Went to the Antiques Roadshow event at the Miami Beach Convention Center yesterday, but it was a bit of a letdown… I didn’t realize until we were about to leave that guests are not allowed to bring coins or paper currency, so the stuff that my mom and grandad wanted me to take was useless (not that we thought it was worth anything, but we wanted to hear the stories behind them). Had to go back home and scavenge for something to take because they won’t let you in unless you bring an item or two. In my haste, I absolutely forgot everything about my antique books, and decided to grab a couple of old toys instead. Of course, these are vintage, rather than antiques, but I thought they might still be able to tell me something about their history or the market for them. I guess they really aren’t into anything that wouldn’t be classified as a proper antique. I took a 1990 Holiday Barbie and a wooden toy bear (that I thought was a dog and still do) that I received from a penpal in the USSR (yes! BEFORE it was Russia et al.) when I was a kid. The Toyguy just looked at the bear and told me what I already knew about it. It’s a Russian toy, a bear. Er… yes, I know (except the bear part, it looks like a dog. I insist.). Meanwhile, the Doll appraiser said my doll would have been worth more a few years ago, but the market is just not buying them now so it has less value. Oh well. My bchan took in some comics, but they don’t really look at comics so they clumped him in with Collectibles; they just told him to look up the value online.
We were really just looking to see what it was like at the show, thought we’d be able to see some neat things, but it’s really just guests being hustled from line to line, a lot of ticket punching, and being scolded like 5-year-olds for going too near the filming area.
At least the event tickets were nice, they’ll make for very pretty bookmarks. Next time, I won’t bother entering the drawing for tickets unless I have something that is properly ancient.
marginalia and such 