(Totally an aside here, but I just heard a snowmobile driving down the road. We got something like 6 inches of snow in the last 24 hours and winter seems to be settling in.)
Matt was out in the living room watching Antiques Roadshow on Idaho Public Television. I don't know if any of you all tune in to that or not, but the basic premise is that people in large-ish towns come to these big appraisal fairs that the show hosts. They can be in Denver one episode, Savannah the next, and Boston in a third. Antiques experts at the shows check out what you brought in from your attic and tell you what it's worth.
I particularly enjoy the segments where some smug, pampered house-wife shows up with a "priceless silver tea service," that her mother-in-law left her, and she's told it's a fake and utter rubbish. But I'm mean that way.
So tonight's episode was a recap of some of the stuff that was appraised at out of this world values. There were original oil paintings, some by Hudson River School masters, the obligatory silver tea service, two Tiffany lamps, etc. But the final item was a Navajo blanket woven for a chief of the Ute tribe. Kit Carson ended up giving it to a man whose great-great-great grandson (or something like that) brought it in to the show. It was worth a half a million dollars. And if he'd been able to come up with proof of its provenance (the story of Carson gave it to the other guy), then it would be worth something like $700,000. Can you imagine?