Last year was an excellent year for collectors. A plethora of television shows debuted on the subject, along the new seasons of the established favorites. I haven’t seem them all, but here are few mini-reviews of what I haven’t yet covered in full reviews here at Inherited Values: It’s Worth What? managed to make it [...]

The Discovery Channel’s Dirty Money may seem like just another formulaic collecting reality TV show, complete with a cast of family members — but if you believe that, you’re wrong. Sure, the show features brothers John and Jimmy DiResta, along with John’s son Matthew aka “Rat-Boy”, in pursuit of getting their junk on, dumpster diving [...]

OK, so you waited around, hoping just the right thing was going to pop up at eBay or some other site, and now, as the shipping delivery window narrows, you’re starting to worry that all you can do is go with the obvious eBay gift card or get something lame. Gift certificates, from eBay, your [...]

Welcome to the ninth edition of the New Vintage Reviews carnival, where we review items normally considered “collectibles,” to encourage use of items as originally intended. Books: At Bucket List Media Miz parker reviews Beloved (1987) and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) — along with a lot of other new and vintage [...]

When Hyperion, the publishers of License to Pawn: Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold & Silver (by Rick Harrison, of History’s Pawn Stars, and Tim Keown, a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine) offered me the chance to receive a review copy of the book, I jumped at it — I’m a huge [...]

The New Vintage Reviews carnival, edition number eight, has been published. Even though I started the blog carnival, it’s been ages since I ran an edition; but I’m starting it up again — and the next edition will be posted here at Inherited Values on or around October 20 (2011). Check it out — and [...]

Last Tuesday, August 2, 2001, Picker Sisters aired on the Lifetime Television. (If you were confused by the ads showing American Pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz promoting the show on the History Channel, that’s because both Lifetime and History are part of A&E Television Networks — but that really didn’t help those who went [...]

Have you ever thought about the painted backgrounds in antique and vintage photographs? No?  Me neither. Not until I read The Painted Backdrop: Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography, by Jim Linderman (with an essay by Kate Bloomquist), that is. In fact, the story of and between 19th century painters and American photography really [...]

When I first heard about HGTV’s Cash and Cari, I got a little excited thinking this show might focus more on decorative collectibles, plus offer a splash of do-it-yourself (DIY) home decor creativity. While the show has all that potential, I really was disappointed. Cash and Cari (Cari is not pronounced like “carry,” but like [...]

You might just think I’d be tired of watching and reviewing all these antique and collectible TV shows — so tired of them, in fact, that I’d be dreading yet one more. But if that’s what you were thinking, you’d be wrong; Discovery Channel’s Oddities has become a favorite “can’t miss” in terms of my [...]

Spike TV enters the antiques and collectibles television programing fray with Auction Hunters. Similar to Storage Wars, this show’s action is focused on the bidding, buying and selling of the content of storage units; unlike Storage Wars, the show has a much stronger focus on antiques and collectibles, and only follows two men. The two [...]

A&E enters, sort of, the growing number of collecting shows with Storage Wars. Billed as “the new original real-life series” (apparently so as not to be confused with “reality shows”), the show follows four professionals who attend auctions to bid on and buy the contents of repossessed storage units auctioned off by Dan and Laura [...]

The collectibles spin-off show I’ve been waiting for is here: American Restoration. You may have heard about it, sometimes promoted or promised under other names such as Rick’s Restorations and Rusty Nuts (I prefer the title Rusty Nuts, but with the success of American Pickers, I guess the corporate guys figured American Restoration was more [...]

In what may seem like an unlikely match, the SyFy channel enters into collectibles infotainment with Hollywood Treasure; yet given the nature of the show, it may not seem such a strange match… Hollywood Treasure follows the activities of Joe Maddalena, the owner of Profiles in History, the world’s largest auctioneer of movie and television [...]