By DAPHNE NORTHROP
Visiting the set of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW never disappoints.
For Beacon Circle patron Janet, last month’s filming at Old Sturbridge Village, where she was a VIP guest of GBH, was “a blast.”
“I’ve been to ROADSHOW twice as a volunteer but this is the first time I attended as a guest,” she said. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It’s such a great, hopeful atmosphere.”
She brought a cut glass celery bowl (“People my age know what that is, but most people have no idea!”) for appraisal, which family lore said belonged to her great grandparents.
“I didn’t even want to know if it was valuable or not — it wasn’t — I wanted to learn the history to know if our family story was right — it was,” she said.
Her friend’s item, a silk fabric piece bought at an antiques store in Virginia, drew considerable interest from the appraiser and turned out to be quite valuable.
“It was from China in the 1600s and valued at about $10,000,” said Janet.
For Mary Jo, being on set after decades of watching the program on television was “surreal.”
“I’ve watched ANTIQUES ROADSHOW forever, and I love it. To be there with all the people milling around and waiting in lines and getting appraisals was really cool,” she said.
As a VIP guest of GBH, she was escorted around the property and could bypass the lines.
“I wanted to bring something that was portable, so I brought a glass object that had been my father-in-law’s — he was a diplomat who lived all over the world.”
She knew the glass might be valuable. “The appraiser said it was second century Roman!”
Her other item, a piece of pottery that she had always thought was Japanese, turned out to be Cambodian.
“I’m not going to sell them,” said Mary Jo. “But I’ll put stickers on the bottom, so my kids know when I am no longer here not to throw them in the trash!”
For Marsha Bemko, now in her 20th year as executive producer of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, filming days are always magical.
“The serendipity of encounters and discoveries at ROADSHOW — that’s the juice, the secret sauce that makes the program so fun to watch,” she said.
Special encounters make for magic on set, she said.
She recalled a surprisingly intense connection in Boise, Idaho, last year with a woman who brought a piece of jewelry her father made while held at a Japanese internment camp during World War II.
“It was very emotional,” Bemko recalled. “We hugged, cried and commiserated about her family’s experience as Japanese Americans.”
Here’s the powerful moment that resulted.
This month, the ROADSHOW crew made its first trip to Alaska, for filming at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.
Watch full episodes of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW here and on YouTube, and see clips on TikTok and Facebook.
