Seven-Figure Finds, Unclaimed Loot spice up Antiques Roadshow
- July 26, 2009 20:29
The perfect antidote for the recession blues, PBS' hit series "Antiques Roadshow" plans to keep reeling in viewers with exciting discoveries.
From attics, and now government safes, valuable (and worthless) art, antiques, and collectibles continue to emerge from the long parade of hopeful Americans who line up in auditoriums across the country for a televised appraisal.
On Friday, the show taped its experts perusing jewelry in Colorado's Unclaimed Property Division.
Show host Mark L. Walberg and appraiser Peter Shemonsky headed to Denver to inspect bling held in the state's $450 million repository of unclaimed property.
The Denver episode will be the first time during its 13-year run that the popular antiques appraisal show has sifted through a state's unclaimed property.
Earlier this summer, the Roadshow made headlines when a woman in Raleigh, North Carolina, brought in her inherited collection of carved jade and celadon.
Dating from the Chien Lung Dynasty (1736-1795), the pieces included a large bowl crafted for the Emperor with a mark indicating it was made for an imperial order, according to Asian arts appraiser James Callahan.
The jade pieces were pegged with a conservative auction estimate of up to $1.07 million, the highest value ever given by appraisers in the U.S. version of the show.
The newly-taped episodes will air next season, beginning in January 2010.
100x100_c.jpg "Boba Fett L-slot rocket-firing prototype action figure, predecessor to the Boba Fett figure in Kenner’s popular 1979 Star Wars toy line, 3.75in tall, AFA-graded 80+ NM (archival case). Encapsulated with notarized CIB COA. Sold for a world-record price of $236,000 against an estimate of $100,000-$200,000")
