Antiques Roadshow

[SingleStack]

Hey any of you all go to the Antiques Road show in knoxville today? My wife and I went today, she won some tickets on the internet.

There was alot of people carrying rifle cases, and I was wondering if any one here had an appraisal done.

[gun sane]

Come to think of it, I've never seen an antique rifle case.  :blush:

[Guest TankerHC]

They were in Dayton yesterday at the Courthouse doing a segment.

[Sidinman]

Come to think of it, I've never seen an antique rifle case.  :blush:

Thats funny right there.

[Guest TankerHC]

I used to really enjoy watching Antiques Roadshow. One of the few shows like that that seemed legit. The appraisers were all real professionals, and when they said "For Insurance purposes I would insure it for X amount of dollars" early in the show they made it clear that "Insurance recommendations" were roughly double than the actual value. When it first started they would almost always say "I value this widget at approximately Ten Thousand Dollars, for Insurance purposes, I would insure it for Fifteen to Twenty thousand"

 

Then they stopped doing that. It went to almost always only giving the Insurance estimate.

 

Then their two Civil War Antique Appraisers were indicted on criminal charges of ripping off customers at the Show by undervaluing Civil War artifacts, buying them from the owners, then selling them in their own stores, until they ran into General Pickets great, great Grandson who they tried to rip off for nearly a million dollars worth of Artifacts, and it was found out they had actually given a sword someone, I think it may have been a fake, had that person bring the sword in, valued it at $35,000, then tried to sell it.  Which since has made me suspicious of the old lady who brought in her Great Grandfather 61 Springfield. They showed letters from the battles he participated in, and valued the rifle at $100,000. Although hard to do, a Civil War weapon can be verified, I know someone who does it for a living,  so hers was a bring back, yet looked what I would call close to 90%. that was no battle rifle. And verified rifles do not generally go for $100,000. Ive seen them all over and do not think I have seen one for more than 25,000. There are plenty of new looking original Springfields and Enfields. But those are arsenal refinished, just like any war, unless someone got lucky the US Military Rifles were turned in and tons of them were arsenal refinished, they were still issue for another 15 or so years after the war. "The Armory" in Gettysburg has racks of them for $2500. Real ones.

 

Then come to find out some of their Furniture appraisers were doing the same thing.

 

I still watch it, because the items coming through are very interesting. But there are only a few who I think give real appraisals. Those twin brothers who do Furniture Appraisers, they claim they dont buy anything they appraise at the shows because it would be unethical. I saw them once nearly have an o____sm when a lady brought in a piece of Furniture they had heard about but never seen, tey appraised it at something like $300,000. She offered to sell it to them right then and there and they said they couldnt buy it and they wished she would have just brought it to their shop. And when someone brings in a piece of junk, they tell them its not worth anything.

 

Still, all in all a good show.

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

I wish we would have known they where in town.. I have something that needs to be looked at ,just to find out what it is.. maybe next time..

 

I enjoy watching them. Some people have some really neat things

[Guest TankerHC]

I wish we would have known they where in town.. I have something that needs to be looked at ,just to find out what it is.. maybe next time..

 

I enjoy watching them. Some people have some really neat things

 

Any chance you might show it to us? With 18000 members here I bet someone could tell you. (Plus, now I'm really curious), someone posted a rifle part on another Forum. Some kind of sight. That was about a year ago, since then its been all over the web and still no one has figured out what it is. Lots of good guesses though.

[seez52]

Road show was in Nash about 15 years ago. A lot of folks showed up. My wife took some cartoon drawings and a friend that went with us took a civil war pistol. Both of them ended up getting featured on the show. My wife's turned out good with a $750 appraisal for something she gave $10 for. My friends not so much. They told him the pistol was a fake. If I remember the appraiser was the same one later charged with duping others.

If they decide to put you on air they won't tell you a thing about your item until the camera is rolling. I remember having to wait a while in the green room before shooting the interview.

[Guest TankerHC]

Almost positively that would have been them. Reason I say that is because on past shows, any show featuring them was removed. You can see here that along with some other past cities, Nashville 1998, is no longer available.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/cities/index.html