Antique chic

"Roadshow" finds intriguing stories in island heirlooms

Gail Jennings pulled a charmingly carved and painted plank out of a surfboard bag, supposedly from Palau, and it came into her ex-husband's family, supposedly, as payment for a Guam bar tab in the '60s.

"What's the story on this?" wondered Pake Zane, a well-known Hawaii appraiser of antiques and collectibles.

"Well, it was given as a family wedding gift to my original ex-husband and his first ex-wife," said Jennings in the best quote of the day. "It's probably a bad-luck charm. Everyone who's owned it has been divorced! But when our house was blown down on Guam in a typhoon, it's the only thing we cared enough about to dig out of the rubble."

It turns out that Palauan carvings ride on the fame of the carver, and the piece wasn't signed. Estimated value, mused Zane, maybe $500 to $1,500. He shrugged.

Jennings nodded happily and wandered away, one of thousands having their collectible unconsciousness assuaged as "Antiques Roadshow" hit town Saturday.

It's a circus, but it's a stunningly well-managed one. FEMA, take note: These guys know how to blow into town overnight and be up and running by morning.

Operating through KHET, the local PBS outlet, 3,400 families received two tickets each to the show, a potential 6,800 people, each one likely clutching a curio. A decade of experience has shown that the crew and appraisers begin to fatigue mightily at about the 6,000 mark, and a full day's filming yields enough material for three shows.

Each show funnels hopefuls through a "triage" system, with pre-appraisers letting through a steady trickle of people -- just enough to keep the filming room active but not jammed -- and each person is given a field-of-expertise tag, such as collectibles, militaria or furniture, so they know which secondary line to stand in when within the appraisal arena.

One necessary stop requires police oversight: checking old weapons to see if they're loaded. As you might expect in a big room filled with thousands of people clutching potentially valuable artifacts, security is tight. And notice, when you watch the show, that the patrons are never identified by name.

Every item is appraised, but only a few are chosen for the camera. Large furniture is pre-selected by the producers, and the show pays to have them transported to and from the set. Having the furniture on hand also gives them something to film at the beginning of the rush.

The show employs about 40 crew, and the entire set and television technology is packed into a Matson container. It all goes together like a huge jigsaw puzzle, up and down in a day. All so that thousands of people can have strangers pass snap judgments on their precious heirlooms.

"One of the charms of the show is that it's not highly polished; the reactions are real," said senior publicist Judy Matthews, noting that the show has been nominated for four Emmy awards. And, thanks to "Antiques Roadshow" and eBay, there has been a sea change in the way Americans value their collectibles over the last decade.

"Through the process of elimination," Pake and Julie Zane were among four local appraisers added to the lineup, Zane chuckled. "A bunch of people were recommended, and they eventually came to us."

The show draws upon a pool of about 150 appraisers, and about 50 are on hand for each show. Each pays their own way, balancing the cost against the show's credibility and exposure.

Pop-culture collectibles expert Gary Sohmers calls himself the "token hippie" among the appraisers, a cheerful, ponytailed chap who's been wearing aloha shirts on the show for years. "Whoa, now that we're in Hawaii, where everyone is wearing aloha, it's a whole different reality," he laughed. "My specialty, I suppose, is useless stuff. Pop culture is ... a huge vagary."

The appraisal arena is a kind of "demilitarized zone" for the antique experts, who would normally be in competition with each other. Sohmers is one who has become a familiar face for regular viewers, but the matinee idols are the giggling twins Leslie and Leigh Keno, who are thrilled down to their toes with old furniture.

"We have to be on the lookout for a person and an item that will make a great story," said Sohmers. "If we sense that, we seek out the producer and 'sell' her on the item. It's all about creating a story line in which we all learn something, and end with the price, which is the punch line."

Ka-ching!

The chosen person is whisked into a "green room" for a dusting of makeup, while the appraiser often pores through relevant reference books or goes online -- what, you thought they knew everything? -- and then they wait for the cameras.

"I don't ask anything until the director says 'action,'" said Sohmers. "It has to be honest."

"Our experience is that people don't want to part with their things," said Matthews. "But they do find that the insurance estimates are useful."

This year's tour also stopped in Tucson, Ariz.; Salt Lake City; Mobile, Ala.; Milwaukee; and Philadelphia. Last year's tour stopped in New Orleans just a few weeks before Katrina hit.

"I called all the people who were going to be on the New Orleans show to ask if they were OK," said Matthews. "A lot of them lost their prize possessions in the hurricane, but, you know, they still told us to go ahead with the episode."

The current host is game-show announcer Mark Walberg, who was clearly enjoying his time in the islands. "I got to meet Fred Kamaka at the ukulele factory, saw Hawaiian quilts at Queen Emma's Summer Palace, saw Doris Duke's Shangri La -- now there's a lovely one-bedroom! -- it's so rich in culture here."

One of the crew managed to get married on Kauai last week, so it hasn't been all work.

The show began in England nearly three decades ago and was imported to Boston's WGBH in the mid-'90s. "That first year of filming, no one knew what it was all about," said Matthews. "We'd be lucky to get a thousand people to show up in a city. But once it aired, once people saw how it worked, it was huge. Huge! Then we started getting too many people."

The solution was pre-ticketing, with names drawn at random. Otherwise, "people were sleeping on the streets in line, like it was a big rock concert or something."

How is Hawaii any different from other cities?

"This is very unscientific and just an early observation, but folks here seem to be very good-natured and laid-back," said Matthews. "They really enjoy themselves. And everybody here seems to have two jobs to get by."

One surprise for the producers was a flood of royalist Hawaiian materials, so much so that appraisers were shifted from other categories to handle the flood. The art of making Hawaiian quilts also excited the crew. "We didn't even know the craft existed before last year," said Matthews. "Now I have one hanging over my bed in Boston. But it's just a cheap knockoff, not a valuable antique!"

"What I love about the show is the notion that junk is treasure and treasure is junk," said Steve Hurlbut, of Kailua, there with daughter Cassie.

"People think their stuff is worth thousands, and I love it on the show when they find out it's not worth anything," said Cassie. "Actually, the most fun we had today was waiting in line. Everyone is so excited and so nice. One lady was walking around telling everybody background on their antiques. I don't know if she actually knew anything, but she sure was nice."

The Hurlbuts had a bizarre pot-metal cup decorated with bas-relief Japanese soldiers in full uniform playing Western-style sports. The appraiser didn't know quite what to make of it, but because Hurlbut retrieved it while scuba-diving with his father in the South Pacific, it qualifies as a touchstone of fond memories.

"But this," he said, hauling out a tattered can that looked like it held tennis balls and actually contained a crude puppet, "this is something I've never found a single word about." It was labeled "Puppinets" and was apparently a 1930s gimme sponsored by a crayon company.

He showed it to toy expert Noel Barrett. "Boy," said Barrett. "Never seen anything like this!" Barrett explained that very few people collected puppets, unless it was Howdy Doody, and therefore value is hard to assign. Maybe 50 bucks. Maybe.

The Hurlbuts sighed and shoved the puppet back in the can. It didn't fit very well.