Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: I don't know if you can air this but I remember when I unzipped the bag somebody saying holy expletive.

Coming to the Antiques Road Show in 2016 in Palm Springs was a dream come true for me.

Getting the jacket appraised was just the icing on the cake of the whole experience.

I went to an estate sale in Malibu California and a lady in line told me that it was the home of Carroll O'Connor.

And I went in the house I went upstairs and in the master bedroom closet was filled with men's clothes.

It was actually his daughter-in-law that was having the sale.

And I said these are couldn't possibly be your father-in-law's clothes and she said yeah my mom never threw anything away even though he had passed 15 years ago.

APPRAISER: What did you pay for it when you bought it?

GUEST: I think about $40.

APPRAISER: All In The Family, man that that show it just kind of redefined America.

It took all of America's like hang-ups and values and put them in a jar and it shook them.

GUEST: After I got the jacket I I started just looking up the images of All In The Family which aired from 1971 to 1979.

And in virtually every frame that was on on the internet he was wearing this jacket.

APPRAISER: It helped social justice in our country because we're all sitting there on the couch and we're watching this guy in this jacket just changing America by being a bigot and everybody could see the humor in that.

GUEST: That show won 22 Emmys.

It won a Golden Globe.

It won it was it it it was nominated for dozens and dozens and dozens of awards over the course of while it was on TV.

It was a very important show in the history of American comedy.

APPRAISER: It's an icon.

I feel that at auction this is worth 10,000 to 15,000.

GUEST: No.

No.

You are kidding me.

APPRAISER: No I'm not.

No.

I I I love it myself.

GUEST: I knew it was important but I was blown away by the the price the value he put on it.

Shortly after it aired I was contacted by a person who said they were a curator for a museum that actually wasn't open yet called the National Comedy Center in Jamestown New York and they would greatly appreciate if I could put the jacket on loan to them.

I physically took it there on the plane.

Like I took it in my seat with me.

I I have a picture of me having it on I walked through the museum and afterwards I took the jacket off and I gave it to the curator and I said thank you this should be on display to share with everyone.

The Archie Bunker jacket was displayed next to Lucille Ball's polka dotted dress.

The jacket was in there from 2018 until after the pandemic was declared in 2020.

What happened when the pandemic was declared in March of 2020 and everything closed, I thought well what would happen if the museum closed and I wasn't able to get in touch with anyone so I I call I emailed the curator and I said if you wouldn't mind terribly um would you mind sending me the jacket back?

And I would say probably within 24 hours they FedEx the jacket back to me.

I was happy to have the jacket back but I was also sad because I knew it didn't belong in my closet.

At the time I had a friend during the pandemic like many people had fallen upon hard times financially.

So I told my friend I would give him the jacket and if he wanted to try to sell it that could help him so he he posted it and he was contacted by a man in Washington DC.

This man Michael.

And what Michael expressed to me was his whole goal was to move Heaven and Earth to get this jacket where it belongs into the Smithsonian Institute.

We made an agreement that he would get the jacket, my friend would get the money and that together he would share this journey with me to get this jacket into the Smithsonian which is what he's working on now.

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