More to appraisal than meets the eye

PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow” is one of its more popular shows, and aside from the current Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theater, the Saturday night British comedies, and maybe one or two in-depth looks into cultural relics, it’s also one of the best.

I love the suspense of the show, waiting for the expert to deliver the dollar amount. There was one episode where a guy brought in old family diamond jewelry and the collection was worth hundreds of thousands, and he had more at home! There was an old Alaskan fighting helmet that looked like nothing but was incredibly rare, and so also collectible.

Then this one woman had a doll that she thought was so hot but the expert turned it upside down, showed her the markings, and revealed that it was just a very old reproduction.

Prior to this past Wednesday, I totally thought all those people who believed they had something valuable but didn’t had been duped at the purchase or just didn’t know much about collecting. The guys on TV made it seem so easy ““ there was a clear marking on the bottom.

But this past Wednesday, I went to an open auction appraisal event at Bonhams & Butterfields, an auction house on Sunset Boulevard. They do these events about once a month, and people from all over town bring in their old stuff and try to see if it’s worth something.

The items I brought in were Japanese woodblock prints acquired at an estate sale in November, another Japanese print that had been hanging in my house for a while, and some framed magazine covers from the pre-WWII era.

Now as much as I liked the pictures we brought in, and as much as I told myself that I would still like them even if they were worthless, I felt I would like them more if they turned out to be worth something.

I got to Bonhams when it opened at 9:30, and already there was a line out the door and along the sidewalk. As I was lining up to go in, the crowd was animatedly chatting, worrying about their street parking expiring too soon.

The man standing in front of me was appraising the crowd, telling his friend in a mocking, superior tone, “Everyone thinks their junk is worth something.”

Which is totally true. Why else would people go to an event like this?

So I waited and waited and finally got a number for the Asian Art expert and a number for the Books and Manuscripts expert (where they sent my magazine covers).

The magazine covers were called first, and before I had finished pulling them out of the bag, she told me that they weren’t collectible. The prices they give, like on “Antiques Roadshow,” are estimated sale price at auction, so since no one was buying these, they were worth the price of the frame.

The Japanese prints fared even worse. Since it was crowded, you really couldn’t sit down with the expert for too long, and he didn’t mince words. He looked at one of my prints and said it was either a Hiroshige I or II but couldn’t say for sure (Hiroshige I is famous for the big wave picture), but either way it was damaged. He took one look at another and could tell it was a reproduction.

My most valuable item was a print by a contemporary of Hiroshige’s coming in at around $50.

Though I had said I would like these pictures no matter what, each expert criticism was like a personal insult to my taste. To hear that no one was collecting the pictures made the fact that I display them seem unfashionable. I do still like the pictures, damaged or not, but looking at them and wondering if they were valuable was a lot more fun than looking at them knowing they are not.

The others at the event seemed to be faring just as poorly. People who had delicately wrapped their statues in Bubble Wrap on the way in were shoving them in their purses on the way out.

When something only has aesthetic value, it unfortunately seems like it is not quite as nice.

If you prefer to like things when no one else likes them, e-mail Crocker at acrocker@media.ucla.edu.

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