‘How awesome is this?’ Boise’s ‘Antiques Roadshow’ event produces gems. Here’s a peek
Before hearing the next pitch, Jill Giles takes a brief detour to the arms and military table, where there is a small glass box with her name on it.
Inside is a stockpile of pink Starburst candies. She offers a treat to the rest of the group. All but one politely declines, and it’s off to the next booth with hopeful anticipation.
As a line producer on “Antiques Roadshow,” it’s Giles’ job to find the extraordinary among the thousands of not-so-extraordinary treasures brought Tuesday to the Idaho Botanical Garden as part of the show’s tour.
Each of the approximately 2,500 guests lucky enough to win free tickets to the event could bring up to two items. Only about 150 of those pieces made their way from grandma’s knickknack shelf to a spot under the lights on the PBS-aired show, which was shooting for its upcoming 27th season.
Three hourlong episodes of “Antiques Roadshow” will be made from the Boise stop and will air some time in 2023. Boise was one of five locations on this year’s tour, joining the Cheekwood Estate & Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee; Santa Fe’s Museum Hill in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Filoli in Woodside, California; and Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont.
Although it had rained for much of the previous few days, the skies cleared in time for Tuesday’s outdoor taping.
“It’s an early day because they couldn’t set certain things up yesterday because of the weather, so I worry about my people. But I’m not worried about this coming together,” said executive producer Marsha Bemko.
“We’ve never failed to do a road show. We’re like the mailman, we deliver. We deliver in a hail storm, no matter what, because people are counting on us being here today.”
Punchboard
Robert, a fingerling potato farmer from Idaho, has what appraiser Grant Zahajko calls a punchboard.
Zahajko explains to Giles that these boards, which originated in the 18th century as an early form of gambling, were often located in bars or grocery stores.
Customers would pay to punch one of the holes on the board, pushing out a little piece of paper with a number on it. Match your number to one of the numbers on the board and win the coordinating prize.
“Oh, it’s like the original scratch ticket,” Giles said.
Robert’s board, which he said he bought about 35 years ago in Midvale, Utah, for $300, has 1,152 holes, Zahajko said.
Giles decides it’s a perfect candidate for an on-camera appraisal at one of a half-dozen or so sites set up around the garden. Zahajko offers no more details until he and Robert are live on camera, so that Robert’s reaction is genuine.
The prizes in Robert’s board are U.S. Morgan Silver dollars and antique $10 bills. Only the front side of the silver dollar is visible, showing a date range from 1879 to 1903.
“I’ve never had it appraised before,” Robert tells Zahajko during an on-camera interview.
Zahajko tells Robert his piece is worth between $3,000 to $4,000. Then comes the kicker.
Depending on the mint mark on the back of the silver dollar, the five of the 15 silver dollars on the punchboard could be worth thousands on their own.
“If either of the 1879 silver dollars are stamped ‘CC’ — for Carson City mint mark — then their value would increase to $5,000,” Zahajko said. “... The biggest potential lies in the 1889 Morgan silver dollar. If it is stamped with ‘CC,’ it carries a potential value of $20,000-plus based on final evaluation of condition.”
So that begs an important question.
“Would you keep the board intact or punch them out?” Giles asked Zahajko.
“I’d punch them out,” Zahajko said.
Pocket watch
Olivia’s face does not give away the news she has just received about the pocket watch she now clutches in the palm of her hand.
“It’s going right back to the safe deposit box,” Olivia said, exemplifying why Roadshow producers ask that guests be identified only by their first name.
Olivia had not expected to be standing in front of cameras when the day started, but the pocket watch — hand-painted with a scene of a harbor featuring an American flag — piqued the interest of appraiser Peter Planes, who convinced Giles it was worth filming.
The watch is made of 18-karat gold and is French in origin. It’s also musical.
“It’s quite unusual,” said Planes, of Luxe Auctioneers in West Palm Beach, Florida, who volunteers his expertise for the show precisely for encounters like these. “Musical watches are rare, but they do exist out there.
“A watch from 1830 had to survive almost 200 years. It’s gone through wars, it’s gone through depression. People needed money to eat. I mean, people took watches and they melted the cases for the gold. It survived so many different things. Thank God it wasn’t stolen. I mean, things happen to things over so many years. So it survived all that time and ended up here. And we have two happy people, a father and daughter.”
The story of how the watch ended up in Olivia’s family has been lost to time. Even so, Planes gave it a value between $15,000 and $20,000.
“We had some appraisal paperwork that said it was appraised in 1991 and they put it at about $2,500, so we weren’t expecting anything much more than that, if that at all, so it was quite a pleasant surprise,” Olivia said. “I grew up watching (“Antiques Roadshow”) with my dad, and I happened to win tickets. We had no idea how it was all going to work, so we were just really happy we got in at all and got to talk to someone who’s an expert.
“Getting on TV was like the best-case scenario, and then having such a valuable watch, that was even better, and learning the history. It couldn’t have been a better day.”
Planes said “we love making people happy and giving them good news.”
Pen and ink drawing
Idaho first lady Teresa Little and Gov. Brad Little came with a pen and ink drawing done by Teresa’s first cousin once removed, Beth Marie Van Hoesen.
Van Hoesen’s father and uncle managed a 1,500-acre orchard about 7 miles south of Council known as the Mesa Orchards. At its height, Mesa Orchards employed 50 families year-round with a school, post office and company store. At harvest time, the population grew to between 1,500 to 2,000 people.
Van Hoesen lived on the orchard until the age of 7, and it was there that she began to draw. The workers on the orchard were some of her first subjects.
In Idaho alone, Van Hoesen’s art is housed at the Boise Art Museum, University of Idaho, Department of Art and Architecture in Moscow and Art Museum of Eastern Idaho in Idaho Falls.
Van Hoesen is best known for her prints and drawings of animals, people and botanical subjects, and her art has even been featured at the Art Institute of Chicago.
This drawing of a Victorian-style home was appraised at $400.
As excited as Teresa was to share a piece of family history, she said she was equally pleased the Idaho weather cooperated for the Roadshow’s second-ever visit to Idaho. The show also filmed at Expo Idaho on the Western Idaho Fairgrounds in 2013.
“How awesome is this?” Teresa Little said. “This is showcasing Idaho perfectly. The Botanical Gardens are a wonderful location to have it and thankfully the rain stopped and the temperature feels good. People are going to have a wonderful time.”
The production
As quickly as she gathered up some Starburst before meeting Robert and his punchboard, Giles was off to find another treasure.
When guests arrived at the Botanical Garden, they were escorted to what the Roadshow crew calls the “triage” tent, where items are sorted by category. Guests are then sent to specific appraisers in one of 23 different categories, from folk art and furniture to pottery and porcelain. There were a total of 70 appraisers and more than 200 volunteers helping keep things moving behind the scenes.
There were sculptures to look at. There was a Chinese scroll. And there were those items that are treasures to their owners, but not quite in financial value.
The most expensive item discovered Tuesday was a 1935 Alexej von Jawlensky painting, which was appraised by Alan Fausel for an insurance value of $100,000.
Even those who did not find a family fortune had an opportunity to get on camera at the feedback booth on the way out. Some of those clips are included at the end of each episode, when guests often explain the quirky or funny item whose value turned out to be strictly sentimental.
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
