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Gilmore Car Museum Featured On TV’s “Antiques Roadshow”
April 20th Airdate Announced
TV’s “Antiques Roadshow” Discovers Treasure
at Gilmore Car Museum
Hickory Corners, MI
Last summer, camera crews from the popular PBS television series Antiques Roadshow barnstormed a half dozen American cities seeking out hidden treasures. That’s exactly what they found at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, MI, where producers highlighted rare Lalique crystal car hood ornaments (also known as mascots) for an upcoming episode of the widely popular TV Series.
In August the Antiques Roadshow production crew and seventy experts were busy filming and appraising submitted antiques in Grand Rapids, MI for three episodes that will air on PSB stations nationwide for three consecutive Mondays at 8 p.m., beginning April 20. Each episode will encore the following Saturday at 8 p.m.
Before the cameras rolled in Grand Rapids, series Host Mark L. Walberg and a full production crew visited the Gilmore Car Museum, located 45 minutes south of Grand Rapids in Hickory Corners, and filmed footage that is slated to be featured on the April 20th episode.
Renowned for its collection of over 200 extraordinary automobiles, the Gilmore Car Museum also possesses one of the nation’s largest collections of automotive hood ornaments (known as mascots) on public display. With over 1,600 mascots, ranging from the fanciful to rare, it was difficult to narrow it down to a select few for the broadcast.
“They’re all works of art,” Eric Silver, a leading specialist in the field explained on camera, “with some produced by the automakers and others available aftermarket.”
The Antiques Roadshow crew spent over eight hours filming at the Gilmore Car Museum in August and focused on mascots produced by Rolls Royce, Lincoln, and Pierce-Arrow, as well as some rare Lalique Crystal hood ornaments.
The episode featuring the Gilmore Car Museum will premier on PSB stations nationwide on Monday April 20, at 8 p.m. with an encore presentation the following Saturday at 8 p.m.
In each city that Antiques Roadshow selects for taping, several thousand people vie for the opportunity to have their antiques examined by experts in hopes it will receive a favorable appraisal and be chosen for the broadcast. The show’s host, veteran television personality Mark L. Walberg, also accompanies a noted expert to visit nearby historic sites and extraordinary collections to tape segments as a highlight for each episode.
Filming also took place at two other west Michigan museums—The Holland Museum and the Grand Rapids Public Museum—for segments that will appear in one of the Grand Rapids episodes.
So, what value did Roadshow expert Eric Silver place on the Gilmore Museum’s “excellent early example of Tireur d'arc (Archer) crystal mascot” signed ‘R. Lalique / France’ with its original working Breves Galleries illuminating base? You’ll just have to tune in for Antiques Roadshow on Monday evening to find out.
To learn more about the Gilmore Car Museum visit GilmoreCarMuseum.org
Behind the scenes
WGVU-TV, the local PBS affiliate, has also produced a special behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Grand Rapids Antiques Roadshow episodes— including interviews with participants, producers, appraisers and host Mark L. Walberg. This show will air on Saturday April 18at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
The Series
Antiques Roadshow, which began its 13th season in January, has received five Emmy nominations and is PBS's highest-rated series with a viewership of almost 11 million viewers each week. Senior Publicist Judy Matthews describes the show as “part adventure, part history lesson, and part treasure hunt.”
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