Antiques Roadshow - 7/8/2017

Our day to shine! We arrived at the breakfast room at 7:15 to a surprisingly good breakfast, waffles, sausage gravy and biscuits, scrambled eggs, sausage and an assortment of fruit and pastries.  We picked some scrambled eggs and sausage and wolfed it down. Then off to the car park with our suitcase of treasures and our paintings and tickets in tow.

The 10 minute drive to the car park adjacent to the America's Center Exhibit Hall was effortless. We had a 9:00 ticket stamp and, together with hordes of other fans, we streamed in to the center bearing our treasures. The AR folks are tremendously organized and there were troops of volunteers all along the way.  We were directed to Disneyland like lines, depending on our ticket times and visited with one another and scoped our each other's offerings as we waited in the line.

As we reached the front of the line, we are directed to generalist appraisers to look at our items and then issue us tickets to each of the 24 appraiser tables, depending upon the type of item.  With our specific treasures, we were directed to Paintings, Asian Art, and Porcelain/Glass. As you reach the lines for each of these specialist areas, you wait your turn and then, offering the specialist ticket for entry into the Set, the ticket is punched and you are directed to another line in front of the appraiser tables.  Our first was Paintings, of which we had two items. One was appraised, although at a lower value than we had anticipated, not worthless but not the treasure we had hoped.  For the other item, which was a pair, we were referred to the Folk Art table, so added another stop to the list.

Next to the Folk Art table, where the appraiser told us we had a nice set, they had not been cleaned (which was a good thing) and they were in original frames.  Again we didn't hit pay dirt, but received a decent valuation.

On to the Porcelain desk where we temporarily stumped them.  It took a bit of time and consultation between the appraisers at the table, but finally decided they were very nice Japanese pieces, not German.  Not a great value but they thought them "very nice."

Our last stop was the Asian Art desk.  Our water color was a stumper again and required consultation amongst the table.  Although they were unfamiliar with the artist and couldn't find him on the Internet, they came up with an age and decent value.  Later, when we returned to the hotel, I did an Internet search and was able to find the artist and some information.  The time period the appraisers picked was correct, and the value they gave appeared in the ballpark - very impressive.

The information the AR team provided as we arrived was that they expected over 5,000 people and between 10,000 to 12,000 appraisals to be provided in this one day.  There were over 70 appraisers in 24 disciplines.  All the appraisers volunteer their time to AR and are not paid for their work. Of course the exposure to a national audience is tremendous for them.

We were done by 11:00 and out the door.  Quite an experience, even though we did not have anything interesting enough to warrant a TV interview.  We met some interesting people, watched a lot of strange looking people (a lot of baby-boomers) and learned that we weren't going to get to celebrate with a quick around the world cruise!

We returned our stuff to the hotel and then struck out to explore downtown St. Louis.  A very clean and impressive downtown. A wonderful City Garden stretching for blocks and leading to the Arch.  As it was 95 F and very sunny, we walked slowly and spent a lot of time moving from shady spot to shady spot.  Around 2:30, we stepped into a nice restaurant/coffee shop for a beet salad, chicken salad sandwich, iced tea and a local stout.  Refreshed, we wandered back to the hotel, logging over 14,000 steps in the heat and working ourselves up to a nap.

We ended the day with our share of free drinks in the hotel lobby, then across the street to the St. Louis Union Station area for a seafood dinner at Landry's Seafood Restaurant. Into bed at 9:30 with an enjoyable adventure behind us.