- [Marsha] The morning of the show, when the set's quiet before everybody shows up, there's like the electricity in the air 'cause you just don't know what's gonna come in.

What are we gonna see today?

How's it gonna unfold?

Welcome to Red Butte Garden as we take you behind the scenes of Antiques Roadshow, PBS's most popular reality program where experts from around the country offer free appraisals of antiques and collectibles.

Come along as we showcase all of the oddities and gems that attract audiences of all ages.

I'm Liz Adeola, and This is Utah.

We'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsors.

- [Jill] We give out 4,000 tickets, so we should see somewhere between 2500 and 3500 guests.

Each person will bring two items.

- I'm so excited.

We watch the show every day, multiple times a day.

- [Marsha] I love watching their faces.

Everybody coming is really excited to meet our experts.

- May I have a picture with you?

- Sure.

Perfect.

- [Marsha] It is a reality show.

People will come and they'll surprise you with their stories.

I have cried with guests, I have laughed with guests.

These are real people with real stories sharing something very personal.

- I like this one the best, actually.

- [Guest] I don't think I saw.

- [Marsha] They're gonna tell us about what happened in their family, and maybe it's like something that happened in our family, and we can identify with that.

I think that's the secret sauce of Roadshow.

- [Volunteer] Hi there!

- [Guest] Hi!

How are you?

- Good, good morning.

- Got a few things for you.

- [Marsha] What they do is they're gonna come in and they go to an area we call triage.

It's where, us triaging the objects.

- It's a first edition copy of Anne of Green Gables.

- Okay.

- You know I brought a toy, but did you bring decorative arts or a piece of silver?

So we, we give out tickets so you know which category to go to.

So this is gonna go to our books and manuscripts table.

- Okay.

- We've got a book for you.

- Oh yeah?

Let's see.

- Anne of Green Gables is my favorite book, and I opened it up and it said "First Edition, Second Imprint," I think.

Something like that.

- Now this book, unlike your memory, does not actually state "First Edition" anywhere.

- Oh it doesn't.

I have made that up.

Second imprint, okay.

- But a first edition, second impression, first edition, 10th impression, it doesn't mean anything.

The only one that means anything is first, first.

So, it's not a first edition.

It doesn't have its dust jacket, so its value is $10.

(Guest laughs) - But the truth is I would never have sold it anyway.

I, I love this book!

- The only reason, you should ever buy anything, books included, is because you love 'em.

If somebody's talking to you about investment, run the other direction.

- It was really fun to like learn a little bit about how rare books work.

I didn't know, like, what a first edition meant.

One of the things that's really lovely to me about this book, it's clearly been very well loved over the years.

Anyway, this is my, my special copy of Anne of Green Gables that is worth $10.

- And our experts are what make the show so compelling.

I mean, obviously, it's the stories and the objects, but unless you've got somebody there guiding you through who knows their stuff, who's excited about what they're seeing, then that's what makes it so fantastic.

And what people don't realize, which is astonishing, is that our appraisers, our experts pay their own way.

They don't get paid.

- Oh man, the big reveal.

What do we have?

- [Appraiser] You know, I look at it as we all work different auction houses, different fields, and for the 360 other days of the year, you know, we're all pseudo-competing in different areas.

But we come here to Roadshow.

You're gonna laugh at my analogy, but it's like, you know, all-star basketball game.

We're all here from different sections of the business.

We're all here from different companies, different backgrounds, and we come together to make this awesome program.

And it's like, it's a dream come true to say you're on Team Antiques Roadshow.

It's the best!

- What tips do you have for people that are bringing items?

- Uh, my tip would be bring something that you truly want to learn about.

If you're bringing something in that you know everything about it, and it could be a fantastic item, but you know the year was made, you know how much it originally costs, you know, the person that designed it.

When you know all the information, it's not as much fun.

But when you bring something that you're truly, I don't know, right?

You're stumped about it, that's what we wanna see.

We want something that you don't know about and that we could teach you about.

- What kind of items have you seen so far today?

- Um, a lot of quilts, which we expected.

I love hearing people's tales and there are a lot of stories here, family histories of pieces, especially the quilts.

A lot of which were made by grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, and that's definitely a history that I wanna highlight, the fact that women were such a, an integral part of textile production and textiles are what basically has made the world go round since antiquity.

Yeah, without provenance it's really hard to.

- And when they share their stories with you, like they're also like sharing a part of that history as well.

- Totally.

A lot of these pieces have family histories, or it's something that just caught their eye at a thrift shop and they paid $2 for it and they don't care if it's worth $2000 or more.

They don't care if it's worth $20.

It's just they wanna know what they have.

So at the end.

- [Marsha] Most of us don't own things that are interesting to the nation.

We're sharing with the nation.

But let's say you are one of those people who has something special.

It's not always about the money too, story is king for us.

Then the expert won't tell you anything and they will ask you to wait for a producer.

- Yes you can cry on TV.

Yes, you can.

I look at when we are picking items as like I'm a viewer, and like, what do I wanna see?

What are the stories I wanna hear?

And so we listen to stories, hundreds of stories throughout the day and try and put the best ones into the three hours of program that we'll film.

And then of course if you don't get filmed and you come to the event, you can always stop by the feedback booth at the end.

And that's kind of what we run under our credit bed if you've ever seen it.

And so people will be like, "I didn't get on TV but I've brought in this creepy doll."

Or sometimes they sing songs or do other fun things to just talk to the camera.

- The creepy dolls, okay, that is one of my favorite aspects of Antiques Roadshow when someone brings something in and it's like, you have that in your house?

- I know, me too.

I love it.

- [Liz] Thankfully we didn't spot any creepy dolls, but I was a tad bit unsettled by this.

That is until I heard the story behind this peculiar family heirloom.

What do you have here?

- These are miniature dwarf antelope that were handed down to me from my grandparents.

And from what we know the date brings 'em back to 1794.

- What was it about them that that made you be like, this is, this is what I want?

- I don't know, they're just cool.

When you're three years old and you see something like this, the bug-eyes, and just being on the mountainside.

And so my family was Dutch royalty and he said that the Dutch were the richest people at that time.

- Dutch royalty that ended up in Idaho?

- Yep, from California.

- Yeah, how would you know?

(wife giggles) - [Liz] Our final guest has artwork from her father and says he helped design the CTR ring.

The popular symbol an acronym is worn by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to inspire them to Choose The Right.

The ring has been worn by millions of people worldwide.

- So this is the original artwork and sketching for this famous Mormon slogan that's inexplicable to me, I don't really get it.

Choose The Right.

You know me, mine would have to be CTW, Choose The Wrong.

- [Guest] That's the original.

- [Ken] Oh, okay, it's folded.

You got me stumped.

I mean, how am I... You know, we have to have some kind of comparable, it's like, okay, this, you know, Don Quixote, $500, next.

But this, this doesn't work that way.

Uh, for today's purposes, I am obligated to give you some sort of evaluation on it.

But the way you do these things is do something comparable.

But I'm, I'm coming up with nothing and I've been dealing on works in Mormonism for 50 years now.

I am gonna tentatively just throw out a figure.

It could change.

I'm going to value this at $5,000 for the collection.

It could be worth a lot more.

- What was the process of going through Antiques Road Show like for you guys?

- It was so fun.

- Fantastic.

Really fun.

- Got to meet a lot of familiar faces.

Yeah, we've been watching for years, right.

So super fun.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

But is there still some, some pride, some kind of feeling that you get whenever you see that ring, whenever you see somebody that has that on them?

- It's really significant to me now because we lost him in 2021.

So it's, it's a reminder to me every time I see somebody with it.

- [Guest] So yeah.

- The fact that you still have signs and reminders of him that you could pass by every day is a joy.

- Yeah.

Thanks.

(mellow groovy guitar music) - [Marsha] The things people bring are things they inherited, or things they just really love, whatever it is- and that's why people don't sell no matter what we tell them.

It is a piece of their heart.

- [Liz] What do you think the magic is that, that just keeps people happy and excited just to be in the vicinity of what's going on?

- People are hungry for the truth.

Truth matters.

Facts matter.

And we are here to give you the facts as best as we can.

And people want the truth that's exciting.

So even if your item is worth $5, we're gonna tell you it's worth $5.

We'll tell you what it is.

People are hungry for real information, useful information, and we deliver.

- Wow, it is always so much fun to get a peek behind the curtain and see how things work.

Well, we are working on so many other stories for This is Utah, and if you wanna be one of the first to check them out, be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.

I'm Liz Adeola, and This is Utah.