Antiques Roadshow Detours

Adam: Do you like poker?

Marsha: I just love poker. I'm not very good 'cause good poker players play all the time, but when I play I love it.

Adam - Narration: I'm talking to my boss, Marcia Bemko,

Adam: There's people who play poker on the road.

Adam - Narration: about life on the road,

Adam: We're going to places across the nation. It's a way to get together, hang out, have a few drinks, play some poker.

Adam - Narration: and I have a weighty question, the subject of a good bar stool conversation,

Adam: Who are the best poker players from the roadshow?

Adam - Narration: and she immediately names the greats.

Marsha: David Rego's up there. Nico Nico, Nico Lowry. Laura Woolley. Laura Woolley, and then

Adam - Narration: And then comes the fiercest of them all.

Marsha: We call her the Black widow, but you know her as Arlie Sulka,

Adam - Narration:   Arlie Sulka. Antiques Roadshow appraiser, Tiffany Studio's expert and owner of the high-end New York Gallery. Lillian Nassau, LLC. If you've been to an Antiques Road show event with your grandmother's old glass vase, you may have unknowingly been in the presence of a poker assassin.

Adam: I don't like playing poker with Arlie Sulka.

[laughs]

Marsha: You'll lose.

Adam - Narration: It's true. She beats me.

Adam: The Black widow, she is a great poker player, a shark and she'll take your money and she knows how to do it and. You wouldn't know if she's getting nervous.

Adam - Narration: And that steely disposition Arlie has as a poker player is why I'm talking to Marsha today.

Adam: The Tiffany Mosaics that we found in Las Vegas a few years ago,

Marsha: Yeah. Magnificent Tiffany architectural relics.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: When I look at it, it almost looks like pieces from an archeological dig, something that you might find in Europe, in Italy, for example.

Marsha: They're ginormous, gorgeous things. Valuable pieces. It was a six figure appraisal and he had quite a few pieces.

Adam - Narration: Six pieces, that is. Large sections of a building interior covered in Tiffany glass. But the guest who brought these in had a lot more at home, 52 in total to be precise.

Adam - Narration: After our event, he decided it was time to sell, and it brings up a nagging question for me.

Adam: What are you gonna do with giant pieces of a building?

Adam - Narration: Selling these pieces seems like it will take not just someone with Tiffany expertise, but also a person with the guts to gamble on the whole pot to put their money on the line for not one, not six, but 52 pieces, an entire deck of cards worth of Tiffany.

Marsha: I don't want us to take your punchline here, but he knew who should sell it.

Adam - Narration: Arlie Sulka, of course.

Marsha: This is why she's the black widow. She's got nerves of steel. She knows enough about the market. She knows this stuff.

Adam - Narration: She may know stuff, but does she know how to sell 52 pieces of an old building?

Adam: I can't even imagine buying like a Tiffany vase for a hundred bucks to try to flip it for 200. It seems like a hard way to make a living.

[laughs]

Marsha: It's a gamble. It's a gamble.

Adam - Narration: So will Arlie take the pot or will she wind up going all in on a bad hand? I'm Adam Monahan and this is Antiques Roadshow Detours. Today: The Tiffany Gamble.

Adam: So what do you remember about Vegas going out there, the show. Did you make any money at the craps table?

Arlie Sulka: I didn't play craps, I did play the slots and the first night I was really great and I'm like, “Oh, this is really good.” And of course I lost the money the next night. But other than that, it was lots of fun,

Adam - Narration: That's Arlie Sulka. If you didn't already know her from our show, you might've expected, well, a more imposing voice to come from someone known as the Black Widow,

Adam - Narration: But that's just Arlie's game, unassuming, stoic, and cool as a cucumber. It's part of what makes her a threat at the poker table. But when it comes to her passion for decorative objects from a certain designer, she wears her heart on her sleeve.

Arlie Sulka: Well, my true love, don't tell my husband, is Tiffany.

Adam - Narration: Arlie's appeared dozens of times with her lover on Antiques Roadshow over the years.

APPRAISAL - TIFFANY BOWL - ARLIE: Something that I– very near and dear to my heart is Tiffany,

Adam - Narration: Tiffany Glass, Tiffany lamps,

APPRAISAL - LAMP - ARLIE: Everything is beautiful about this lamp.

APPRAISAL - LAVA VASE - ARLIE: This is the piece I was waiting for for 20 years.

APPRAISAL - LAVA VASE - ARLIE: Oh wow. And

Arlie Sulka: Tiffany, metal objects, mosaics, windows.

Adam - Narration: She loves it all.

APPRAISAL - LAVA VASE - ARLIE: It's extremely special.

Adam - Narration: And the Tiffany behind all these special objects is of course Louis Comfort Tiffany, renowned artist, designer, decorator, and studio director, even the casualest of Roadshow fan knows he's a pretty big deal.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: I mean, we consider him probably the greatest decorative artist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Adam: You are known around these parts as the queen of Tiffany, let's be honest, around Antiques Roadshow land, you are the queen of Tiffany.

Adam - Narration: Arlie's throne is located in her shop in New York. And if you want to learn more about how she became the queen of Tiffany, go back and listen to one of our early episodes from season two called “David and the Two Lamps.”

Adam: But for now, I just wanna talk about our trip to Las Vegas a couple years ago 'cause that's a Tiffany we're gonna be discussing.

Arlie Sulka: Well, it was an interesting event because a fair amount of Tiffany did come through. But the Tiffany that was the most exciting to me was

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: This incredible piece of Tiffany archeological history.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: from the Farwell building in Detroit.

Adam - Narration: The remnants were six large, heavy pieces of concrete and plaster covered in thousands of colorful little pieces of Tiffany Glass, cut into shapes to form an elegant design reminiscent of classic motifs found in the famous mosaics of Ravenna, Italy.

Adam: These are pieces of building. These are not light things. Normally, you have a vase and you stick it on the table and it's like, go Arlie.

Adam: about the Tiffany

Arlie Sulka: I just turn it on a turntable.

Adam: This is literally pieces of a building are on the set of Antiques Roadshow and you have to talk about 'em.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: Tiffany decorated the first floor corridors with these wonderful barrel vaulted ceilings with rib vaults. These are the cornices that were beneath where the rib vault started.

Arlie Sulka: And then Tiffany actually had some, leaded glass shades made for the centers of these vaults. I mean, it was pretty elaborate.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: Tiffany was so proud of this that they even published an ad stating that they had just done the work in the Farwell building. So this was something Tiffany wanted to advertise prominently.

Adam - Narration: So what exactly was this old Detroit building? And how did it end up in pieces at our Vegas show?

Dan Austin: The Farwell building opened in March of 1915. Detroit was on its way to being the motor city, but it, it had not fully taken it over. At this time, Detroit's biggest exports were stoves and cigars.

Adam - Narration: That's Dan Austin, Detroit historian and founder of historic detroit.org.

Dan Austin: The Farwell building was built by the estate of one of these Pre-Motor City guys, Jesse Farwell. He had been a shipping magnate, real estate development. He was a contractor.

Dan Austin: So he was a very wealthy guy. But, when he died in 1904, he left behind a hefty estate, one that was large enough to afford hiring Tiffany Studios.

Adam - Narration: Because in the early 20th century, if you were rich enough to hire Louis Comfort Tiffany to decorate your buildings, you did not hesitate.

Arlie Sulka: He decorated some very important interiors like the Chester Arthur White House, and some rooms at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. He even did some work for the Vanderbilts. He worked for the creme de la creme of society.

Adam - Narration: Tiffany's Studios adorned the Farwell building interior with marble walls, brass elevator grills, glass chandeliers, and of course the Mosaic Tile domes.

Dan Austin: It just shows the wealth that was in Detroit and because the Farwell opened in 1915, that was before the roaring twenties when Detroit went gangbusters.

Adam - Narration: Gangbusters. Detroit was roaring in the 1920s and saw the rise of massive art deco skyscrapers throughout the city, and thanks in large part to the success of the auto industry. It continued to thrive well into the 1950s.

Dan Austin: Detroit used to have dozens of automakers. Black Southerners fleeing Jim Crow segregation could get jobs working in the factories, which paid a lot better than working on a plantation. During the Great Migration, you had immigrants coming over from Europe. Detroit's population absolutely exploded.

Adam - Narration: And Detroit just didn't explode in population. It exploded in physical size.

Dan Austin: The city of Detroit is 139 square miles, which is big enough to fit Manhattan, San Francisco, and Boston combined.

Adam - Narration: Detroit grew and grew until it hit a peak population in the 1950s of around 1.8 million people. But at that point, the city was too big for its britches. The auto industry, which once operated in the heart of Detroit, began to move operations outside the city where there was space for bigger factories.

Adam - Narration: Many workers incentivized by the GI Bills, post-war housing opportunities, followed the jobs and settled down in the newly built suburbs.

Dan Austin: Sprinkle in the racial unrest of the 1960s, which saw white flight, really explode, so the population of Detroit until the last couple of years has been in a free fall and obviously as that happens, your tax base falls and companies start moving out.

Adam - Narration: Detroit had entered an era of major economic decline in neighborhoods downtown like Capitol Park, where the Farwell building stood, felt that impact.

Dan Austin: For a long time my entire childhood, Capitol Park was vacant buildings. Some old commercial buildings had been turned into low income, senior housing, bus stop. It just was not a very nice place, which also did not help the Farwell building stay alive.

Adam - Narration: Looters and scrappers began picking the Farwell building apart in the seventies. By 1984, it had officially closed its doors, but the land it was on wasn't worth enough to pay for the cost of demolition. So like many other buildings in Detroit, the Farwell just sat there.

Dan Austin: I mean, as a kid coming downtown to Detroit, I mean, you would see all of these sleeping giants, these vacant skyscrapers and mid-rise buildings like the Farwell. Full-sized trees growing out of the roofs all over Detroit, 25, 30 years. So I mean, that was just kind of the norm.

Adam - Narration: But among the muck and wreckage of the Farwell building was a treasure trove of Tiffany tiles.

Dan Austin: When the Farwell was abandoned, we would just walk in there and there'd just be all of these tiles from Tiffany's studios just littering the floor.

Dan Austin: And so, scoop up a hand full on your way out because, you know, really we didn't think that there was any chance that the Farwell building would ever be saved.

Adam - Narration: But then came a glimmer of hope. In 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, a difficult but necessary step towards citywide revitalization, and one of the city's big plans was to redevelop Capitol Park.

Dan Austin: And the city had seized a lot of buildings, including the Farwell building for unpaid taxes. So the city put out RFPs seeking developers to come in and save these buildings.

Adam - Narration: But who on earth would be crazy enough to acquire a dilapidated building in downtown Detroit, littered with remains from the city's golden era?

Richard: Richard? Um, from Detroit, Michigan,

Adam - Narration: Richard, the guest from our roadshow appraisal,

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: Tell me how you came to acquire these very large and heavy pieces.

APPRAISAL - Richard: We took possession of the Farwell building in 2015, a hundred years after it was built. The building had been vacant for 35 years or so. Lots of things were destroyed and stolen, so we rebuilt the ceilings completely and these are the remnants of, of what was there.

Richard: I've been in the historic preservation business pretty much my entire life.

Adam - Narration: Richard had dreamed of doing restoration work on his home city's abandoned buildings, so when the Capitol Park buildings went up for grabs, he put his chips on the table.

Richard: There was a request for proposal process. There were many proposers and our team was selected.

Adam: Were you aware that it had this decaying Tiffany in it?

Richard: We do extensive research on these buildings. So yes, we knew that this was real Tiffany stuff. But that just made it more challenging and more expensive to repair.

Adam - Narration: For the Farwell building historic restoration, Richard's team began with an inventory of the lobby to see what material was actually salvageable.

Richard: The Tiffany lobby was in good enough shape. The walls actually, we just had to restore. The walls are Skyros marble that were quarried in Italy, we actually found the same quarry. It took us about eight months to figure out what marble this was, but we only had to replace about 20% of that.

Adam - Narration: As for the Tiffany mosaic domes, Richard's company was in for a bigger challenge. For instance, the gorgeous Tiffany chandeliers which were originally installed, they were stolen in the 1970s.

Richard: It looked like a gorilla ripped them out the ceiling.

Adam - Narration: and looters had also managed to extract actual chunks of the mosaic domes.

Richard: These three glass tile domes were already in really bad shape. But what was interesting is that someone had broken in and stolen these pieces. We then find out in late 2015 that these pieces are going up for auction, and, an attorney that I work with, said, “Are you aware, Richard, that some of your property apparently, which was stolen from you, was gonna be auctioned tomorrow morning?” So, so David stopped the auction. At point, we realized that these had considerable value, even though they were not a cohesive completed ceiling

Adam - Narration: He also realized that restoring the domes in their current state would be impossible, but he knew these mosaics were worth saving.

Richard: I told my staff, “Don't throw pieces away.” And I gave my guys direction, look for about roughly two by two pieces, otherwise they'd be well over 150 pounds and it'd be too inconvenient to move around. So yeah, we just cut them all out.

Adam - Narration: And so in 2024, a few years after their removal from the Farwell building in Detroit, they made their way cross country to our Antiques Roadshow in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Appraiser Arlie Sulka basqued in the warm glow of her true love, Tiffany.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: What I love about these in particular is with the Tiffany Glass that you see, it's not just an opalescent or an opaque glass. You also have some gold iridescent glass, and you even have some textured glass that you would see in some of the lamps, which is unusual for a mosaic installation like this.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: You have any idea of value?

APPRAISAL - Richard: We have some vague notions without much basis.

Adam - Narration: That vague notion, Richard mentioned, that came from the two stolen mosaic pieces, which was scheduled for auction in 2016, having a low end presale estimate of $7,500 each.

Adam - Narration: But every piece is unique according to Arlie, different pieces have different values based on a variety of factors, like what part of the dome they came from or how detailed each pattern is, or even how easily they could be displayed.

Adam: And so even if they had all been around 7,500, you're talking like 45,000 for the six pieces that we had there.

Richard: Yeah, right around there. So we were cool with that.

Adam - Narration: Richard says he would've been happy with a value estimate of 45,000, which made Arlie's actual appraisal all the more exciting.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: Well at retail, I would say probably 15 to 25 on these two. This one, I would say more like 15,000 to 20,000. This one, I would say 30 to 40,000.

APPRAISAL - Richard: Wow, that's incredible.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: 30 to 40,000 on that, and I would say 30 to 40,000 on that. And that's the top end price…

APPRAISAL - Richard: Sure.

APPRAISAL - Arlie Sulka: …were they to be sold.

APPRAISAL - Richard: Excellent. Wow. That's great. That's great news.

Adam: And so what were you when she says 135,000 to 190,000 high retail?

Richard: So, I'm in construction and real estate development, so we always approach things with a lot of skepticism, and my thought was, but is there anyone out there that would actually pay that? I mean who would buy this stuff? I still didn't understand what sort of market there would be for these things.

Adam - Narration: Well, Richard did think of one person.

Arlie Sulka: A little while afterwards. He contacted me 'cause you know, it's up to the guest. If the guest wants to find us, they will find us.

Adam - Narration: For those who don't know, there's an important rule on set at Antiques Roadshow. It's a simple code of conduct between appraisers and guests that prohibits buying or selling. In other words, Roadshow is not a marketplace, it's a TV show. So take your business outside, which is what happened when Richard contacted Arlie's gallery.

Arlie Sulka: And I love this because every guest that I've ever reconnected with after the show, will call me or write me and start with “I'm not sure you're gonna remember me.”

[laughs]

Arlie Sulka: Are you kidding me?

Adam: The guy with the building? Yeah, the guy with the building. Yeah. I remember this.

Arlie Sulka: So he did, he contacted me. He said he wanted to sell them and he's like, “Oh, by the way, I have 52 of them.”

Adam: He had 52.

Arlie Sulka: He had 52 pieces. Yes.

Adam: Oh my gosh. Okay.

Arlie Sulka: But the thing is that they were, a lot of them were in various states of very bad disrepair. So we sort of went back and forth. He told me what he wanted for the all 52, and then I'm sitting like sweating bullets 'cause like, how am I gonna get them here? Where am I going to put them?

Adam - Narration: Remember, these are huge, heavy, valuable, fragile Tiffany pieces stored in Detroit, Michigan, a fair distance from Manhattan, but that didn't phase Arlie. So she made a deal with Richard to take the whole pile.

Arlie Sulka: I figured, well, you know, I will sell the best ones and then we'll see what happens with the others. I, I don't know. [laughs]

Adam: I like that these were found in Vegas. This is kind of a gamble.

Arlie Sulka: Yes, yes, yes. You gotta be a risk taker in this business. You know?

Adam: I don't know anybody who could sell 52 pieces of an old building.

Arlie Sulka: No.

[laughs]

Adam: I think you're nuts.

[laughs]

Arlie Sulka: Yeah. You know, I never really thought about that, but yeah, you're right.

[laughs]

Adam - Narration: Nuts or not. Arlie has some work to do and she's got a plan for how to make her money back.

Arlie Sulka: I think that my big chance is going to be at the Winter Show.

Adam - Narration: The Winter Show. Formerly, the Winter Antique Show is the longest running, most prestigious art and antique show in America.

Arlie Sulka: It is considered, I would say, the most important antique show in the United States.

Adam: So I've never been to this hoity-toity show and I wanna come down and watch you wheel and deal and try to sell pieces of a building. Would that be okay?

Arlie Sulka: Absolutely. We'll do our best. We'll put on a good show for you.

Adam - Narration: But will a good show include Arlie cashing in on her great gamble, or will she be left holding too many cards?

Adam - Narration: We'll find out after the break.

Adam - Narration: Every January the Winter Show takes place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, where the best dealers from around the world flock to exhibit their precious treasures and hawk their finest wares. For collectors and dealers, it's basically the Super Bowl. The show lasts almost two weeks, and it attracts the kind of crowd that would actually spend thousands of dollars on relics ripped from an old building. Working for Antiques Roadshow for many years now, I've heard legend of this high stakes event, and now it was finally time for me to witness the grand shindig for myself.

Helen Allen - Winter Show Executive Director: So you're currently standing in the Park Avenue Armory. You've got a nice bird's eye view of our exhibition floor behind me. We have approximately 72 booths.

Adam - Narration: That's Helen Allen, executive Director of the Winter Show, who was kind enough to let me ask her some questions before the crowds poured in for opening night.

Adam: It looks almost like, to me, you've created an indoor temporary museum where things are for sale.

Helen Allen - Winter Show Executive Director: I think that that's something that we get a lot. You can actually come in, you can speak with the world's leading experts in the field and you can learn about the works. They'll let you often sit in them or touch them, examine them.

Adam: Yeah. You can actually touch the museum objects.

Helen Allen - Winter Show Executive Director: Yes. Yeah.

Adam - Narration: Touching the items. A dream for the steady handed, a nightmare for the clumsy. Because the kinds of things on display at the Winter show aren't just fragile, they're also very, very expensive

Helen Allen - Winter Show Executive Director: So we have some things that are in the thousand dollar range and then it goes up to the millions. We do try to kind of create a, a wide variety for people because it's important for people that are not collectors that fall in love with pieces to feel that they can actually walk away with something.

Adam - Narration: I took a stroll around the boots to see the goods for myself, and unfortunately for me, the piece I fell in love with was just a little outside my price range.

Adam: So what's the dog thing again?

Adam Patrick - AR Appraiser: A carved obsidian by Faberge and it's got a red enamel collar with a little gold bell and diamond eyes.

Adam - Narration: A miniature Faberge pug about the size of the tip of my pinky. I thought it was absolutely adorable. That is until I learned to cost about $300,000,

Adam - Narration: but I didn't come down to the winter show to shop or pretend to shop. I was there to capture Arlie and her natural habitat, surrounded by decorative Tiffany Glass hawking her wares,

Adam: what's the, um, what's the coolest lamp in here?

Arlie Sulka: As I always say, I love all my children.

Adam: All right. Which one?

Adam - Narration: Ari and her team have set their booth up with Tiffany vases, lamps, those wall-mounted light fixtures called sconces. You know, the usual Tiffany stuff. And then, of course

Arlie Sulka: So we have 11 pieces from the Farwell building from the collection and we hope to sell all of them.

Adam: These architectural elements are obviously a centerpiece of your display. Are you expecting someone to buy like, one, all of them? What normally would happen in a situation like this?

Arlie Sulka: It would be wonderful if someone wanted to buy all of these and keep them together. But I have a feeling they're gonna go one at a time. I mean, my vision is, I'd love to see the two cornice pieces go together 'cause I think those would look terrific in a home mounted on the wall, but I just don't know. That's what I love about this.

Adam - Narration: Classic Arlie chill as ever.

Adam: The most impressive is the cool thing that goes in a corner. Like, that's the coolest. What's that price at?

Arlie Sulka: That's priced at? $75,000.

Adam: So $75,000 for a corner. What can I get for a slab?

Arlie Sulka: As little as 25,000.

Adam: Who is the potential, like types of buyers for this type of thing?

Arlie Sulka: It could be an architect who actually puts them in a home or in a, a building or in an office. That's a possibility. Um, a museum might want this actually.

Adam: I think you, I think it would be a rich person, is the answer. The answer is a rich person is definitely going to be the one to buy this. Not somebody who shares, uh, one bathroom with four people. [laughs]

Arlie Sulka: No, that's, that, that's true. Well, you know, the thing about Tiffany is even when it was first made, it was always a luxury item.

Adam: I mean, it's gor-, it's all so gorgeous.

Adam - Narration: As collectors and visitors started to arrive, it was time for me to head out and let Arlie wheel and deal with potential clients. It was opening night after all, but the next day I was back at the Winter Show weaving my way through fur clad socialites to find Arlie's Booth.

Adam: How go is it? Do you sell any building parts?

Arlie Sulka: No building parts yet. We did sell the sconces last night.

Adam: You sold the sconces? Show me the sconces.

Arlie Sulka: The sconces are right here. These, the pair.

Adam: Oh, those are gorgeous. Yes. Yes. Those are really nice.

Adam - Narration: So far, Arlie has sold a pair of sconces and a Tiffany vase, and as for the Farwell pieces, no bites, at least not yet. But Arlie was feeling optimistic about the attention they were getting.

Arlie Sulka: People were fascinated. There were so many photographs taken in front of them.

Adam: Really?

Arlie Sulka: You can't believe how many people were like standing in front. And they're great backdrop.Who doesn't look good under those?

Adam: Somebody's gotta buy these, all of them today. [laughs]

Arlie Sulka: Well, boy, your lips to God's ears.

Adam - Narration: And so eager to see some deals play out, I posted up at Arlene's booth doing my best to stay out of the way.

Adam: I'm watching you in action.

Arlie Sulka: Oh. Oh, okay.

Adam: I'm not even here. You're running your booth.

Arlie Sulka: We had to reinforce all the walls

Booth Patron 2: Oh, sure.

Arlie Sulka: But we like the idea of mounting them like you would see in a, in a museum.

Booth Patron 2: I know. It's gorgeous.

Adam: I like the corner one myself. I think if you're gonna get one, you gotta get either one or two corners.

Adam - Narration: Alright, fine. I couldn't help myself.

Adam: But if you buy the one corner

Booth Patron 2: Oh yeah.

Adam: And you get the, you get the second one probably like get a discount or something.

Arlie Sulka: Oh, listen to you.

Adam - Narration: I like to think I was useful. As the day went on, I watched as Arlie pitched the Farwell pieces to potential buyers over and over again.

Booth Patron 1: What's the story on these?

Arlie Sulka: These are from the Farwell building in Detroit, which was built in 1914 as a, as a building for mixed office use.

Arlie Sulka: I actually appraised six of these on Antiques Road Show in Las Vegas.

Arlie Sulka: I appraised six of these on Antiques Roadshow in Las Vegas, uh, in 2024.

Arlie Sulka: Six pieces in Las Vegas.

Arlie Sulka: These were, uh, in a building called the Farwell Building, which was, um, erected as a, uh, mixed, um, mixed office.

Arlie Sulka: Oh my God. I've said it so many times.

Adam - Narration: There was lots of interest, but no bites yet.

Booth Patron 3: Well, look, the presentation's beautiful. That, especially on that color blue.

Arlie Sulka: Thank you very much.

Booth Patron 3: Really pop.

Booth Patron 1: It's fabulous. Anyway, thanks. We're gonna take a walk.

Arlie Sulka: Okay. All right. Take a walk.

Adam - Narration: and then finally a promising encounter.

Adam: Do you mind if I record you?

booth patron 4: Don't reveal what I'm buying.

Arlie Sulka: No, I will not tell.

Adam: Oh, here, I'll go away. Go do business or whatever.

Adam: Alright, so I walked away because I think, I think she had a fish on the hook. I think she had a fish on the hook.

Adam - Narration: I had to be nonchalant, so I hung back for a while watching from a distance, like a nature observer on safari, patiently tracking a lion, waiting for it to tackle a gazelle.

Adam: All right, I'm gonna check back in to see if that lady's gone.

Adam: Oh my God, she's still there. This could be it people. Red alert, she might sell some building. She might sell some building.

Adam - Narration: As it turned out, some of the clients who had already made a purchase in Arlie's booth were quite interested in the Farwell pieces.

Adam: So who are the, these people already bought something.

Arlie Sulka: They bought something here in the, in the, in the, um, booth. And then, um, then, but they're very curious. They love Tiffany and so they said, “So tell us about these.”

Arlie Sulka: So I told them all about them. They thought it was wonderful.

Adam: That's great. That's great. Well, good luck. I'll, uh, I'll keep letting you try to.

Arlie Sulka: All right.

Adam: Move your, move your wares.

Adam - Narration: No sail quite yet, but definitely a bite.

Arlie Sulka: Anything can happen. That's show business.

Adam: It's New York.

Arlie Sulka: It's New York. And the good news is we have 11 solid days for that to happen

Adam: 11 days for you to wheel and deal these things.

Arlie Sulka: Exactly.

Adam: ‘Cause I will have to catch a train. I can't stay here all 11 days. I do have a family.

Adam - Narration: It's true. I did have a family to return home to and the longer I stayed at the winter show, the more likely I was to make an irrational purchase that would jeopardize my familial relations. Either that or I'd accidentally break a precious valuable. So I headed home and a few weeks later I checked back in with Arlie.

Adam: Did you have any successes? Did anything sell?

Arlie Sulka: Yes. Yes. So, there are three pieces that were sold, one at the show and two afterwards.

Arlie Sulka: Then actually someone's considering the main piece that we had in the center that we had put in that special frame.

Adam: So one sold on site, like somebody liked it so much to like, I'll write you a check now.

Arlie Sulka: Correct.

Adam: Did you get the asking price for this or close to?

Arlie Sulka: No, no. I'm an antiques dealer. You know you got a bargain, you take this. No, I'll take that.

Adam: Now the two other pieces, how did you do on 'em? Are you happy with your sale price?

Arlie Sulka: Oh yeah. No, I'm very happy with everything. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm very happy. I mean, I have a long way to go, let's be honest. But…

[laughs]

Adam: you'll be recovering this cost for a bit and that's what why you can do what you do,

Arlie Sulka: Right. Right. It's business, you know, you have to do stuff like that, but there's no way I could leave them all behind. I had to have them all.

Adam - Narration: And as for the 49 other Farwell Mosaic pieces, Arlie's got a bunch at her gallery and a bunch more in storage,

Adam: You sold three pieces of 50 something pieces of building. Like I'm anxious for you.

[laughs]

Arlie Sulka: I keep going downstairs to visit them 'cause now they're all resting comfortably except for the other, I think, 20 pieces that are in storage.

Adam: But ev, eventually everything must go.

Arlie Sulka: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Clearance.

Adam: Clearance.

Arlie Sulka: I am hopeful that there will be an institution or maybe a designer who can incorporate these in an interior. That's my other hope.

Dan Austin: I would love to see at least one of those sections donated to the Detroit Institute of Arts or something. Bring it back to Detroit.

Adam - Narration: That's Detroit historian, Dan Austin again.

Dan Austin: Those tiles are a piece of our city's history and I can't tell anyone what to do with them. I'm so thankful that they had the foresight to save them instead of throw them away, but that, that would mean a lot to the city of Detroit to do that.

Adam - Narration: For now, we'll have to wait and see where they end up. But while the future of the Farwell pieces remains in question, one thing is still certain.

Adam: You got brass balls, lady.

[laughs]

Adam: Pretty impressive.

Arlie Sulka: Yeah, I'm glad you said it and I didn’t.

Adam: Just incredible. Just buying 50 something pieces of building to hold onto it and sell it slowly. I could never be in your business. I just couldn't. It hurts.

Arlie Sulka: It's, it's really fun.

Adam: Do you think you might be a compulsive gambler?

Arlie Sulka: Yes.

[laughs]

Adam: Just buying stuff.

Arlie Sulka: I don't even have to think about that. Okay.

Marsha: You know, I wonder how many years for her to sell all that stuff.

Adam: Well, I hope she sells 'em soon 'cause I want her to come on the road with us to be able to afford that.

Marsha: She's coming on the road. I'm leaking it out. Okay.

Adam: She's coming. I'm glad. I just won't play poker with her.

Marsha: Don't, unless you, um,

Adam: Wanna lose a hundred bucks real quick?

Marsha: Yeah.

Adam - Narration: Antiques Roadshow Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was produced by Elena Richer, edited and mixed by Tyler Morisset. Our assistant producer is Sarah Roach. Our senior producer is Ian Coss and Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH.

Adam - Narration: Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Antiques Roadshow Detours, and I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is “Once in a Century Storm” by Will Dailey from the album National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.