Aside from giving cable television the opportunity to grow, that pivotal 1984 act listed as one of its goals, “to assure that cable communications provide and are encouraged to provide the widest possible diversity of information sources and services to the public.”11 I’m not sure conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, who wrote the legislation, could have even forseen that the services to the public would include a show called Hardcore Pawn.
Show Business
On most Saturday mornings around 8:00 AM, Midtown Manhattan is quiet. The streets are empty in a borough that is home to 1.6 million people. The Friday weekend exodus to local beaches is complete. Anyone who stayed in New York City was likely sleeping off the night before. That’s why it was unusual to see a stream of people walking west on Thirty-Fourth Street carrying bags, pulling loaded-up red Radio Flyer wagons, and juggling bubble-wrapped items. They were all headed toward the Javits Center, an enormous event space overlooking the Hudson River. The center normally hosts huge trade conventions like the international auto show or the boat show. This particular weekend it was host to Antiques Roadshow.
Antiques Roadshow was one of the first television programs whose content explored the relationship between an individual and object and value. The American version started broadcasting on PBS in 1997. The premise is simple: people bring an item to be appraised by professionals who will tell them what it is worth and why. The show travels across the country looking for participants. So far Antiques Roadshow has been filmed in forty-four states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. Tapings are ticketed events and winners are chosen by lottery. More than twenty thousand requests are made for the three thousand tickets available per season. Ticket holders are selected at random. Some people have a dream that their ticket could be like the golden one that got young Charlie Bucket into Willy Wonka’s factory. You can see it on their faces.
Antiques Roadshow’s nineteenth broadcast season kicked off in New York City. As people walk through the giant glass doors of the Javits Center, item in hand or on a wagon or what have you, they are warmly greeted by volunteers. Tickets are checked and directions given. The tickets are time stamped so that there is a steady and controlled flow. This is not only an event, it is a television show taping and there are cameramen, sets, and union rules to be considered. Section 3B on the first floor of the convention space has been turned into part television studio and preproduction staging.
Ticket holders are funneled into a maze much like the entry lines at a high-volume amusement park or TSA line. The first wave started lining up around 8:00 AM. There are people who look like they rolled out of bed and some who have arrived camera ready. There’s a slim young man wearing shiny black vinyl pants and a gravity defying hairdo who just knows in his heart he is going to make it to television. (He doesn’t.) My guide/minder for the day has been with the show for years. “We were in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. I heard this huge crash. I couldn’t even look. Some of the ways things are transported. Some of the people are vulnerable—older or infirmed. They don’t always anticipate how far they are going to have to go. Some of the things are ginormous.” At that moment, as if on cue, a man walks by with a carved wooden horse on a dolly.
The people are waiting to enter an area that is called triage. It isn’t life or death at these tables, but it is a fairly speedy and concise process. People present their objects and then are assigned to one of the twenty-four different categories of appraisal. The groups include glass, silver, sports memorabilia, decorative arts, jewelry, dolls, and folk art. The person is given a ticket to a table and off they go to meet one of the approximately seventy appraisers on site. My host explains, “No one gets turned away. It is like the ER. Here they determine which appraisal line you should get into. ‘Yeah, that’s vase but it goes to Asian art specialist. No, that’s a folk art.’ They really know. Here’s where they help you define who’s best.”
Approaching a triage table is an auburn-haired woman of a certain age wearing a flowing floral tunic and a lot of costume jewelry. She’s a bit panicked about what item to present. Ticket holders are allowed to bring two things. She turns to the two fellas behind her. “Does it look like an obvious piece of garbage?” she says, pointing to a beat-up painting of a street scene. She also has a piece of jewelry and a vase. “Well, you can always go to jewelry to get that appraised,” offers the taller of the two gents.
“You’re right, thank you.” The triage specialist hands her two tickets and she just wants to confirm. “So I go to two different tables?” Once she gets a look at the tickets, one directing her to paintings and the other to glass, she seems satisfied. She turns to the man behind her. “Thank you for your patience and your help.” She’ll later find out the painting is worthless but that doesn’t matter to her. She says she just loves it.
Next up at triage is a big man with a small dog brush. Not a brush for a little dog, but a clothing brush with a perfect ceramic canine figurine on top. It was in pristine shape and the puppy sculpture was really fine. He spied it at a secondhand store and stalked it for a while. “I saw it in the window. I bought it for five dollars. I’ve only seen one more like it online. It is just fantastic.” Off he goes to collectibles.
Next is a curious group. It is a family, six people together, and they are very, very secretive. Everything is wrapped tightly and they are eyeing everyone around them, especially me with my recorder and notepad. They lean down to whisper to the assessor and start to unwrap what they have, all the while giving me the hairy eyeball. Their behavior is so odd and I have clearly spooked them, so I just close my notepad. Whatever they brought they believed was so special and so valuable that they didn’t dare allow the media to know about it. Whatever it was, it didn’t make the broadcast.
After triage, people line up to go the selected tables and have their pieces assessed by the official appraisers. This is real moment of truth for this group. Was that beer mug that your dad told you was an antique worth something? (No.) Was the story your mom told about the silk purse with the gold edges true? (Yes; it was worth between $15,000 and $20,000.) A tall, thin man in pink pants, wearing a giant Hermes belt buckle, presented a small lacquered box. The appraiser told him that there seemed to be a “condition issue with the lacquer” and that what he thought was amber was some sort of composite. After a polite thank-you he left the table and said “Darn it!” under his breath. Another appraiser is doing his best to be as professional as possible as someone presents him with a nutcracker, which could be rightly called a butt-cracker. The crushing part of this figurine is not the jaws.
A nice family from Connecticut hoped that a painting they found in their print shop would be something special. “I wasn’t going to touch if it was worth $1,800, but since it is worth fifty bucks I’m gonna go for it.” He’s a little bit sad they didn’t make it on the televised portion of the Roadshow because, as the husband noted, “I wore a clean shirt.” Another lady said that her grandmother’s grilled cheese maker was valued at “cool.”12
The strangest thing I saw that day was an early 1900s breast pump made of a glass cup and two padded appendages resembling tongs. The tongs would apparently press in on a new mother’s breast and stimulate the milk that would then drain into the cup. A man found it in his grandfather’s old saddlebags. His name was Dr. H. C. Walker, and he was a traveling doctor in Kansas City. This did not make it on the broadcast. While it is a good story, it makes some sense that a fairly tortuous-looking antique breast pump might not be the best subject for a well-established, respectable, high-brow television show. Remember, while people are milling about, having conversations, making new friends, and enjoying the event, the staff is there to produce a television show. That means they need not only interesting items to highlight, but also compelling characters to tell the story of the object.
When an appraiser sees something he or she thinks would make for a great spot on the show or meets someone who might make good TV, the appraiser pitches the story to th
e producers. We stumbled on that happening. The fellow was a bit disheveled, had a thick New York accent, sort of a salty dog type. He tells a good tale.
“I helped clean out someone’s estate. It was like—ya know—three apartments worth. There was—ya know—a record collection like, five thousand records.” One of the things he kept from the clean out was a lamp. The base looked like a genie lamp. “It’s like if I rub it . . . like maybe a genie will pop out!” He’d clearly delivered that line before, but boy did he love delivering it. The reason the appraiser wants this fellow to be considered is that the lamp seems to be an atypical Tiffany lamp. The appraiser realized that the colorful owner doesn’t know it is a signed Tiffany. As the appraiser talks to the producer, the owner starts talking to me. He’s excited to be there and wants to share his story with me. As we are making conversation, the producer comes over and gets a little testy with me and my guide. I tell him it isn’t her fault and that we were just chatting, but he huffs, It can’t happen. We peel off as the producer starts to question the man himself.
My escort explains what happened. “If they are selected, they go to the green room, but also isolation. That’s why the producer waved us off. Once a person has been selected then no one can talk to them and they don’t want someone—we have to watch with social media and people will look it up and this thing is only worth two bucks.” They are very serious about the no-contact rule. “This is reality TV for real. We want the reactions to be pure. So they don’t want anyone polluting the experience.”
I keep my distance and my mouth shut when we find another appraiser enthusiastically asking questions about a collection of sports memorabilia owned by an old-school Mets fan. He has two vintage figurines, one of Mr. Met and one he calls Miss Met. The girl bobble head has red hair in a kicky flip style and is wearing an orange bow tie and holding a Mets pennant. The bobble heads were part of the earliest mascot memorabilia for the Mets, a team founded in 1962. The appraiser knows these are the real thing and really old because Miss Met, who was called Lady Met at the time, was only part of the earliest team promotions.
“How did you get this stuff?” he asked the young guy. He told the appraiser that he was at a yard sale and the lady invited him in, “And she just gave ’em to me.”
The fellow also had a souvenir ashtray from the opening day of Shea Stadium. That was April 17, 1964. The appraiser loved it. “It’s very Mad Men,” he says. He also realized that they were in good shape. Apparently the producers like this whole package because Mr. Met, Lady Met, and the ashtray all made it on one of the New York shows. The segment lasted one minute and fifteen seconds and went like this:
Owner: It is a bobble head and I collect bobble heads and I went to get a bobble head from a yard sale and the woman who sold me the bobble head invited me in her house and she kept bringing out amazing thing after amazing thing. She had gotten them from her aunt that she said worked for the Mets and that’s how she got the collection.
Appraiser: And you are a Mets fan yourself?
Owner: Diehard Mets fan, born and raised in New York.
Appraiser: These are all dating from the 1960s—the very birth of the team. So which one of these is your favorite?
Owner: Lady Met because she doesn’t exist anymore, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because she is so cool.
Appraiser: These are obviously souvenir items dating from the 1960s. I think it says 1967 on the back. But not a lot of these were sold at the ballpark and not a lot of them are out in the wild. And when you do find them the hat is always gone, the pennant is always gone. You have a very early Mr. Met bobble head doll that predates that. You also have this wonderful ashtray from the dedication of Shea Stadium. Shea Stadium came into being in 1964. And what else is neat, there’s a signed ball here and a pin from one of the hotdog vendors. Amazing collection. I wish you had more, but given what’s on the table here, I’d insure it for $2,500.
Owner: Great.
While this baseball find was charming, it was not the sports memorabilia from the New York shows that made national news. That honor went to some Boston Red Stocking cards and handwritten letters from some of the earliest players. An older woman inherited them from her great-great-grandmother. The players often stayed at a boarding house she ran at the time, around 1871–72. The appraiser valued the whole collection at $1 million. The woman’s reaction? “Holy smokes.” If this show was on cable with a slightly different audience, the response likely could have been “Holy shit!” or worse.
Antiques Roadshow is the prim grand dame of this genre of television, but she has a group of unruly, rowdy, and thoroughly entertaining neighbors who have moved into town.
Reality television is a fun-house mirror of real life. You get a warped and weird image of what is actually true. The reality show industrial complex built around junk was undeniable by the early 2000s. The real tension that exists between the desire to buy and own, positioned against the stress created by the acquisitions, makes perfect sense for nonscripted television. The deep dive into subcultures surrounding junk, plus the colorful personalities attracted to it, became the engine for many, many cable television shows. Unless otherwise noted, these shows were still broadcasting by the end of 2015 and I gave myself the challenge of describing each in four words or less.
American Pickers, History Channel, 2010: Expert junk seekers
Auction Hunters, Spike TV, debuted 2010: Storage unit bidders
Auction Kings, Discovery Channel, 2010–2013: Auction house life
Barry’d Treasure, A&E, 2014: Outrageous collector seeking junk
Buried Treasure, Fox, 2011: Antique dealers searching attics
Cajun Pawn Stars, History Channel, 2012–2013: Cajun pawnshop life
Clean Sweep, TLC, 2003–2005: Organizing ambush
Clean House, Style, 2003–2011: Organizing and yard sales
Flea Market Flip, HGTV, 2012: Flea market upcycling competition
Garage Gold, DIY, 2013: Removal runs for cash
Hard Core Pawn, TrueTV, 2010: Detroit pawn store drama
Hoarders, A&E/Lifetime, 2009–2013, 2016: Helping hoarders
Hoarding: Buried Alive, TLC, 2010: Ditto
I Brake for Yard Sales, Great American Country, 2013: Upcycling junk
It’s Worth What?, NBC, 2011–2011: Game show about junk
Junk Gypsies, HGTV/GAC, 2011: Decorating with junk
JUNKies, Science Channel, 2011–2011: Junkyard life
Junkyard Wars/MegaWars, TLC, 2001–2003: Engineers upcycling junk
Mission Organization, HGTV, 2003–2011: Organization makeover
Oddities, Discovery Channel, 2010–2014: Junk shop operation
Pawnography, History Channel, 2014: Junk-based game show
Pawn Stars, History Channel, 2009: Vegas pawnshop life
Pawn Queens, TLC, 2010–2011: Female pawnshop owners
Picked Off, History Channel, 2012: Competitive antiquing
Picker Sisters, Lifetime, 2011: Lady junk pickers
Storage Wars, A&E, 2010: Auctioning repossessed storage units
Storage Wars Texas, A&E, 2011: Ditto, in Texas
While the stuff is the star, most shows rely on big personalities to make the viewers care. There is what’s called and an A line and a B line. The A line might be about the junk that is being sold, bought, removed, or reordered. The B line will be about a conflict or a profile of the people involved.
The hosts of the show and the series regulars become like family to regular watchers. While eavesdropping at a yard sale in Franklin, Tennessee, I overheard two older gentlemen talking all about Mike. Mike this. Mike that. Mike found this old soda machine. One gent was actually a little peeved at Mike, something about overestimating the price of an object. It suddenly became clear the Mike they were talking about was Mike Wolfe, the star of American Pickers. It went like this:
“The Picker, Mike, he got that for $225 . . .”
“No, he sold it for that . . .”
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br /> “I like that show. That’s some good, clean fun. No cussin’ on that show.”
“Yeah, but it done made all the prices go up. People think their stuff is worth way more than it is.”
“Yeah. OK. Well, how much for your balls?” He was interested in some pool balls.
Mike Wolfe’s boyish good looks and infectious enthusiasm for climbing around old barns while politely haggling over Americana has made him a star. He and his wife had to move because fans started showing up at their front door. He started out with a small shop, Antique Archaeology, in Le Claire, Iowa. It was full of cool things he “picked” on his travels. A second location in Nashville is now more gift store than thrift store. It is a sign of the success of the show. On a hot, hot Saturday in Nashville tour busses pulled up and out poured devotees of the show. They filed in slowly, one by one, waving their paper fans. Being Nashville, there was live music in the store. A brother and sister duo were picking at their guitars and trying to engage the crowd with an original song, but no one paid them much mind. There were a few cool “picked items” around, but mostly people wanted souvenirs from the shop and the show. There was a ton of merchandise for sale. Beer cozies. Lunch boxes. People streamed in and out all day, leaving with arms full of merch. One estimate says the store has more than two hundred thousand visitors a month.13
“American Pickers is great. It’s about stuff. Half those people are hoarders but the show has a different tone.” Matt Paxton should know. He is an extreme cleaning expert who is one of the popular contributors on the Emmy award–winning show Hoarders. “Pickers is produced differently and they celebrate stuff, as opposed to telling people to get rid of the stuff. I could do a totally different show with a person that is on Pickers.”
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