Trying Out for Antiques Roadshow

It began with an email from my local PBS station during the second year of the pandemic. Antiques Roadshow was going to be filming new episodes and invited viewers to submit a photo and short blurb describing items of interest from the proverbial attic. I hesitated and thought about my grandfather’s lute.

Paul Henry Lang was a musicologist and had been given a lute by Eugene Ormandy of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It lived in a glass case in my grandfather’s study but after his death, my grandmother did not have room for it and gave it to me. I hung it in my New York apartment with help from a coworker* and carefully moved it to Massachusetts with me when I relocated. It was a little the worse for wear but still impressive. I took several pictures, wrote a short description, and uploaded both. The website offered Connecticut or New Hampshire filming locations, and I picked the latter because I already know Connecticut well.

A month later one of the show’s producers called me at work out of the blue. She asked questions about the lute’s provenance and age and whether I had any documentation or anything describing my grandfather's relationship with Ormandy or the gift itself. I said no, and explained they were both Hungarian and colleagues but she seemed very disappointed. She told me they investigate the submissions that catch their interest but not to get my hopes up. So I did not, but then in July I got good news:

Dear ROADSHOW Fan,

Congratulations! Your entry in the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW appraisal contest has won an invitation to the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW production day at Omni Mount Washington Resort, Bretton Woods, NH on Thursday, September 2, 2021.

Within the next two weeks an ANTIQUES ROADSHOW staff member will contact you with further details, including the time you have been scheduled to arrive, location information, and to confirm the item for which you have been selected. You may bring one member from your household to accompany you to the production day.

In the meantime, please refrain from conducting any advance research on your item.

We look forward to seeing you on the day!

Sincerely,

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW

I was very excited although, inconveniently, the date was two days before my mother and I were supposed to leave for a twice-postponed trip to France. And I hadn’t realized how far away some parts of New Hampshire are – but, of course, I said yes, even though we had to drive up the night before and get up very early to reach the famous Mount Washington hotel by 7:30 am.  And I was too busy trying to go on vacation to do any research on the lute, even if it hadn't been forbidden.

Omni Mount Washington Resort

There were a lot of Covid precautions so all the contestants waited outside, looking with interest at each other’s items. Eventually, my mother and I were ushered inside and brought to a ballroom where we sat with the lute and waited impatiently, looking at the competition. We admired a Civil War certificate of valor, two leather Elephants that sat near someone’s grandparents’ fireplace, and a gorgeous 19th-century clock with a painting. After nearly two hours, an appraiser came over and introduced himself as Adam Tober from the Skinner Auction House. I started to tell him all about the lute but he politely explained that we weren’t supposed to converse, that way our subsequent conversation would be fresh and not seem stilted. He had a tiny flashlight that he used to look inside the lute’s rose, searching for a maker’s mark. He left without telling us anything.

View from the hotel porch

A long time went by. We had noticed a makeup artist at the other end of the room and a man near us went over and asked her for a makeover. It turned out she was just for the appraisers, which was disappointing, but that guy made her laugh so she put makeup on him. He persuaded me to go ask her to do my makeup and she agreed but, of course, a minute after she began, one of the producers came for us. Oh well. They took us and the lute on a long walk through the famous hotel. I thought, What if I trip and break it before I even learn its value? However, we eventually wound up in an ornate room and about ten producer/video/sound types, plus our appraiser, much friendlier now. At one point, he told us this was his first time appraising for Antiques Roadshow and I am sure he was eager to make a good impression so he would be asked back. One of the production assistants carefully pinned the lute sideways and after some testing 1-2-3, we were up!

The cameras went on and the appraiser asked me to tell him about the lute. I told the story of my grandfather coming to America from Budapest in the late 1920s as a scholar funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and how he introduced the field of musicology in this country, teaching at Wells, Vassar, and Wellesley before he joined the faculty at Columbia. I explained that as the music critic for the New York Herald Tribune, he heard the Philadelphia Orchestra perform and, as my grandmother told the story, gave them a bad review. Eugene Ormandy, who had been conducting, wrote to him and said, “Yes, we were bad that night but please give us another chance by coming to hear us again.” When he did, the orchestra did perform better and the two men became friends. They had a lot in common, two years apart in age, both born in Budapest and had immigrated to the US, and although they hadn’t known each other in Hungary, Ormandy said that his father, a dentist, had sent him to my great grandfather’s jewelry shop to buy gold for fillings. And at some point, Ormandy gave my grandfather this lute.

Adam, the appraiser, asked if I knew how old the lute was and I wondered it could be 18th century as that was one of my grandfather’s areas of expertise. He said that he had done some research on my grandfather and discovered several articles he had written on lute music, so my assumption that the instrument was a lute was understandable. However, he told me it was not a lute but an oud, an Arabian instrument that is a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument. "A what?" I said blankly.  "How do you spell that?"  He said it had been crafted in the early 20th century in Boston by Khalil Gibran, not the poet, but his nephew with the same name (I still don’t see how the dates work but he saw the maker's mark). I was a little disappointed but still fascinated. Adam said my oud was not in great condition but he estimated the value at $800-$1200, with the caveat that it would probably cost that much to have an expert refurbish it (some day). The producer seemed really interested, came closer, and told us to go on talking, and they went on filming and he came over with his cell phone and tried to film the inside of the oud to show the hidden date, but without success.  As we left, two of the camera people went out of their way to tell me how interesting the piece had been so I was very hopeful this and the additional filming meant we’d make the final show but five months later I found out my oud had not been selected (they must have had other instruments with better stories or value).  A pity as it might have led to fame and fortune . . .  

An actual oud (which greatly 
resembles the lute)

If you have never seen Antiques Roadshow, it can be quite entertaining. The guests usually have an item that is not as valuable as they hope or is much more valuable than they’d guessed. Sometimes the item has minor value but, like my oud, has an interesting story. The producers clearly look for a variety of items with differing values and accompanying narratives. Despite not getting chosen for the actual show, the whole experience was very entertaining and Adam revealed some information about my grandfather that we had never known, so that was fun for both my mother and me.  We also explored the hotel a little before returning home.  As we drove, we speculated that one of Ormandy's students or musicians from Boston gave him the oud and perhaps he gave it to my grandfather as a joke.  


*He offered his picture-hanging assistance unasked, then arrived with a bottle of wine on the appointed evening. Puzzled, I said, “Thank you. Let’s open it after we hang the lute.”

“You mean there’s really a lute?” he said, crestfallen.

Yes, there’s a lute, and even if there weren’t, I’m not interested, Mr. Married Man!