“Antiques Roadshow” appraiser to appear at EHM Rock Art show
Pop culture appraiser Gary Sohmers, from the Emmy-nominated PBS show “Antiques Roadshow,” is gearing up for the EHM Rock Art show, which will open at 10 a.m. Friday at the barn gallery at Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport.
Mr. Sohmers will appraise pop culture memorabilia brought in by the public between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday as well as between 10 a.m. and noon on Sunday.
The rock art show, which features hundreds of rock ‘n’ roll items, including signed artworks by Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, will be on display at the gallery through July 8.
All works at the event are available to purchase and Mr. Sohmers said buying rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia is a smart investment in comparison to stocks because he said the return for an autograph tends to be larger than stocks.
Mr. Sohmers became involved in antiques as a child when his father, a traveling salesman, would return home with a cigar box full of antiques that he’d picked up at various stores.
“My dad was really into campaign buttons, so at first I was helping him with that,” Mr. Sohmers said. “We have a large JFK campaign button collection and an extensive Abraham Lincoln campaign button collection, so I got to experience what it was like to find really rare, rare things and learn about them.”
The famed appraiser’s interests changed slightly as a teenager, when he began collecting pop culture memorabilia.
“I discovered, like everyone else who was 13 in the ‘60s, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, girls, cars, you know — campaign buttons became secondary to pop culture for me,” he said.
