Monday, September 10, 2007
Antiques and Values
The Antiques Road Show we just watched took place in Honolulu. Trying to play up the lottery aspect of the show the producer airs the antique evaluations so they ascend in monetary value.
At the end of the show a woman with a painting by a native Hawaiian artist was being assessed. It was a landscape with figures portraying a less developed Hawaii. She had purchased it for $400 in the 1970s and spent about $900 on restoration.
It turned out this painting was a “national treasure”. The painting was worth $150,000 at auction. The woman, a shy and dignified person, was having trouble sorting out her emotions. She had goose bumps and was on the edge of tears. It might seem an odd reaction, but it wasn't at all. In fact, it was touching. She wasn't acting like a lottery winner — her emotions appeared only tangentially connected to profit. She said she was “proud to have the painting”. Very fine.
Something like this had happened before, and as been shown often on PBS: a man brought in a Chief's Blanket, associated with a famous Native American chief and I think, Kit Carson, believe it or not, who gave the blanket to his father for work he had done. It too was a national treasure. In that case it was worth 1.5 million bucks. And once again, the man was close to tears, and once again, it appeared something more complex than simple monetary value moved him.