Antiques Roadshow Comes to Chattanooga!

Wait a minute, you may be thinking. What does the Antiques Roadshow in Chattanooga have to do with anything tropical? Yes, I may be the one living in exotic locales, but my family in Tennessee seem to have more fun. Below is a guest article from my sister Lu Ann on their fifteen minutes of fame.

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Mama wanted to leave at 7:30 on Saturday morning for our exciting day at the Antiques Roadshow in Chattanooga, which sounded all right until I realized that meant getting up at 6:30. Our time to enter the Roadshow was noon and we'd been admonished, on the ticket itself, to show up no earlier than half an hour before our entrance time. We could show up any time after 11:30 and before 5 p.m. Everyone inside at 5 would be seen. We left the driveway around 9, I think.

We'd discussed several items to take, ignoring glassware since Mama knew about glassware from her own time in the antiques world, and finally selected our 4 items. Each adult was allowed two items, but information from others had indicated that we could easily get in with more. Owing to the fact that we'd had a busy July, we didn't have a lot of time to think about what to take and decided 4 items was more than enough. After all, what we were taking was large and heavy and we had to drag it around all day by ourselves.

Once we arrived we drove around the convention center several times to check out the parking arrangements. I'd read on the Internet that parking was expensive and we wanted a cheap spot. We didn't have to worry that we were in the wrong place because, from all directions, people were coming carrying heirlooms wrapped in quilts or pulling dollies or toy wagons with some item balanced in it. We were here! We were about to get rich and be on TV so all of the US could see what fabulous piece of history we had. But I get ahead of myself.

After our third or fourth time around the convention center we found two women loading up their pick-up at a parking meter, which was free on Saturday. We waited for them to leave and then pulled into their spot. We were in easy walking distance of the front door and got out our dolly and strapped our items on it. We'd brought the large oil painting that we got from Golda's estate (first cousin to Grandfather) which we could tell was an original oil and must be very old and therefore very expensive; a water color that might be an original, and if so, was painted by a well know regional artist and sure to be worth a fortune; a cast iron thing (large with a hinge that might be an egg or pancake cooker) that I'd bought at an estate sale for $110 and it had better be worth that; and a cast iron and ceramic thing that Mama'd had for a long time.

We stuck the large oil in a sleeping bag and wrapped the water color in a blanket and stuck it in the sleeping bag as well. Then we strapped these to the dolly with two bungee cords and stuck the large cast iron item down behind the paintings. Mama kept the small cast iron item in her purse. Since we'd been told it would be a long day of standing in lines, Mama also carried a bag chair and a canvas sack with water and other necessaries. Since we didn't need any of them, I have no idea what she had in there that she thought was so important. Savannah brought a chair and a book. I pulled the dolly and took no chair. I was too excited to sit down anyway.

At the entrance our tickets were checked and then we entered the huge hall. Four halls had be allocated to the Roadshow and then separated into two. The first had roped of sections for the early arrivals to wait for their entrance time. It was now around 2. We'd lost an hour to the Easter time zone, driveren for almost 2 hours and had lunch before we arrived. Large screen TVs had been hung from the warehouse ceiling, showing previous roadshow episodes, for the waiting to view and pass the time. More volunteers checked our tickets and gave us each a booklet with Roadshow information and blank spaces for us to write down who reviewed our items and what they said.

Then we got in line. At last. We were in the first line for half an hour, and we hadn't even had our tickets taken yet. Savannah moved her chair along in line for awhile and then moved to the end to wait on us. Mama wandered around, checking things out and going to the bathroom, and I stood in line with our treasures, moving the dolly up at people were allowed behind the big blue screens that separated us from the appraisers.

At the end of this line, they finally took our tickets. We were almost there. But wait! Anther line. This one was short. There were six tables where each person had to go to have their treasures reviewed and inspected to determine which appraiser would see them. We were given two tickets for painting and prints and two tickets for tools. We got in the longer line for paintings first. There were chairs all around but no one was sitting in them, so Mama abandoned her bag chair and took one of the roadshow chairs.

Savannah stayed with me in line. I said I wished the line would move and Savannah began singing the Rawhide theme song, "Moving, moving, moving, keep this line a moving." "Rawhide," I sang out in saprano, shocking those around us. "That's wrong," I said. "Rawhide was men." So the next time I sang Rawhide lower, like a man would sing it. Another woman sang out, "Rope 'em, ride 'em, brand 'em," and a bunch of us sang "Rawhide". Savananh thought we were nuts. One woman yells out "Clint Eastwood" anther "Rowdy Yates" I had to explain to Savannah who these people were. So that's what standing in line was like. Once we passed through the wall from the waiting area to the appraisal area there weren't any more TVs so we had to amuse ourselves.

In the center of this large room was another area surrounded by privacy panels. This was where the real actions was, but we were still outside of it. It took another 45 minutes to get through this line. Then at last we were at the blue panels and, wait, another line. Very soon we were in the line to see the appraiser about our paintings.

The host was doing his promos and we almost got filmed behind him but our line moved on before he started. I was going to have him sign my booklet but I don't think he wanted to do that since he moved so fast no one could catch him. After we got out of the picture line we had to find the tool line. It was short. There was no one in it and we got through that quickly.

Then back out of the blue panels and into the outer hall. People were out there waiting to be filmed with their strange and unusual items. But we didn't hang around to watch the filming. Then to the sponsor tables. We signed up to win a new car, so far no word on that. We got a free coffee mug and pen at another table and then we took our smallest item into the feed back booth. Mama wouldn't go in and Savannah wouldn't speak, so I told about our day and maybe we'll make it onto TV.

So what about our items? You're read all this nonsense and I'm not going to tell about the times? Be real.

Here you go:

Peter M. Fairbanks told us about our paintings. The oil was an original hand painted from a factory in Germany. It was probably painted around 1910 as something to sell to decorate the home. The frame is probably original to the painting. Worth $150

He said the water color was a print, not an original, and had only decorative value, which means it's worth nothing.

David P. McCarron looked at the cast iron things and said he'd never seen anything like, what he called, the egg cooker. But it was still only worth $100 to $150, which I was glad to hear considering that I paid $110 for it. He didn't know what it was used for, really, but thought an egg cooker was a good idea.

The 4th item he called a citrus squeezer and said the half orange or half lemon would be put in it and squeezed and the juice would run out. Value $50 to $60. This is the item I took into the feedback booth.

While in line we saw many things that we had in the attic. So if any of those show up on TV we'll know what they're worth as well.

We had a great time and will go again if we have the chance. Even though we stood in a lot of lines and didn't get home until late, it didn't seem like that long a day but it still wiped us out. I can't wait until the Chattanooga episodes air and I see it all again from the living room rocker.