From the thousands of treasures brought to the Salt Lake City stop on Antiques Roadshow’s 2025 tour, a little more than a hundred were filmed for inclusion in the show’s 2026 season.
Do you remember the excitement of show and tell when you were a child? That giddy feeling of being able to bring your treasure to class and captivate your classmates with stories about your belongings? Maybe someone else in class also had a similar treasure, or you were introduced to something you’ve never seen before. There was that undeniable joy in sharing something important to you with others. There was a similar energy in the Red Butte Amphitheater in Salt Lake City during the Antique Roadshow.
Antiques Roadshow is a PBS primetime television show that was first aired on January 9, 1997. The show has been running ever since and is the second longest-running PBS show with 29 seasons under its belt. This year, the show runners announced that Salt Lake City was one of the stops planned for their 2025 tour—which will become the basis for their 30th season, planned to release in 2026. Antiques Roadshow has only been in Salt Lake 3 times before. The last visit was in 2016 for the filming of Season 11, so it was a welcomed reunion.
The event took place on the Red Butte Garden and Amphitheater grounds with booths organized for experts to appraise participants’ items. Participants begin the day getting their items categorized, then make their way to their respected booth to meet with an expert. While lines were long due to 2000 tickets being sent out, there was only excitement and camaraderie in the lines. Collectors of all kinds waited patiently with child-like excitement to swap stories of their treasures of all shapes and sizes. From paintings and clocks to old books and vintage gas pumps, the collections were as unique as their collectors.
“The whole experience is just exciting,” said collectors Sherrie and T. “It was so nice to share the story of my documents and learn more about them.” The desire to share stories and learn more seemed to be the main motivator for attendees. “The main goal is to learn, the price is just the bonus,” said one collector. “It’s validating to come with something you’ve cared about for so long and find out its history and worth.” After sitting in on some appraisals, it’s easy to see what these collectors mean.
Salt Lake City rare book dealer Ken Sanders examines a Utah woman’s literary treasures during Antiques Roadshow’s stop in Salt Lake City.
The exchange begins with attendees sharing their personal history of an item. Then experts reciprocate with their historical knowledge. Experts ooze passion and knowledge while collectors absorb every drop of information. Antique book expert and local celebrity Ken Sanders says, “We aren’t professionals but we are passionate. We learn about our expertise through osmosis. The more we see the more we are bound to pick up.” And that seemed to be the theme of the day. Passion. A gathering of people passionate about something and wanting to share that with others.
Antiques Roadshow executive producer Marsha Bemko expressed a similar notion. “You can’t do this part-time,” she said. “Our experts are obsessed with their passions. It takes decades to learn what they have and then they share it with others.” Bemko has been with Antiques Roadshow for 25 years. “Just like PBS ,our main goal is to educate people. These things people bring are meaningful to them and they deserve to learn about them without rush.”
Antiques Roadshow won’t be back in Utah for at least another five years. While it is sad to see them go, it doesn’t have to be the end of learning. PBS offers a valuable service outside appraising our strange trinkets. “Knowledge is power, and PBS empowers people,” Bemko said during our interview. PBS provides free services for communities nationwide. Several staff members repeated the same sentiment about how to best help out. “Care about what PBS cares about.” If you care about stories, knowledge and people, then consider helping out your local PBS station.
Attendees gather under clear skies at Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre for the 2025 taping of Antiques Roadshow, waiting in line with treasured items in hand.
You can learn more about the unprecedented challenges PBS currently faces at ProtectMyPublicMedia.org.
All images courtesy of the author.
Jonah Delgado was born and raised in Los Angeles but moved to Utah in 2018. He quickly fell in love with the mountains, the Great Salt Lake, and the art scene in Utah. Jonah graduated from Weber State with a BA in English, and is always on the hunt for new exciting art to gawk at and enjoy.
Categories: Literary Arts | Visual Arts
Great article! This author is clearly very well educated and has a future in literature. Really excited to see what he will come up with next! If I was his boss I would give him a promotion.
15 bytes may not be your best chance to pass off someone else’s art as reality. Gene Parmesan, played by the late, great Martin Mull, was a detective on Arrested Development. If you’re the “real” Gene Parmesan, you can resist it, but you will probably end up with no choice but to go to court and change your name. Such is the power of Martin Mull.