This story originally published May 15, 2024 in the news section of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This is one of April Wallace’s top stories of the year.

The 29th season of “Antiques Roadshow” will kick off next month with three episodes filmed earlier this year at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, according to a news release Monday from Arkansas PBS.

The three episodes will air at 7 p.m. Jan. 6, 13 and 20 on PBS, according to the release.

To celebrate the premiere, Arkansas PBS and Crystal Bridges will host a free screening event featuring highlights from all three episodes at 3 p.m. Jan. 11 in the museum’s Great Hall. The event is open to the public with registration required at myarpbs.org/events.

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They brought with them entire bedroom sets, while others had items small enough to fit in their pockets. Some needed the assistance of a suitcase or wagon.

More than 3,000 people made their way to the museum in May for the tapings of “Antiques Roadshow,” public television’s series where experts appraise the value of various old and rare items people bring them. The show, produced by GBH, is seen by around 5 million viewers each week, the release states.

Last names were prohibited from use for the safety of guests and their potentially high-value items.

A crew of 25 staff members and 70 appraisers shepherded visitors and their special items into 23 categories where they learned more about the history and monetary value of their pieces.

Marsha Bemko, the show’s executive producer, said “Antiques Roadshow” chooses locations they have not previously been or areas they haven’t visited in a while.

While it is a TV show, Bemko loves that the subjects are ordinary people, like your neighbors.

She said she was enjoying conducting the process at the museum, which had enough space to accommodate the breadth of their filming process, which includes seven camera crews, as well as the many people carefully navigating campus with their valuables.

All appraisers are on a volunteer basis with the show, said Demee Gambulos, director of brand marketing and audience development.

When assessing an item, they wait to tell guests the item’s monetary value until they are on camera so the genuine reaction is captured on screen, Gambulos said.

While many of the appraisal booths were set up outdoors, extending to the Maman sculpture and the Frank Lloyd Wright House lawn, the items that would be most sensitive to the weather — such as books, paintings and sculptures — were given space in the Great Hall to shield them from the elements.

Ken Gloss, proprietor of Boston’s rare and used bookstore The Brattle Book Shop, was there appraising books. He’s spent 50 years in his family business and enjoys the variety of items he comes across in his daily work.

Gloss always looks forward to the meat of the work.

“You never know what’s going to come in,” he said.

Early Tuesday morning, Gloss was shown a pamphlet from the 1830s on “The Life and Adventures of Venture Smith,” about a man who was abducted in Africa in the 1700s and sold into slavery in the U.S. Venture bought his freedom and wrote a book about his experiences in 1790. The copy brought in Tuesday was an 1835 edition.

“It’s incredibly rare,” Gloss said, adding no copies had been sold in the last 100 years. “We’re talking about an enslaved person writing a narrative.”

Debra and Peggy of Bella Vista came to “Antiques Roadshow” with an antique Emerson radio.

The two were surprised when it was categorized as “Asian art” and asked appraiser Lark Mason Jr. if they were in the right place. He said those in triage knew he would pick up on the Asian decoration.

“It’s called Chinoiserie — inspired from China,” he said. The item was in the shape of a small portable Chinese writing box, which would look just like it. Between 1915 and 1925 that way of disguising the radio inside “would have been an elegant solution and would have sold more radios than the conventional way.

Mason noted the value was in the Emerson radio’s Chinoiserie decoration and the fact it was made at a time when radios were exotic ways of hearing from other parts of the world. Its value at an auction would be up to $400.

Over at the sports memorabilia tent, Joe and his father from the St. Louis area placed a shiny trophy on the table with baseball player Rogers Hornsby’s name etched on it. The appraiser noted it was in great condition, which pleased Joe, since he had to polish it once a month as one of his chores when he was ages 5 to 15.

It wound up in their family, Joe’s dad said, because Hornsby was a family friend. He and other athletes would come over to his home to drink beer and smoke cigars while his mother admonished them to get real jobs. After a couple more questions from the appraiser, Joe and his dad were then taken closer to a set to possibly be filmed for a segment.

The last time “Antiques Roadshow” was taped in Arkansas was in Little Rock for season 20, which was broadcast in 2016.—

FAQ

WHAT — To celebrate the premiere, Arkansas PBS and Crystal Bridges will host a free screening event featuring highlights from all three episodes

WHEN — 3 p.m. Jan. 11

WHERE — Great Hall at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art 600 Museum Way

COST — Free

INFO — The event is open to the public with registration required at myarpbs.org/events.

Special guests at the event will include: Sam Farrell and Nigel Freeman, senior producer and appraiser, respectively, for “Antiques Roadshow”; Kim Teehee, a Cherokee Nation representative; and Austen Barron Bailly, chief curator for Crystal Bridges and The Momentary. The first 100 attendees will receive free admission to Crystal Bridges’ special exhibition “Knowing the West,” according to the release.

At a glance

Here are the three episodes produced from the Bentonville tour stop, including some of the treasures featured in each show:

• “Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 1,” premiering Jan. 6: A 1976 Marvel UK Super Spider-Man #175 cover art, a 1926 Rogers Hornsby sterling trophy, and Winslow Homer watercolors, circa 1879.

• “Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 2,” premiering Jan. 13: An Elvis Presley-signed ice cream display; an Arnold Palmer-engraved golf club, circa 1980; and a Marvel Silver Age comics collection.

• “Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hour 3,” premiering Jan. 20: An 1857 Queen’s Cup ascot race trophy, a 1956 Curta calculator type II and an Art Deco sapphire and platinum ring.