I am fascinated by the Antiques Roadshow on Public Television.
That’s because the objects run an amazing gamut, from hideous to gorgeous; and so do their monetary values, from hundreds, to thousands, to…nothing at all.
I am usually completely wrong about which are the valuable finds. But what I love are the stories of how people come by these things.
“My grandparents picked it up for the equivalent of three dollars, on their honeymoon in Holland.”
“It was given to my parents by a grateful house-guest.”
“I found it in my attic, taped to the back of a painting.”
“My father lost a bet.”
Someone will have an elephant’s foot umbrella stand, which their grandmother’s brother left to her in a will, because she had always hated it. “Worth $2,000 dollars!” the specialist tells them. “Really?” says the owner, clearly gobsmacked.
I could never dream up the kinds of things that people bring in as treasures. Somebody has a golf ball that President Eisenhower hit into a water hazard, and after her grandfather, Ike’s caddy, fished it out of the water, the President signed it. Or tried to. You can almost read some of the letters.
Somebody else has a vase that her mother always kept hold of, even though her father thought it was the most hideous thing he’d ever seen.
I have to agree with him. Turns out it’s some famous artist’s handiwork, and worth thousands.
On and on it goes.
My favorites are the things people pick out of the trash, or buy for just a few dollars at tag sales, that turn out to be worth staggering sums.
“I just liked the look of it,” they will say.
I keep hoping that will happen to me. But of course, first you have to go to the tag sales, and then you have to buy things. I keep trying to explain this to my husband.
“It’s just like a lottery ticket,” I tell him. “You’ve got to be in it, to win it.”
“Yes, but you don’t need to rent an extra storage space for a lottery ticket.”
“Well, of course you have to hang on to things — until they appreciate. There’s even an equation for it: Junk + Time = Money.”
“That’s not an equation. More like wishful thinking.” He’s a real spoil-sport.
As I clean out the back room, and basement, and attic, in preparation for Thanksgiving, I can’t help day-dreaming about the treasures I might be harboring, and wondering what fortunes I might someday regret throwing away:
For example: the one-handed cuckoo clock I bought at a temple bazaar.
I bought it because it reminded me of something. Turns out that was the cuckoo clock we already had at home, that’s missing the cuckoo.
Or the vintage touch-tone telephone we got for free at a tag sale. My husband wanted it — he said, to take it apart. But it’s still in the box it came home in, sitting on his “work” bench. Next to one of the earliest Apple computers ever sold. I swear I heard laughter when his aunt and uncle got him to take that bag out of their garage.
There’s the Army Surplus binoculars.
Only missing one lens. Not as useful as anticipated — turns out squinting at sporting events through one eye while keeping the other one tight shut gives you a headache.
The things that would have been really valuable got thrown out long ago, of course — my brother’s baseball cards; my husband’s train set; my vintage Charlie Brown lunch box and thermos.
“Junk,” my mother said, and his mother too — and out it all went. I should sentence them both to a five-nights-a-week schedule of watching “Antiques Roadshow.”
“Bet you’re sorry now,” I’d say to my mom. “Look how much it’s worth!”
“But you would have spent so much money on storage, sweetie! Who would do such a thing — spend good money just to store junk?”
I’m silent. I just renewed the storage space for another year.
