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NEWS & VIEWS ARCHIVES

2000 April Archives

INSIDE STORY: Antiques Road Show's Fraud Revealed
April 2000

One of PBS’s most popular shows, Antiques Roadshow, is known for having regular folks bring in old things from their attic and have them appraised by experts as eye-popping gilded relics worth thousands of dollars. Thousands attend the traveling productions hoping an heirloom will hit the jackpot. But the Roadshow has a sideshow. In a typical encounter, one man said he “found” a sword in this attic and used it to cut watermelon. The appraisers said the sword was an authentic Civil War weapon worth $35,000. What a find! But the set-up was a fake. The two antique weaponry dealers used as appraisers during the shows taping brought in a high school buddy with the sword and “cooked up the story” at their hotel before the taping of the program. “Now is the time when the station might want to reevaluate how they manage this vast circus,” said Boston Herald TV critic Monica Collins, who broke the story in early April. “...and figure out how to keep it well-oiled and honest so that they can hold viewer trust.” However, with an average viewership of 13.4 million a week, the public is already willing to accept without question the values appraisers give to household “treasures” on a program sponsored by an insurance company. That’s showbiz!
Click here to read all the articles on this story from the Boston Herald.