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In anticipation of our possible trip to the Antique Roadshow taping this summer, I’ve been silently walking around the house wondering what we should take.

Yes, we have hundreds of antiques… but it should be something special.

Something unusual.

Something expensive.

Something the dealers won’t roll their eyes at once we step away from the appraisal desk.

In a perfect world I would have taken this…

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A large Audubon print of canvas back ducks in Baltimore harbor.

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Years ago we thought this was the real deal. It was the right elephant folio size to be an original…

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It had the correct identifiers…

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The right printer and date.

It was a gift to my parents from a wealthy family friend and had been hanging on my parents wall since the 1960’s. My mother always told me it was worth a fortune.

She was right about that..

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But when my husband and I took it to Christie’s auction house in NYC 30 years ago we were told it was an only a good quality restrike from the 1940’s, worth approximately $3,000.

While that’s not chump change, and it may have appreciated some since then….

Nope.

Not Roadshow material.

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