to learn that it might be worth $10,000 to $12,000.

The next day, surprise turned to shock when Rago valued the lamp at $40,000 to $50,000. Rago told Harcourt that he’d seen hundreds of Van Erp lamps, but never one like hers.

“It’s not something that, oh, takes your breath away,” Harcourt said of the lamp. “We just neglected it, didn’t pay any attention to it.”

The lamp is now headed for Rago’s auction house in New Jersey. Harcourt said Rago told her that if market conditions are good, the piece could fetch as much as $75,000.

The Grants, on the other hand, are keeping their Renoir and the reproductions, including a Chagall, which hang prominently in their home.

A “Roadshow” appraiser valued all five pieces that they took to the event at $4,650 to $7,000.

“We weren’t horribly ripped off or anything like that,” Shirah Grant said of the reproductions purchase.

She said if she goes to another “Antiques Roadshow,” maybe she’ll take the vase with carved seashells and flowers that she and her husband bought for about $300 at the same time that they bought the Renoir.

“Maybe it’s my French vase that’s worth the millions, and we never even bothered taking it,” she said. “That may be the piece that we need to plan our retirement on.”