This is that end-of-summer time when odd things pop up on our TV sets -- including antiques on the young-hip Fox network Here's a story I sent to papers, on a show that starts Wednesday (Aug. 24):
By Mike Hughes
Even as kids, Leigh and Leslie Keno
knew that old stuff is somehow valuable.
“Since we were about three-feet,
four-feet high, we were treasure hunters in upstate New York,”
Leigh (or Leslie, it's sometimes hard to tell by phone) said. They
were “digging for old bottles, in old foundations of buildings.
We'd go to refuse sites and dig down for 19th-century glass (or) barn
hinges.”
Two important notes:
1) Kids, don't try that near home. Lots
of parents don't like you digging through refuse for old glass.
2) It did, however, work just fine for
the Kenos. They've moved upscale now, being involved – one at an
auction house, the other at an antique store – with sales
reportedly totaling billions.
They also have TV fame – first PBS'
“Antique Roadshow,” now Fox's “Buried Treasure.”
For four Wednesdays, viewers will see
the Kenos visit homes and talk to people about their lives and
possessions. “The viewer doesn't know until the end, what the piece
actually is (worth),” Leslie said.
There are plenty of antiques shows on
cable these days, but “Treasure” differs because it's on a big
network … and because it centers on identical twins.
“We do have this twin talk,” Leslie
said.
Leigh agreed – as twin-talkers often
do. “We'll spot the same thing at the same time,” he said.
They may agree 90 percent of the time,
Leigh said, but there are exceptions. “I was wrong recently about a
very rare Egyptian piece and Leslie said, 'I know that's right.' And
I said, 'Ah, I think it's a 19th-century copy.' It turned out to be
300 B.C.”
All of this is like those early days.
“We went with our parents to flea markets and antique shows, …
from 6 in the morning until night, searching for treasures,” Leslie
(or maybe Leigh) said.
And at times, those early experiences
shape modern finds.
“We used to hide (letters) when we
were little kids, in the registers of the floors of our old, 1860
farmhouse,” Leslie said. They remembered that once, while visiting
people who thought their ancestors might have hidden valuables. “We
checked the registers,” Leslie said, “and sure enough, there
(was) gold there … and also some jewels.”
At times, they get to deliver good news
– even the marriage-saving kind. Leslie recalls one couple, “very
much in love; married, I think, about five years.”
He kept buying and old things. When she
finds them, “she sells them on eBay or just throws them out.”
The Kenos intervened, Leslie said. “He
had a painting worth potentially tens of millions of dollars.”
Marriages do need help sometimes. They
don't have the benefit of a twin connection.
– “Buried Treasure”
– 8 p.m. for four Wednesdays on Fox,
beginning Aug. 24