Ridiculous crime.

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Hi Zaren, Hello Elizabeth?

How are you today?

I'm doing well.

How about you?

You look like you're doing well?

Am I right?

Is that a good read on my part?

I am?

Well, you know it's ridiculous, I do tell me all right?

You know how hockey they allow fighting, yes, which I imagine you're probably not a fan of.

It depends on my mood.

Oh really, okay, Well, are you familiar with the NHL's Washington Capitals.

No team, They're a hockey team, and so they have minor league teams in hockey, just like in baseball.

The lowercase, Yes.

The Washington lowercase.

Then see what I did?

I did.

I was trying to let it.

Go sometimes sometimes I'm so funny and I don't even know what to do about that.

So they're minor league team.

Is the Hershey Bears?

Yes, so you think of it had like a chocolate thing with the other anyway, So the Hershey Bears, they were having a game.

They just had to have the competition.

They let some people out on the ice, and uh, I'll kind of skip ahead to point out that the Bears had to afterwards release his statement that said quote, this did not reflect the values of the sport or the standards we expect when young athletes are on the ice.

So apparently a bunch of young athletes got into a fight on the ice.

And when I say young athletes, Elizabeth, it was an eight and undersquad from Pennsylvania, no squad scrimmage between the American Hockey League teams.

And so while these like eight and unders, the fight lasted for more like basically about a minute long.

And there's all these clips because you know, everybody always records everything.

Yeah, so the people at the Giant Center, they could be heard cheering.

Particularly there was like this one the goalie he delivered a hard hit to an opponent who was like, you know, messing with his The crowds cheering under eight these kids are under it.

Oh no, the goalie comes out of the box and just like levels another crowd or RUPs, right, so they uh, And this is why the Bears team had to release the statement that quote, this did not reflect the values of the sport or the standards we expect.

I was like, wait, hockey, Yeah, you guys are all about the fighting.

And then they had to add to that little like a qualifier when young athletes are apparently if you shave, you can then somebody.

So yeah, oh my goodness.

So there you go.

I thought that was kind of ridiculous.

That is ridiculous.

Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

Please?

I love ridiculous.

Keepsake, send curios.

This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.

Heis and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Damn right, I know, I am.

You know that show Antiques Roadshow?

Yes, I love that show.

Yeah.

Just to just to clarify before we start chopping it up about the show, let me explain what it is for non PBS watchers.

Okay, So Antiques Road Show started as a British reality TV.

Show Oh really, of course, a.

BBC jam and in that one, antiques appraisers appraise antiques brought in by local people all across the UK.

They would talk about provenance, history, the value of the items, all those things.

And it's actually started as a documentary in nineteen seventy seven, oh wow, and then it became this regular show in nineteen seventy nine.

We get more of that I want, I want one a.

Week and they all right, here you go.

So nineteen seventy nine is when that kicked off, and then there are like subsequent inner national versions all throughout Europe, North America, other countries, same format, So Roadshow was big.

The British version was big in the US on Public Broadcasting Service PBS, Yes, public television stations.

So they created their own American version, same format, local antiques owners bring in their prize possessions to be appraised by experts.

The American version first aired in nineteen ninety.

Seven thanks to viewers like me, thanks Aunt.

Darlene Shiley, and it has been nominated twenty two times for the Primetime Emmys.

Really twenty two times times.

That's crazy.

And so in the UK version they set up shop at some like Grand Manor, and it feels like you either get folks with very charming items that their families had passed down and also rescued from the blitz, or like super blase folks with very expensive art who should know better than to go flaunting that stuff on TV.

Oh, I have some grace, don't be crass.

Oh I thought, you know they're making themselves marks for.

Like no, but it's just like you know, darn well how much this is worth and what the story is in it.

You're just bragging on.

I misread cat.

So they're basically like, can I have an expert?

Just kind of like shine me off on TV?

Precisely.

Then we have the American version.

There are great segments where people bring in things that actually belong in a museum, like they get listed as priceless.

Yes, I love when I see that.

A lot of Native American and Inuit pieces are like that, or the good ones where people who think they have a priceless artifact but they do not.

They've been told some lie by a family member about how it was gifted to their great great grandma from a Chinese princess.

It was traveling through their town in North Dakota, and the appraisers all actually it's circa nineteen eighty six from the Bombay company at the local Westfield mall.

Love that.

The best, though, are the ones where the person has something that they like and they think it's interesting, but they don't really know anything about it.

Yeah, so maybe they like bought a bought like an item that they thought was cool at a garage sale three bucks, like a bowl or something, or like a painting caught their eye at a thrift store and they paid thirty bucks for it, or it was their grandma's and they always liked it, and then grandma passes away.

They get it always reminds them of her sits on the side table in the living room.

So they're just curious about how old the thing is or like any background it might have.

It's like, tell me the story of this object.

Yeah, they're not looking to get rich.

But then the appraiser just like blows their mind and the thing is where hundreds of thousands and they start to cry.

Those are my favorite.

I do love that.

Those are good.

So do you watch antiques road show?

My sister loves all shows where there's like either bargains or appraisals or anything like that.

So she's like a big like shopper and she likes to, like, you know, she actually does really well.

She finds things at places like you know, antiques, like antique houses, is Good Wills wherever, and she'll like be like, oh, this is because she watches these shows.

She knows a ton of different things that are valuable.

So shout out to my sister.

I've always impressed, like how much she knows about these things.

I dislike watching the human reactions, and then I like watching the experts kind of glaze people off, like going, oh man, this is really cool.

It's actually beginning, they tell him, like the school of artists who made it, and then I learned something or else.

I also like it when it's like like some personal like shame where it's like this is actually a slave made bracelet, so your family was likely.

Yeah, those are brutal.

So I'm a little dark.

And my the show when I was younger, we'd watch it.

My brother would start scanning around the house.

Could I take it?

And we're just like, there's nothing of value here, trap, there's absolutely nothing.

You actually you caught me watching an episode here at headquarters while I was eating my lunch the other.

Yes, totally.

When you slam shut your laptop like you, I was waiting.

For the interns to finish changing my oil and I was it was just killing time.

Yeah, because they did.

There's an air filter change so on it.

Because we Americans can't seem to do anything without grift and fraud.

There's a reason.

There's a reason I'm talking about the American version of Antiques Roadshow today.

There's crime.

That's why we're here.

So I've got three American Antiques road Show adjacent crimes for you today.

Let's start with a couple of Civil War appraisers, Russell Pritchard the third and George Juno.

So Pritchard, he's like, he's this third generation antiques dealer from New Jersey, and he presents himself as an expert in Americana, ethnographic objects, especially Native American artifacts, and his family business background and he has like this polished demeanor.

They they helped him cultivate incredible credibility in the antiques trade.

It's a great place, so I imagine to establish that.

Yeah, his dad, Russell Pritchard Junior, was the former director of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.

Huh, So he's got it's just in the family.

So he positions himself not only as doing you know, the Americana and such, he becomes a military as specialist and appraiser.

By like the mid nineties, he was the co owner of the American Ordnance Preservation Association AOPA.

Like the Canniball Finders.

I guess they're like Save the Cannibals, which was in the quote business of dealing in and appraising eighteenth and nineteenth century military items and also serving quote as a consultant to various museums and libraries.

Okay, so you got spent call him right.

You're like, what's this?

Gunde?

Like, no, put it down.

So George Juneo he was an associate of Pritchard, and he was not a recognized antiques authority, but instead he just kind of worked with Pritchard in like acquiring and reselling objects.

So he didn't know like a claymore from a clay achm precisely.

So Pritchard's the expert, Juno's just like the facilitator got you.

In the late nineties early two thousand's, Antiques road Show had established itself as this widely trusted public television program and they would do these appraisal events all over the US.

Appraisers and guests were expected to disclose any conflicts of interest, and the items that they brought for appraisal were assumed to be owned by the person presenting them.

Yes, that's just part of the country.

So Pritchard and Juno they would purchase valuable antiques privately at relatively low prices, and then they would present those same items on antiques road show like they belonged to some clueless owner who had recently discovered they.

Would have a shilling, and then they appraise.

So that the televised appraisal, well, it would totally spike the object's perceived value and marketability.

So to pull this off, friends of Theirs appeared on camera as the quote owner, and then Pritchard used his insider knowledge of the market to select things that would be likely to receive high appraisals.

Here's the thing.

The show wasn't told that the items had already been purchased for resale and that the presenters had this financial interest in the outcome of the appraisal.

Yeah, of course not so.

In nineteen ninety six, Juno and Pritchard had this guy named Steve come on and he brought a Civil War sword.

Now, behind the scenes, they told Steve what to say about the sword, rehearsing it.

Oh, they had to have he was he was supposed to come out and tell them that he used to cut watermelons with the sword when he was a boy.

And they're like, okay, you wild's so so good and like all everyone can picture it, and it's just so wholesome with a sword and like you know, back when I was knee high to aggress.

How you want more watermelon?

Mo my arm?

So Steve tells the story and everyone, oh, they'll chuckle, but then they gasp when Prigard and Juno revealed that the sword is actually worth a cool thirty five thousand dollars.

Steve, he's gobsmacked.

I bet acting.

So they didn't get any money out of this scam, but it was used to lay the groundwork.

So this would get them more airtime on Antique's road show so they could promote their business, American Ordnance Preservation Association.

They were just water yeah at this.

Point, Yeah, lay in the ground, where chum the waters.

So another incident involved a Navajo chief's blanket, which is a highly prized category in terms of nineteenth century Native American text.

Sure those patterns.

Yeah, so Pritchard and Juno, Oh yeah, they bought the blanket from its original owner for like five thousand dollars.

They didn't tell the seller that they were going to use it for a televised appraisal, and so the blanket is later presented on Antique's Roadshow as a newly discovered family heirloom, like, look who we found in this chest?

Is what is this thing?

So during the broadcast, Pritchard is like, you know what, I would value it at approximately three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

What he's like, it is so rare, it's in perfect condition.

Purchase for five grand.

So the episode airs and it dramatically inflates the blanket's perceived market value viewers.

They have no idea that a the presenters already own the item and that b this appraisal is like directly benefiting them.

So after the broadcast, the blanket gets resold for this huge, huge profit, and then it's directly tied to the credibility and the exposure provided by the show.

Of course, so they didn't do this with just the blanket.

A bunch of like that.

Investigators later identified multiple items that followed the same trajectory private purchase, deceptive on air presentation, profitable resale.

So Juno and Pritchard they did attract new customers with that watermelon sword segment, and then they conned them all over again.

They convinced the descendants of Major Samuel Wilson, who was a Civil War Army a Union Army officer, to sell one of his swords.

And they told the family that they were acting on behalf of the Harrisburg National Civil War Museum.

Oh and the sword's worth eight grand and would they accept this offer?

So Juno and Pritchard, you know, They're like, the sword will be on display at the museum so that everyone can learn about your ani as the Wilson family.

They're like so honored.

They're like, yes, we agree to the deal.

So they pay the eight thousand for the sword.

Then they turn around and they sell it to a private collector for twenty grand.

Nothing to do with the museum.

And there was an even bigger scam run on the descendants of George E.

Pickett.

He charged huh major general and the Confederate side.

During the Civil War Gettysburg.

He was one of the commanders at Pickett's charged, thus the name a quote futile and bloody Confederate offensive.

On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Oh I watch ken Burns.

Yeah you do.

So Juno and Pritchard, they set their sights on George E.

Pickett the fifth.

Okay, so Picket the fifth had a sword and other items that the og George Pickett had, and then Juno and Pritchard they're like, they look at all this stuff and they're like, this is worth about eighty eight thousand dollars, and pick At the Fifth's.

Like dang, okay, yeah, I bet he was.

So they buy it and then they turned around and they sold it all for eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

Oh he dropped a dicil point so.

Yeah, put loopsy.

So Piket sued them in nineteen ninety nine.

He got an eight hundred thousand dollars settlement from a jury.

Good, but their time in court was just beginning.

Oh yeah.

Back Meanwhile, over at Antiques road Show, the suspicions are rising because producers and outside experts are starting to notice these inconsistencies, So items appearing on the show later get traced to dealers rather than private owners.

Similar objects resurfaced on the antiques market just after broadcast, and they're marketed with references to their road show appearance.

Okay, I was figuring out on TV.

Yeah, here's my favorite.

The same individuals appeared repeatedly with unusually significant objects.

They used the same show.

The biggest screw up.

They couldn't even come up.

With characters and costumes, do some wig stuff, like I know these dudes are into wing stuff, make up fun names and backstories.

I mean, look, they did it with the watermelon.

That's the best part of crime, the.

Character.

Yes, So PBS and the show's producers they begin an internal review, and once the concerns were like solidified, they turned everything over to the FEDS.

Oh, and they're like, you know, we're not going to handle this internally.

You do it.

So the US Attorney's Office investigated, uh, these two for wire fraud because it was involved in interstate television broadcasting communications.

Oh wow, so Juno and Prechers they catch these federal charges, fake appraisals, wire fraud, federal mail.

All of this was beyond what they'd done on TV.

Like it.

It went so much further than that.

So Juno cut a deal for a reduced sentence.

He testified against Pritchers.

I was just about to say, I know, they flipped on each other.

And he got a six month sentence in a work release program.

Six months, and then he had to pay thirty thousand dollars as a fine.

Pritchard, different story.

He got sentenced to one year for the military antiques fraud.

He had to pay that eight eight hundred and thirty thousand dollars in restitution.

PBS responded publicly, and they were very decisive.

They pulled those episodes that the guys were on.

They tightened disclosure and conflict of interest rules, particularly around the dealers and their intermediaries.

They also started to really emphasize that they don't authenticate ownership and they're relying on honest disclosure from participants, and so that trust had been violated, but they want to remain trusting of the people participating.

And I don't know how you would have everybody when you have him just showing up it basically an expo.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So Pritchard, he did his time, but he didn't learn his lesson.

He got pinched in Pennsylvania on theft charges and he did time in the state prison.

That was in two thousand and eight.

In two thousand and nine, he copped a guilty plead of more theft charges as well as deceptive business practices, and for that he got another four to eight in state prison.

Okay, let's take a break.

They're not giving him enough time for him to learn his lesson.

He needs a longer time out.

Let's take our own time out and we come back more antique antics.

Yeah, Zara's Elizabeth.

Five six eight?

Are you going to do your dance routine?

I already can't see it though.

Share dancing over here so good.

So I had you count down.

I was like, I want you to come in.

I just realized no one can see us.

When I did the dip.

Yours as to come in, just down on the ground.

So we had that gruesome twosome of Russell Pritchard the Third and George Juneau.

Now let's take a look, rather a double take at some identical twins.

Oh my goodness, Yes.

Lee and Leslie Keino, Lee and Leslie Blonde, twin antiquarians, authors, TV personalities, and almost fronsters.

I was about to ask if they were both like sisters, and you said they're identical.

And I've made this mistake before.

If they're identical, then they're both going to be the same.

They're not going to be fraternal.

Where they just shared the uterus.

You said something like that, Yeah, time, what happened.

But I was like, you're like, how that works there?

Yeah.

So anyway, so Lee and Leslie's two dudes, and you would if you see a picture of them, you'll recognize them from if you've ever seen Anos road show, because they're about it.

So they describe their collecting impulse as starting with like basic scavenging.

Okay, so well, no, you'll find out so okay, they had the National Endowment for the Humanities did this whole profile about them because they got the National Humanities metal well at one point.

So they talked about how they grew up in upstate New York and they rode this Suzuki trail bike around to explore ruined barns and houses.

So they start out collecting utilitarian architectural iron work from the late eighteenth century early nineteenth century, like stuff like wrot iron door handles.

Gotcha hinges and like fire pokers and things like that.

Yeah, and so that early phase quickly became what they called training in the way that you know antiques people mean it.

So they find an object, they chase down the maker, the date, the method.

In that same National Endowment for the Humanities account, Leslie talks about how they would research what they found look all this stuff up, trying to understand exactly how things were made and get down to the mechanics of like a potter's leave.

When they moved into stoneware collecting, so by the time they were in college, they were already operating like working dealers.

They're real party animals.

So there was this Hamilton College news feature that came out in two thousand that talks about them.

The brothers.

They sold most of their croc collection to help pay for college.

Like crockwear cooking, like country croc.

I imagine they have a crazy sweater game, these twos.

Oh my gosh, you had no idea and the three piece suits.

Get out of town.

These are wild boys.

Right, Let's sell our crocs and then go to college.

So Leslie went to Williams College in Massachusetts.

Lee went to Hamilton College in New York.

So while they're in school, each of them cataloged their colleges antique furniture collection and they just so this was like the way that they educated themselves.

Very practical object by objects, and that's super close to how specialists get trained in the trade.

But they're doing it for themselves.

Yeah, they're not apprenticing under somebody, right.

So Lee he served as a graduate fellow at Historic Deerfield and then was a visiting scholar at this museum, and every place that he went was a key point for American decorative arts.

So it put him inside all these collections, the connoisseurship of it all that kind of feed the auction world.

Leslie, he got out of Williams College with honors and American arts.

So they have this educational pedigree, but they also go and they work in these places and gather real world experience.

So they went from college into auction housework, and they both specialize in American furniture.

There's this New York Magazine profile that talks about how after they graduated, the twins moved in together in Manhattan and they took jobs at competing auction houses.

So Leslie got a gig at Sotheby's.

Lee wound up at.

Chris Oh like the the aug auction.

Houses, and so while they were working at these rival houses, they sometimes found themselves going after the same stuff, and so they had to avoid talking shop in order to prevent conflicts.

Totally feels like the script of an eighties movie.

So Leslie and this happened in the eighties there and so right there, Leslie, he hooked up at Sotheby's in their American Furniture and Decorative Arts department as a cataloger.

In nineteen eighty he becomes the director of the department in nineteen eighty three.

That's not bad, not bad at all.

And then you know he spent twenty six years overseeing like the headline Americana sales at Setheby's.

Yeah, like the big like, oh, this is on our catalog.

Yeah.

And so Lee he worked as director of the American Furniture department at Doyle Galleries and then went over to Christie's for their American Furniture department.

And then they have like Lee started Lee Keino American Antiques Auction.

So you know, they have like they are public facing authorities, and they start making appearances on Antiques Road Show, and the show's executive producer, Marsha Bemco told The New York Times quote, our audience fell in love with them and made them stars.

I mean, if the charming as they say they are, they have like not to borrow the word too greedily, but they have the provenance of what you would want for the type of expert twins, I mean, just like a great story, and.

So they're like the most influential figures in the American antiques market at this point, and their opinions carry serious weight and they can affect market value.

So twenty sixteen, though, things went a little sideways.

New Orleans Auction Galleries had an auction in April of that year, and the Keynots did something unusual.

They each apparently wanted the same Turkish Angora carpet.

Okay, so one of one of the twins was bidding online and the other was on the phone, and there were a few opening bids, but then the brothers just like racked it up, back and forth, back and forth.

In all, they bid against each other about fifty times, and everyone else dropped out.

They kept going.

He was climbing higher and hire like two fighter pilots.

Well and the rug so the rocklig had a low estimate of eight hundred dollars, Leslie snagged the winning bid at fourteen five hundred.

Well, they bid it up.

That's like me and a fantasy football auction, just just going higher and higher for the wrong player.

I want Joe Burrow.

Damnit, here's the thing.

He did not pay for it.

Why did he get according to that.

According to the auction house, this wasn't the first time they'd done this.

So Lee he bid two hundred and fifty for an Italian painting that was supposed to go for four hundred bucks.

He also landed an antique bed for sixteen hundred that had only been valued at around three hundred and On both of these auctions, the brother was the only other bidder.

Is this gonna be like a reveal where you tell me there's actually not twin brothers.

Is one guy who's been pretending to the whole time working two jobs?

I wish, but no, Okay, I don't have that reveal.

So they're so they're they're bidding these up, but they're not paying for it.

Yeah, so I was paying time for the auction house to lawyer up.

They filed the lawsuit.

Wait when they don't pay, they just like they walk out of the auction like, well.

They're not even there.

They're online, they're like log off.

So it's like me at like a county auction where they have cars for saying, when I make a bid and I walk out of my grandfather who brought me there.

Look, look I don't have the money, and he's like, what are you talking about?

We got to go get it in the car.

Sounds like it's from experience.

It is.

So the auction house they filed the lawsuit.

They accused the Twins of quote auction misconduct which resulted in unjustifiably higher purchase prices of auction items.

So back at the auction with the rug, the brothers bought two hundred and forty four items in total, and they ran up a bill for four.

Hundred thousands, say like half mil easy.

Didn't pay the bill and quote.

We have never had an unpaid invoice of this size, said Ashton Thomas, president of the New Orleans auction House.

And these are like the faces of places.

I mean, these are the guys experts.

Yes.

So there was this other auction house, Camelot Auctions in Philadelphia where they bought eighty nine items.

Bill was two hundred thousand, and they skipped on that one too.

Are they compulsive bidding?

They get confronted and Leslie tells the New Orleans auction House that that dual bidding was a mix up, just like a silly misunderstanding.

I don't know, how the mass works on Like He's.

Like, we got excited and then we just got Yeah.

In an email to the auction house, this is what Leslie said, quote.

This was a situation where my brother thought I was bidding on the lot and I thought he was bidding on it.

We made a mistake, and I would hope that, given the amount of property we purchased, you would forgive us for this mistake.

And then, according to the New York Times, quote, the auction house recorded Leslie during the sale saying that he and his brother were buying auction items quote together, according to its court papers.

So when The New York Times approached the twins for comment, they were like, you, we're too busy for an interview.

I'm so sorry, But they're like, we'll send you an email.

Quote.

They did not directly address why they had been willing to pay escalated prices on some items, except to say, as specialists in our business, we seek hidden treasures, and as researchers, we search for unique provenas of every object.

Wow, what does that even?

So why didn't they pay?

I'm so well, First things first, they didn't have the money.

So for most of us, that stops us trying to buy things.

Yes, you did, their lawyers said, quote it was a temporary issue of liquidity, unprecedented for them, but hardly unheard of in the auction business.

So like translation, all these folks are sketchy, yes, right, but that's something we've talked about before.

How like the art world and art auctions are such a cover for money laundering and shady business.

That's not what I'm saying happened here.

No, it's not at all.

I'm just making an observation.

So eventually the twins paid part of the New Orleans tab.

They paid seventy grand on it, and then they settled with the place in Philly.

And then after a while they made the New Orleans outfit hole.

So everyone was taken care of, sure, And they also told the New Orleans folks that they were going to sell quote literally a national treasure end quote of their own.

Why did they sound so much like influencers too?

I have no idea what it was, but I pray it had something to do with Nicholas Cage.

Were they going to sell Nicholas Cage?

Perhaps, unlike the other guys, the keynot Twins, they didn't lose their spot on road show.

Road shows, you know how they say.

Turn about is fair play, or in the words of Michael Scott, oh how the turntables turn?

Well, that we've got that here.

So less than a decade later, Lee Keino got a taste of his own medicine.

He got scammed at his auction house for north of one hundred thousand dollars.

He said, the buyer seemed legit.

She won bids that totaled five thousand to ten thousand dollars worth of items at a time, and she paid her bills.

So the buyer was this woman, Grace Lou.

She then upped her game.

She went after a huge lot of Asian furniture and decorative items.

There was like a bronze libation cup that had the handle looked like a beast libeans a watercolor painting of a cat.

And then this carved dragon like a display cabinet with dragons all over.

So it kind of reminds me of when my friend, the author Kim Wong Keltner, she went on a buying spree, grabbing up all the Kingfisher pins and such that she could find in order to keep them out of the hands of white ladies.

Well, like the pins were pieces that were broken off of these enormous ornate headdresses for sale to the West, and so they yeah, the feathers.

So there's these like really beautiful luminous sometimes irridescent blue feathers.

Sure, and they are inlaid into silver.

And Kim took this personally.

And I used to love going with her to Anne's tique shops and like little stores in Chinatown as she sought out new pieces.

It was like the most righteous shopping spree.

Amazing cool.

So anyway, and she would tell the owner, I need to make sure white ladies don't buy this.

As I'm standing there, I'm like, yeah, we don't, let.

Us, we must stop.

We up anyway, Chracelu.

So she bought one hundred and seventy eight four hundred and fifty dollars worth of stuff.

Keno let her walk off with it with the promise to pay late.

I I was wondering, And then he later told the New York Post quote, I kicked myself that I allowed it to happen.

I've been in the business my entire life.

This is the first time that this has happened.

Is it the Is it so A lawsuit filed by the auction house against Lou in Manhattan in twenty twenty one says that Lou took about forty pieces in July of twenty twenty, paid forty five grand, but then refused to hand over the balance of one hundred and thirty three thousand dollars.

Ok.

She said she tried to resell some of the items and was told that they were like later copies, because.

Like, I'll pay a little less than twenty five percent on this, how about that.

She's like, all right, let me get let me raise some money some of the stuff I paid for.

I'm going to turn around and sell it.

And people are like, no, that's a reproduction.

Yeah.

And so then Keino's like, hold.

Up now, ma'am, I don't know what to believe now.

Yeah.

So then he's like, these were not represented as antiques from a particular period.

This was just something that she assumed, is what I suppose he's saying.

So everyone's game and everything.

Everybody, and he's like, you know, she had the opportunity to examine every single piece multiple times over a period of weeks before she bought it.

She wasn't done with Keno she'd and another of his auctions in January of twenty twenty two came back under a different name.

Oh goodness, and in.

This case she plucked up half the sale.

So auction house staff realized it was her and they told her like, all right, you know what, you have to pay your entire bill right now.

On the spot.

And they never heard from her again.

Yeah, maybe she just got excited.

Lee.

Yeah, you know how it goes, Lee.

So Keno.

He went to The New York Post to tell his story, he said, because she was like hitting multiple auction houses in the area and he wanted everyone on high alert.

Of course, that's what.

Yeah, this was public information.

According to the Post quote, since twenty twenty, she has been on more than two hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of treasures sold by various auction houses through the Live Auctioneer's website and ever completed the transactions.

Among those she allegedly stiffed was David Killen, who runs an eponymous auction house in Chelsea.

He told the Post that Lou was the winning bidder on about thirteen thousand dollars in Asian objects a month ago and refused to pay for the goods or pick them up.

Winning an item at auction is considered a legal agreement to buy it, he said.

Killen said they would lose value if placed up for auction again.

Can we go back again to the Keno brothers please, I mean, hello, it's a legal agreement to buy it anyway.

He goes on quote.

People think, oh, there must be something wrong with it because the person who bought it never paid for it.

He said, it gets what we call in the business a bad smell to it.

Oh, in the biz.

They call it a bad smell.

So there's no right.

There's no word on whether anyone got lu to pay for all of her one bids or whatever happened with the lawsuit.

But I think the twins and then plus their older brother now does this too.

I think they're all still rocking the road show.

Let's stop for some ads from the good people at whatever product or services has bought time from.

iHeart we thank them, and when we come back, Antiques Roadshow works for truth and justice, zaren Yes, all right, so we've had people who used the venerated Antiques Roadshow to enrich their coffers, up their status for negative gain.

But what about when Antiques Road Show helps.

Out splitting watermelon?

What about when they let their goodness shine through?

Oh the show Antique Roadshow.

Saren, Have I got a story for you?

Yes?

I love stories.

Do you know what a Digerett type is?

Yeah?

The first photographs, right, So.

It's a tie of portrait photo developed in eighteen thirty nine by the French chemist Louis de guerre Ye.

So creating the image, that's true.

Creating the image involves chemically preparing a polished silver plate, and that makes it a photo.

Yeah, makes it a photo sensitive surface.

The surface is exposed to light and the subject and then developed with mercury vapor fixed with the solution of hyposulfate of soda.

Nice.

You can go mad as a hatter while you're making a.

Photo, that's right.

It makes those like moody evocative pictures that are incredibly fragile.

Yeah, and also a little uneven because of the use of the chemicals.

You get those little dots on the edges right.

Right, You have to keep them in like velvet lined cases.

You can't touch them.

Now, you can't touch them because they will smear the image.

Despite all that, they were an improvement over like the earlier attempts at photos, and for a decade or so it was the yeah, people love them.

But then a new process came along, a simpler, cheaper, more resilient photograph, and just like that, de gerotypes were a thing of the past with the oh yes.

But that made them collectible.

To this day there they are in demand for like history, photography and antique buffs.

So they get de gerotypes on Antique's road Show every now and then, and the guy to get as you're appraiser for those is a fellow named Wes Cowen.

So Cowen.

He's an anthropologist, he's an auctioneer, he's an appraiser, and he knows deagerotypes.

Nice Sally Guest.

She lucked out when she went on Antiques Roach Guest as a guest.

Sally the guest.

She's something of a de gharatype expert, or at least like a collector.

She knows how to research them.

She has a huge collection, almost four hundred and fifty of them, and she's always on the hunt for interesting ones.

And she stumbled upon one in particular and was really intrigued, so she bought it, did a little research, had like a vague sense of the subject of the portrait and the age, and that's about it.

So off she went to road show to get some answers and show off her cool.

Fine Saron, close your eyes, eyes closed, I want you to picture it.

It's July of two thousand and four, Omaha, Nebraska.

You've brought with you to this crowded convention center a Neon moosehead beer sign that you've found behind a dumpster about twenty years ago.

It still works.

It hangs in your garage, but you rarely plug it in and light it up.

You don't want to use up all the juice.

You're standing in line to get it appraised by the Americana and advertising specialist.

People all around you chat and laugh as they wait to see if what they've brought today is some sort of lost treasure.

In the meantime, you watch as folks with fancy stuff get set up at special table in the middle of the room and get filmed for the actual show.

You wonder if that will happen to you.

You just never know.

You look over and you see that blonde appraiser guy Lee Keino, giving a man all the details about the Chippendale desk he brought with him.

It looks fancy.

You can't quite hear what they're saying, but it's cool to watch them under the stage lights.

You move up a little in the line.

There's a guy with some old baseball memorabilia being interviewed by the appraiser.

He seems excited when the final value is revealed.

Man, this thrill is infectious.

It's not even your stuff, but you are beaming for the man.

You move up a little more in the line.

You're usually pretty impatient standing in line, but this is just too interesting.

There's no way anyone could get bored here.

You do feel a little bad for some of the people who are carrying around what is most certainly junk, but maybe they're like you, they're just enjoying being here.

What if the neon sign, though, is worth a couple thousand, you think, man alive, that would be amazing the hall, someone drops his ceramic vase.

It shatters on the floor.

In the crowd gasps.

That's a shame.

One of the dangers of bringing these treasures out of the house, especially with nervous, sweaty hands.

The line you're in snakes around, and you find yourself right next to an on camera appraisal.

You stand just outside of the camera shot, but you're close enough this time to hear everything.

A kind faced woman in an embroidered T shirt and a short salt and pepperish haircut sits across the table from a man in a pale gray suit.

You recognize him as Wes Cowan.

He's always got cool civil war appraisals and stuff like that.

The man knows history and you respect that.

In between them, on a tiny lacquered wooden stand sits one of those old tiny photographs, the ones in grayscale civil war looking things.

The guy in the picture looks kind of familiar.

The lady said she was browsing in a quote antique slash junk shop in Walnut, Illinois, when this dagaratype caught her eye.

De Garati that's the name of those things, She says.

There was a stack of pictures in the shop, but this was the most interesting one.

She collects them, see, and this one looks sort of special, and she thought she recognized the guy.

Edgar Allan Poe, Poe, that's the guy.

She tells Collen that she paid ninety six dollars including tax for the photo.

That's a pretty penny, you think.

But she's a collector, so she must know what it's worth.

You doubt she'd get scammed.

She tells Collen that she's proud of it and has it on her mantelpiece at home, even though, as she puts it, Poe Quote is not the best looking man.

Cowen confirms everything she says.

Tells her it's a Dagarrett type of Poe and that's pretty rare.

He says, only six photographs of the guy were known to exist.

He tells her there's a little damage to the face area, probably from someone wiping it with their finger.

The lady backs us up and talks about how delicate these things are that you can't even blow on them.

Yikes.

Collen looks thoughtfully at the picture and then announces its value at between thirty thousand and fifty thousand dollars conservatively.

Your jaw drops.

The lady is overjoyed.

I liked the picture anyway, but now I really like it, she says.

Cowan tells her that if this thing went to auction, a ton of people would want to bid on it.

Great day in the morning, this is a fine You feel so much joy for the woman.

That's what this show is all about.

You finally make your way to the appraisal table.

The expert looks over your sign, plugs it into confirm it still works, looks at the back and the bottom.

She hands it back to you and tells you it's worth about three hundred dollars.

You could cry, this is amazing.

I found it behind a dumpster, you tell her excitedly.

She smiles warmly at you.

Isn't that the best place to find a treasure, she responds.

You thank her, and then head out to your car, your prized moosehead sign cradled in your arms.

You are walking on air.

Thank you Antiques Roadshow, and thank you PBS.

So a cool story, but rather uneventful, as roadshow tales go.

Right, possibly we're going to fast forward a year and a half, Sally Guest, owner of the Dea gherettype, decides she wants to sell it.

Okay, cool, it's worth quite a bit, and the estimate of value from Antique's Road Show just wasn't enough.

She needed to get it authenticated to prove up that it actually is Edgar Allan Poe since that's where the value really is.

So she reaches out to the Edgar Allen Poe Society in Baltimore.

She sends them a copy of the de gerrettype.

They reach out to a specialist, This artist and historian named Michael J.

Deese.

He wrote a book called The Portraits and de Garatt Types of Edgar Allan Poe.

Right, so I think we call that a special Yeah, So the Poet Society contacted Guest and told her that it looked like her de garrettype was the real deal.

Oh, I thought was gonna be like, oh, it's actually a photo of Robert Todd Lincoln.

But here's the thing.

Though it looked familiar to dece he actually recognized it pretty much immediately.

And because there weren't that many of these deguera types of po he wrote the book on him.

So, remember how there was a smudge or a scratch on the face of the image.

He'd seen that before.

In fact, of the only of all likely there's only a handful of these existence, only two had this slight flaw.

And like he looked closely closely at the copy and he's like, I've examined this one before, back in nineteen eighty one.

Whoa He handled the real thing when he was doing research for his book, and then it was at the hand In Booth Theater Library in New York City, a private collection inside the Player's Theatrical Club.

That's how they do it at the Players Club, rubbing the toes on a mink rug as such, at least according to Rap and Forte in his hit playas Club.

Hold on, I'm being told that's a different play as Club.

Okay, So I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Their interns are just like waving and yeah and the thanks guys.

So d'z called the library and he asked about the DEA gherettype.

Guess what theirs was missing?

What?

Yeah?

So, meanwhile, Guest had contacted Cowen to tell him that she wanted to sell the de Garrett type and she wanted his help with it, and he's like.

Yeah, sure of course.

So he picks it up and takes it to his auction house's office in Cincinnati.

And it's around this time that the episode actually airs, and that's when Cowen gets another call, this time from the FBI.

So special Agent Joanna Looney from the FBI's Manhattan office let him know that the de Garrett type that he checked out for guests on the show was stolen and it had obviously crossed a few state lines since being lifted.

So Cowen, he's a little rattled.

He calls guest and he's like, you know what, sit tight.

The Feds are on the way.

So that the special Agent David Bass of the FBI's Midwest Art Crime.

Team Bassin looney, massive, looney, I know, are.

You kidding shows up at the office in Cincinnati and he's like, I'm here to take custody of the da Gett type.

Give me po and what's crazy?

I love that if the guy who invents the detective book, here's my favorite.

Deeese hadn't contacted the FBI.

What they The FBI saw the episode and I d'd the Dea Garrett type as the stolen one, which means it's someone's job at the FBI to watch antiques road show and keep an eye out for possibly hot kids.

Oh wow, who knows if they still have that position, but I would be very good at it.

You don't think they're at at home watching it and there all of a sudden, they just drop the remote, like.

Wait, I think that someone gets the episode.

They just start typing stuff in every time.

Probably, I mean, I'm always blown away by how people kept to do these jobs.

Yeah, so I'm sure the FBI has people.

I mean, you hear about how the CIA has people reading books.

And know exactly.

So the FEDS wanted to get their hands on the de Garrett type to like officially authenticate it.

But here's the thing.

The DEA gherettype wasn't on display at the library.

It was in the archives, and the last known sighting of it was when D's gave it the once over for the research Library couldn't pin down exactly when it was stolen stolen like this, So they're like, we know it was stolen, but just in the last thirty years, okay, because they're well, I guess twenty years.

Because there was no hard timeline for this theft, the FEDS are like, well, we can't really file charges against anyone.

So they could prove that guests had indeed bought the da Geat type at the shop in Iowa.

Okay, so she's clear, So she's clean Oka.

And then it didn't look like the shop owners knew that they were trafficking and stolen goods.

So they're doing like a reverse prove multice Falcon style.

Yes, but the owners of the shop, they couldn't pin down how they wound up with the photos.

There's all these dead ends.

Guests had to turn it over to the library, and so she called it donation.

But there wasn't a whole lot of choice in it for her.

And so while it was worth thirty to fifty thousand, she'd paid less than one hundred for it.

So she's not like left, you know, in debt.

And she also does she get like a thirty thousand dollars tax credit for the donation, I don't know, or she get a three hundred dollars tax donation one hundred.

She paid one hundred hundred, So yeah, I don't know.

But she was cool about the whole thing.

I mean, she's a little irritated, but she understood the situation.

She said, quote, I'm glad the piece is hopefully where it belongs, that they will take care of it and that people will eventually get to see it.

And so it was eventually authenticated.

The FBI returned the Degherett type to the library in New York City on November eight, two thousand and five.

According to PBS, quote.

Raymond Wemlinger, the library's curator, confirmed that the Poe picture is once again back in the library's possession and after an absence of many years, available for viewing by qualified.

Researchers like bring your white gloves.

Yeah, well it was so just just a few months after that, the library put the Daguerat type up for auction at Sotheby's.

They sold it.

They sold it winning bid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Wow, I'm guessing exactly got bills too.

Sally is probably feeling less charitable about the whole thing at this point.

She's like, as long as it's in the museum.

Oh no, it's not so, Zara, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

I love these are all great stories, but I love that the ground Post story at the end, with the basically the guy who invents the detective novel, there is a whole mystery about his photograph, which is the craziest evidence they have.

Like, because photographs, as you know, is where we start to get the unreality.

Between like eighteen thirty nine, when you invent the photograph, essentially all art changes, especially on painting and in particular, and you get you know, start getting abstracted and more expressionists and all that the art no longer has to portray a scene, right, Yeah, they're all for free.

It's basically like what Einstein did with like general relativity, where or like Freud did, we all of a sudden like we don't know what to believe anymore, you know, it's like, oh, everything becomes interpretive.

So I love that that somehow Poe is tied to that history is so beautiful.

That's my ridiculous takeaway.

You know what's yours?

Oh my takeaway?

Well, I didn't know you were interested in.

I don't always ask, but I'm always in.

H my takeaway, I think that the appeal of antiques roadshow, Like we talked about all the different kinds of appraisals that happen on the show, but this notion of that you could stumble into something that is worth far more than you would think.

And you were talking about how your sister can identify all these things like based on much he's learned.

And one of the things that I learned is like never refinished furniture.

Yes, so it'll look all beat up and they're like, no, no, no, you don't want to clean this thing.

Yeah yeah, so it's like all these little things.

And then why why that is that you have to have the patina and the and the look of age and such.

Let the accumulated age be there.

And I think for me, I sometimes I don't understand it's appealed to me because I am not someone who saves anything.

That's why I don't clean anything, because one day these will all be antiques and they'll be really val.

You collect a lot of stuff.

I don't collect stuff.

I have penny collections right now and trying desperately to get a twenty twenty five penny so I can have.

The last penny, all right, So if anyone out there has a twenty twenty five.

Twenty twenty five penny to hard to get.

Your collector guy?

Yeah, fact so.

But and I think, like, I'm not a collector, but I love watching the excitement.

What does it for you?

Just the human moments?

Yeah yeah, And I think like sometimes it's when someone gets, you know, the wind taken out of their sails because they think that they've got, you know, they know everything.

But I really do love the moments where people are just totally stunned and it's just I loved this bowl and it you know, it's weird looking and it's crazy, but I love it.

And like you were saying too, learning about the various schools of.

Art and yeah, because you're like maybe you have the big story in your head.

You're always adding different chapters too.

So when you learn about something like that, does that, like, you know, make you feel some kind of way really like, oh, this is the Adirondack school.

Of other arrow for the quiver I got you.

Yeah, let's have a talk back to celebrate this.

Cheers to that.

Oh my god, I let cheat.

So I learned recently that I can't listen to your podcast while I'm working out because I start laughing too hard.

The most recent time that this happened was when I was listening to the Johnny Cash episode and you were talking about Banana Winds and Elizabeth said this album will knock the fruit out of your banana wins, and I started laughing so hard that I actually fell off of a pull up bark.

You is done.

Oh my gosh, it's it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Bluesky and Instagram, and we're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime pod, email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and then, most importantly, leave a talkback on the free iHeart app reach out.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Auctioneer to the Stars Dave Kusten, starring EMILYE.

Rutger as Judith.

Research is by Vintage hot Dog authenticator Marissa Brown and basketball memorabilia specialist Jabari Davis.

The theme song is by composers and performers of the Antiques Roadshow alternate theme song Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.

Post wardrobe is for by Botany five hundred guests.

Hair and makeup by a Sparkleshot and Mister Andre.

Executive producers are Hopeful Thrifter Ben Bolen and Garage Sale enthusiast Noel Brown.

Ridicous Crime Say It One More Timequious Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.