Antiques Road Trip

After watching an evening of awful far-fetched soaps, over-extended dramas or rubbish reality, it's a pleasant change to revert to my recordings of Antique Road Trip. Okay so I'm interested in antiques, it may not appeal to those who aren't, but for me it works - they should make more episodes. The format is simple, each week two antique dealers/ experts/ auctioneers drive around the country buying antiques and collectibles with a starting sum of £200 they the then sell their wares at auction at the end of each episode, their profit, or loss, carries forward until the final at the end of the week. Any profit goes to charity.

OK here's what goes on. Two knowledgeable antiques dealers travel around from antique shop to shop in a competition. They switch out the dealers and several have become fan favorites like Paul and Anita. They look around for bargains, haggle heavy, and bring what they found to auction, to see who can generate the most profits. They start out with 200p(around $400) they drive a cool vintage car, they banter playfully. They show some history each episode. They get to the auction. Sometimes they chose well, sometimes they chose bad. It's showing that NOBODY sets the market prices, the MARKET sets the price. In other words, things sell for what people are willing to pay. You see the pre sale estimates, and exactly what the things sold for. Anita once bought something cheap that sold for a brand new car price! But people have spent hundreds on something, and only got a fraction of their money back too.

This is the difference between the American shows which always TELLS THE VIEWERS what they'll get like that's set in stone. They never point out mistakes or things that brought many times their estimates. They act like they get what they say.

This is fantastic information! You could have an item that sold for $200 on EBAY and you can't sell it for half that. Why? Many, many, many factors. The one person who wanted it for that price already bought one. There was some fakery going on bidding wise(they bid it up). Yours isn't exactly like that one. Your pictures and description weren't good. There's myriads of factors. But like I said our American shows act like their estimates are Gospel.

These people running around are characters, and have funny, and interesting personalities. They point out lots of interesting things. Our people are thugs and jerks looking to rip off the public. If you haven't caught episodes yet, please do.

And unlike the American shows, this is all a competition for charity. Not all faked drama with a bunch of people who don't really buy and sell anymore, and instead have become actors on TV pretending they still do what they used before they got a show.

Very interesting show but for goodness sake will someone tape the mouth of the dreadful Wonnacot . His constant yakking makes me want to reach into the TV and rip his throat out. He adds nothing and detracts mightily.

Found this and the celebrity counterpart on Pluto TV, which has an entire channel dedicated to it, and I've been watching it constantly for about a month. It's an easy thing to throw on in the background while you're doing other things, or if you just want something pleasant to pass the time. The antiques experts are (for the most part) really fun and have great chemistry with one another--I've only seen one or two who are kind of off-putting or take the game too seriously.

I do wonder if a random customer walking into these antique stores off the street could negotiate the same kinds of deals these experts get; sometimes they'll talk the dealers down by over a hundred pounds and the dealer will even complain that they're losing money at that price--and then lower it even more. Maybe they're going soft because they know they're on camera and the auctions are for charity?

It's entertaining to hear the experts rattle off facts about items they pick up off the shelves, but sometimes they outsmart themselves by picking out items that only fellow experts can appreciate. I can't tell you how often an expert will rave about a boring-looking chair because it's from the Edwardian era--the age! The craftsmanship! The history!--and then it will fetch ten pounds at auction because, well, it's just a boring-looking chair. But that's all part of the fun, and the experts take both profits and losses in good humor. It's not the kind of ruthless win-at-any-cost competitive spirit we always see on American reality shows. It's sort of the antiquing equivalent of Great British Bake-Off.

And, thank God, it's NOT heavily scripted and fake, like all the shows we have over here, where every single interaction seems to be choreographed. I caught about three minutes of Storage Wars and was appalled at all the monologues to camera that were so obviously written beforehand by Blue Collar Comedy wannabes. Sickening! Antique Road Trip does it right--low key, lighthearted, organically amusing and informative.

Why, oh why does the programme insist on returning to the smug auctioneer in Bourne. He obviously doesn't have a broad spectrum of clients on his books as most of the items brought in by the dealers fail to make a profit. Some of them are sold at outrageously low prices and the dealers are clearly hiding their disbelief. Why this auctioneer thinks starting a slow bid at £1 'for a bit of fun' is a good idea, is beyond belief. Does he realise this is taxpayers' money and profits go to charity? Apart from him, it's a nice gentle and interesting programme. Contrary to another viewer's comments, we rather like Tim Wonnacot's running commentary.