My Antique Roadshow Moment..... Sort Of.....

Shortly after I posted a photo of the amazing anchor andirons we found at the house a couple of weeks ago, I received a Facebook message from one of my wonderful readers.  Her friend Jim is an antiques dealer specializing in nautical elements (check out his Facebook page - great collection!!! James Beougher Antiques )and he thought they might be really old.

Seriously???  In all the years I've been renovating houses, I've never found anything of real value.  Weird and interesting - yes.  Valuable - no.

So I started to get excited.  For years, I've fantasized about going on PBS's Antiques Roadshow, but since I don't have any wealthy relatives that left me priceless antiques in their will, I didn't have anything to bring on the show.  Maybe that was about to change!!

Photo:  PBS

Jim thought the andirons might be part of the William Koch collection.  An America's Cup winner, Koch has amassed am amazing collection of nautical memorabilia.  And the photo they sent me did look very similar.

So my excitement mounted.  I had planned to clean them up and paint them with spray paint.... but Jim was so horrified, I quickly gave up on that idea.  If they are fancy antiques, I certainly don't want to mess them up.

I brought them by, for him to take a look - and quickly discovered that they are not late 19th century antiques.  My dream was crushed!!!   But, Jim does think they date back to the 1920's, which makes them almost 100 years old.  So while a bit disappointing, it's still one of the nicest discoveries I've ever had.  They are so unique, they really make a statement!

And I want them to look really nice in the firebox.  So Jim had me scrub them with cooking oil to remove the rust and then bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour.  My husband was not happy about this (hee hee), but it worked pretty well.  J

Best of all, we will get to use the andirons in the fireplace.  Remember the wood stove insert that so many people hated at the 'before' open house??

Most people want a real fireplace vs. a wood burning insert

Well, the chimney experts came out and pulled it out and after carefully inspecting the flue, they declared it 'pristine' (Seriously, that's not a term we hear frequently in the houses we work on!).  They installed a new chimney cap for me with a modern damper.  It's ready to go!!

And the cleaned up andirons?  Well they look great!  I can't wait to get them set up in the finished house!  I hope they new owners will love them as much as I do! Pin It