Antiques Roadshow

Popular Entertainment and Education

The Antiques Roadshow has become highly popular entertainment for the general population and collectors alike. Even antique dealers admit to watching the series with interest.

Since Britain's initial show many more countries have introduced similar shows. This includes some European countries, as weel as the US and Japan. The possibility that abyone could have some stuff in the attic with collecting value ensures the continuous appeal of the show. 
Here is a link to Britain's Antiques Roadshow.

The website of America's show has a lot of additional information educating the reader to some facts related to show items.
For example, under "Only Online" click "follow the stories", "tips", etc. and select one of the squares on the left. Inside the center rectangular frame more links will be  displayed. These lead to additional information relating to one or several subjects in this category.

Don't forget to use the search box and look for the categories that interest you most.
And, here is the link to Asian Arts, a category most readers of this site may be interested in. It relates mostly to Chinese and Japanese art.

And here is some general information relating to Roadshow appraisals.

Roadshow programs in China
China itself has Antique Roadshow programs too. Of course they are all in Chinese. Click the following link If you are curious and want to watch the Chinese TV Roadshow program "Treasure Hunt" (寻宝).
In this case the experts are mainly well known museum researchers. The days of busy preliminary evaluations are not shown. The final show does also show some unsuccessful items, thought to be fakes.

Instructions for non-Chinese speakers:
The large block with thumbnails shows the individual shows. Clicking one of the tumbnails starts the show's video. The second and third are for individual items. Ignore these, the actual TV programs are listed with their thumbnails and dates in the top field, the large block of some thirty thumbnails. The most recent one is on top, left side.
Enjoy...  :-)

There is another major roadshow program active in China, but their sensational practice of smashing items on the spot if judged to be fakes has now brought them into trouble.
Probably, this one attracted many viewers, but after years of this a (museum employee) collector/owner has now had the shards of his "fake" subjected to scientific authentication and it was found that it was a genuine item.
Currently, litigation is being pursued, with suspicions that over the years hundreds of genuine antiques, some of them of very high quality, were smashed...

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