Antiques Roadshow Newport



Well, we got to the Antiques Roadshow in Newport, Rhode Island. I must say that they do have their act together. With hurricane Jose whipping up the wind and dropping some rain along the New England seaboard ... Newport was no exception, but thankfully it was minor ... the Roadshow folks had very efficient transportation, tents and loads of happy, helpful volunteers. We took our treasures and got in line. (BTW none of the lines were long and they moved quickly ... well orchestrated considering there were about 3000 people scheduled that day.) Susan had her powder puff and her little celluloid box ... I had my Civil War diary and my Sconce family archives. (See earlier posts about these items.)
 
Photo from the Newport Daily News
Photo from the Newport Patch

The show was held at Rosecliff, one of the Newport mansions along Ocean Avenue and the Cliff Walk. Rosecliff was built around 1898-1902 and is open to the public as a historic house museum. The house has also been known as the Hermann Oelrichs House or the J. Edgar Monroe House.
 

Susan took her items to the collectibles table. Unfortunately the appraiser there did not have a clue about these items, so he consulted with the "experts" at the ladies' accessory table. He told us little and guessed at the prices. For these items we knew more than they did. Darn.



I had better luck with my books. The appraiser told us that the Civil War journal/diary was interesting, but not down the line of what Civil War collectors preferred. He said they like diaries that are contemporaneous with the war ... written during the war, not as recollections 40 years later. Still, he figured it was worth $550-800 at auction.



He looked at the Sconce family archives. He limited his comments to the little book by Robert Clement Sconce and to the drawings by Herbert Sconce. The book, which I absolutely love, was only given a cursory glance. He liked it but not as much as he liked the drawings. He zeroed in on the ethnographic images, saying that with the artist's historical background in Indian events, and the quality of the drawings, that this collection of ethnographic drawings were worth $10,000-15,000 at auction if kept together.


None of the items were given TV appraisal status. So you won't see us on a future episode. But it was fun.

For more on this Roadshow see these articles:

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