DETOURS

Adam Monahan:

Margie, you are the big boss, the head honcho in charge of all these appraisers. How many appraisers we got?

Marsha Bemko:

Actively working with us?

Adam Monahan:

Yeah.

Marsha Bemko:

I'd say... I'm going to the ballpark at 150.

Adam Monahan:

150. Who's your favorite?

Marsha Bemko:

Oh, but this is being recorded.

Adam Monahan:

They're like your children. They're all your favorite. But in the eyes of our viewers, some are loved more than others. Can you name one?

Marsha Bemko:

I'd go with Nico Lowry.

Adam Monahan:

Yes.

Marsha Bemko:

People love Nickel Lela Dunbar. She's so popular. Oh, people love Lela. Kathy Bailey. The keynote, Kevin Sabian. Oh, my goodness.

Adam Monahan:

It's a long list, but today is all about that first name, Nicholas Lowry, otherwise known as Nico. To people who might not know everything about the ins and outs of our show, please talk about Nico Lowry.

Marsha Bemko:

Nico Lowry is an interesting creature and he's silly. He's smart. He's interesting. He's so much fun.

Adam Monahan:

And you've seen him sell stuff at charity auctions, I believe, right?

Marsha Bemko:

I saw him sell a dollar bill for like $500. So yeah, he can sell anything.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha's not exaggerating. Nico is a poster's appraiser on GBH's Antiques Roadshow, but he's also a master auctioneer. Besides that dollar bill, I also witnessed him sell off a pair of T-shirts at a charity auction for over a thousand dollars each. We're talking typical public television swag, not Gucci. He's a pretty smooth talker.

So in 2004, we're in Portland, Oregon, and he appraises a six-foot by six-foot poster. Do you remember it?

Marsha Bemko:

You're talking about the Sutro Baths poster?

Nicholas Lowry:

The poster actually dates from 1896, so that makes it 108 years old as of this very minute. It is a lithograph, and they didn't have printing presses that could accommodate such a large sheet of paper. So this is actually printed on 12 different sheets.

Adam Monahan:

It's gigantic. I'm sure the scenic people had a lovely time hanging this thing and displaying this. And he appraises it for $15,000 to $20,000 at auction, which is a lot of money for a poster.

Marsha Bemko:

It's a lot of money for a poster. When you look through the individual posters, as Nico has priced them over all his decades, there aren't a lot that hit five figures like that.

Adam Monahan:

This is a special poster. This is 2004. He appraises this and he gets an email almost 20 years later saying: "Hey, I have this poster. It was appraised in Portland. Would you be interested in selling it?"

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

Let's find out.

I am Adam Monahan, a producer with GBH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detours.

Today, the poster boy takes a dive.

The guest who brought this poster to our show in Portland, his name is Paul, inherited the piece from a friend years before.

Paul:

But we never opened it or never put it up. We didn't have wall space large enough for it basically.

Adam Monahan:

The poster remember is huge; six-feet tall, six-feet wide, and shows the fantastical Sutro Baths, a glass-topped swimming complex, or a natatorium if you want to get technical.

The poster is mostly a muted watery green with a delicate line work of a technical drawing. A couple dozen swimmers splash through the pools while onlookers line the platforms and balconies above. It's a beautiful poster that almost didn't make it to our event at all.

Paul:

I thought it was too large and cumbersome to bring and too delicate. But my husband was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure it's protected," and blah, blah, blah. And I said, "Fine, you're responsible."

Adam Monahan:

The couple took their carefully rolled up poster and waited in line to see an appraiser at the poster's table. After a few hours, they finally made it to Nico.

Do you remember your impression of meeting him for the first time?

Paul:

I do. He has quite a commanding presence. I was intimidated by his outfit. I have to say it was a little different.

Adam Monahan:

Different. That's one way to describe Nico's style. Others might say bold, idiosyncratic, plaid.

Marsha Bemko:

I can't remember what year he decided he was going to wear plaid suits because if you look at the early footage, he wasn't a plaid suit man.

Adam Monahan:

Nico's outfits have a story of their own. In his earliest appraisals, Nico can be seen sporting a basic suit and tie just like everybody else. But remember that list Marsha rattled off of our most popular appraisers?

Well, Nico wanted to be on it.

Nicholas Lowry:

When I came of age on the show, the true rock stars of the Antiques Roadshow were the Keno Brothers.

Adam Monahan:

Lee and Leslie Keno are brothers and long-time appraisers on the show and everybody loves them.

Nicholas Lowry:

They were invited to the Bush White House. I mean, they were antique superstars on a high level that we mere mortals can't understand. And I was very, very, very jealous.

Adam Monahan:

The Keno brothers are amazing appraisers; so fun to watch. But they also have a thing that sets them apart from everyone else on our show. They're identical twins.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I thought, if only I had a catch, if only I had an identical twin brother and I didn't. So I started to wear outrageously funny shoes.

Adam Monahan:

Nico got a pair of red and white shoes that were designed to look like Andy Warhol's Campbell soup cans. Another pair was orange with the Tide laundry detergent logo on the side, like a sponsored race car.

Nicholas Lowry:

I'd wear a suit and tie and the shoes, and I was hoping that somehow these shoes would get on and that would be my catch. And the Wiley camera people only shot me from the knees up. So for two or three seasons, I wore these shoes and nothing happened. And I was like, "Okay, I will try something else."

Adam Monahan:

His next thing was bedazzled T-shirts with Nico self-assigned nicknames in blazoned on them in rhinestones. One said, "Poster Cowboy," another said, "Poster Boy Toy." The third, "Poster Boy."

Nicholas Lowry:

And the point was, I would finish my appraisal and I would say, "And you can trust me," and like Superman, I would pull open my jacket and say, "Because I am poster cowboy. I am poster boy toy." And the Wiley editors cut all that out.

So finally after that season, I was so fed up with not being noticed for my shoes or my specially bedazzled T-shirts that I was like, "I'm going to make it impossible for the camera not to get me in it." And I got into my head that I wanted to look like a British appraiser.

Adam Monahan:

His solution was a mustard yellow, plaid, wool, three-piece suit, jacket, pants, vest, the whole deal, and Nico wore it to every single taping. That suit was his new thing, and there was no way the camera could avoid it, which bothered a certain member of the team.

Marsha Bemko:

It just didn't look great.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha didn't like the style, but she also had a more practical concern.

Nicholas Lowry:

Marsha said to me, "I hate that you wear that suit all the time because when people are tuning into the show and they see you wearing that same suit, they think it's a rerun and they turn the channel."

And I was like, "That's a solid consideration." So then I was like, "I better get some more suits."

Adam Monahan:

Nico now has more than 60 suits in his closet or closets actually: plaid, tartan, checkered, they have become his signature. But it all started with that mustard yellow ensemble.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wore that suit for a number of years, and in fact, I'm wearing it in the Sutro Bath segment.

Adam Monahan:

Which brings us back to Portland, Oregon, 2004, and that massive poster of an even more massive bathhouse.

Nicholas Lowry:

And this was an aqua park extravaganza like Waterworld today. They had a total of seven baths, which could hold 1.7 million gallons of water. They had slides. They had trapezes. They had high diving boards. They had three restaurants. They had a theater for shows. They had a exhibition hall for exhibitions.

Adam Monahan:

Our guest, Paul, didn't know a ton about the Sutro Baths before this appraisal, and neither did I, but luckily for us, this guy does.

Can you give your name and what you do?

John A. Martini:

I'm John A. Martini. I'm a retired National Park Service ranger and historian, and I'm also the author of the book, Sutro's Glass Palace: The History of Sutro Baths.

Adam Monahan:

The Sutro in question was Adolf Sutro. He was born in 1830 in present-day Germany, came to the United States with his family as a young adult, and settled in California in 1851, three years after the gold rush began. San Francisco was a wild place in those days.

John A. Martini:

It was the worst of the boom town Western movies that you've seen. It was pretty violent. It was almost lawless. They were averaging about a murder a night.

Adam Monahan:

So tell me about how did he make his money and what was it like in San Francisco for him?

John A. Martini:

Sutro had a variety of different jobs. At one time, basically it was like a human burglar alarm living in different establishments, ready to fight off anyone that tried to break in.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutra was really an entrepreneur and he quickly started launching his own businesses. He opened a clothing store, a consignment shop, and a tobacco import business. Then in 1857, a rich silver mine was discovered in Nevada, and workers flooded in hoping to get a piece of the action.

The mine came to be called the Comstock Load, and it was a dangerous place to work. Miners risked cave-ins, fires, and flooding from underground reservoirs.

John A. Martini:

Horrific working conditions down there, hundreds of feet below ground.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutro found a solution.

John A. Martini:

He became a self-taught engineer and developed a system of tunnels. These tunnels drained water out of the deep mines of the Comstock Load, and they also provided ventilation to the deep mines.

Adam Monahan:

The tunnels improved working conditions for miners, and they made Sutro a lot of money. He came back to San Francisco in 1880, ready to spend it.

John A. Martini:

These Comstock millionaires tended to do things like establish universities, build giant mansions to themselves, top Knob Hill, set up banks. Adolf Sutro invested in San Francisco quite literally. At one time he owned a 12th of San Francisco's real estate, and unlike a lot of nouveau riche, he also invested in recreational facilities for the working class folks.

Adam Monahan:

Among his holdings was 22 acres of land to the west of the city, right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. There he made an elaborate public garden called Sutro Heights, built a train to bring San Franciscans to the seaside, and started working on his masterpiece, the Sutro Baths.

John A. Martini:

Adolf was very 19th century, which was we're going to tame nature. We're going to do better.

Adam Monahan:

The nature he was out doing, oh, just the Pacific Ocean. His vision was to create a natural swimming complex built into the cliffs at the edge of the sea.

John A. Martini:

One of the brilliant things that Sutro did was he made it basically self-filling. He had his workers create a catch basin, literally about an acre size flat plateau on the cliff face adjacent to the baths just above the breaker line.

So the waves would come in and they'd fill it, and then he had a couple of hundred-foot channel cut through the cliffs that led into the swimming pools. So at high tide, the water was just pouring in consistently, and they could fill the entire baths in just a matter of a couple of hours.

Adam Monahan:

The baths opened in 1896, right in the middle of Sutro's two-year term as mayor of San Francisco. The complex had seven pools, which held 1.7 million gallons of water and could accommodate thousands of swimmers.

But Sutro's vision was bigger.

John A. Martini:

What started simply as an impoundment for seawater evolved into concrete line tanks outdoors, sitting at the base of these cliffs. To heat it, he developed a way to heat the salt water, and the various tanks were heated to different temperatures. And then he got the idea, let's put a glass roof over this thing. And then it evolved into a three-dimensional, totally enclosed three and a half acre structure.

Adam Monahan:

And there was more to do there than just swim. There were musical performances, dance troops, opera, and lots and lots of exhibits.

John A. Martini:

Sutro, like a lot of 19th century millionaires, went on a grand tour in Europe and he purchased the cultures of the countries that he visited.

For example, he had a huge collection of Egyptian materials ranging everything from amulets and beads to several complete mummified people in their sarcophagi. He had Inuit and Native American artifacts, seashell collections, stuffed birds, endless stuffed birds, stuffed sea lions, stuffed polar bear.

Adam Monahan:

Sounds like those guys, like when rich guys start buying a train set for their basement or something, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

John A. Martini:

Except he worked on, in modeling, we call a one-to-one scale, actual size. And when he passed away in 1898, his daughter managing the estate was in for a real rude surprise when she opened the books.

Adam Monahan:

Really? So what did this endeavor cost him and what did she see in those books when it ended?

John A. Martini:

He estimated in one interview, he'd spent a million dollars on it, and this is in 1894 dollars. That translates to just an obscene amount.

Adam Monahan:

That would be more than $35 million today. So maybe a little more than a model train set.

Nicholas Lowry:

A place this fantastically big and impressive deserves a fantastically big and impressive poster.

Well, I think it's actually special for several reasons. It's special for its size. It's special for the institution...

Adam Monahan:

Our appraiser, Nico Lowry was certainly impressed when he saw the poster at our event and he valued it accordingly.

Nicholas Lowry:

So I would say that an auction estimate of $15,000 to $20,000 would not at all be out of range.

Paul:

Oh, wow. That's great. Thank you.

Nicholas Lowry:

That's a big pool of money to dive into.

Paul:

Yeah.

Adam Monahan:

So the appraisal unfolds and he tells the price to you of what he thought back in 2004, it was worth. What were your thoughts on that?

Paul:

Gosh, I hate to be selfish, but once he told me it was over a hundred years old, I thought these numbers signs kept popping in my tiny little head. So I was shocked that it wasn't more, shocked that I was so shallow that I wanted more that instead of just enjoying this beautiful piece. But yeah, we were very happy with his estimate.

Adam Monahan:

Paul and his husband took the poster home and hung it up on their wall, and there it stayed until they moved to a house in the country.

Paul:

We put in a lot of windows because we wanted to bring the outdoors in, and we were like, "Oh no, we don't have any place to put this up."

Adam Monahan:

Almost two decades after their appraisal, they decided it was time to sell the poster. They wrote an email to Nico.

Nicholas Lowry:

Hello, I own a large original Sutro Baths print that I'm ready to depart with after many years of enjoyment. Please let me know if you are interested in auctioning it off.

Adam Monahan:

After the break, Nico takes the plunge. Can this gifted auctioneer sell one of the most valuable items he's ever appraised on our show? We'll find out.

Almost two decades after having his Sutro Baths poster appraised on our show, Paul wrote an email to the general inbox at Swan, Nico's auction house in New York.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wrote back to him: "Greetings from across 18 years. Yes, of course, we would be happy to help you sell your poster."

Paul:

So yeah, we packed it up and believe it or not, sent it Federal Express.

Adam Monahan:

Nico looked over the poster again and decided to offer it at $12,000 to $18,000 in August 2023. It was part of Swan's annual travel poster auction, one of Nico's favorite categories.

Nicholas Lowry:

It seems like not only do they resonate with me, but they resonate really well with the market and other people appreciate them as much as I do, and the sales do very, very, very well.

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

It doesn't sell.

Nico, the poster cowboy, the man who could sell a dollar bill for $500 brought one of his greatest finds to one of his favorite auctions and got nothing.

Marsha Bemko:

Why doesn't sell?

Adam Monahan:

So in 2004, he'd only seen one example, and then something that we like to call the roadshow effect happens. What can you tell us about the roadshow effect?

Marsha Bemko:

Well, once people see it on a roadshow and they find out how "rare" it is, they take their copy, their item, and they have it, too. And it's no longer rare because it's that they didn't know where the others were.

Adam Monahan:

Nico had actually seen two copies of this poster before Paul's, but one of those was back in 1985. So it seemed super rare, but since then, a lot more came out of people's closets and attics and made their way to the auction block. Suddenly, our Sutro Baths poster did not look so special.

Nicholas Lowry:

It was not in great condition, which hadn't meant so much to me in 2004, but now having seen 15 other copies, I realize we can be pickier about condition. And in retrospect, I would say that's probably why it didn't sell. It was estimated too high for the condition that it was in.

Adam Monahan:

Paul followed the auction online.

Paul:

It was very disappointing that it didn't sell. I have to say we were sure it was going to sell, but we understand. I mean, if one truly follows the market, modern art is hot and old stuff, not so much.

You have to find the right person at the right time. So we're still hoping for that. I think our current agreement is to put it up again in August, but if anyone is interested and wants to see it sooner, they told me that anyone can schedule an appointment to come by and see it.

Adam Monahan:

All right, so this might have a happy ending after all.

Paul:

Fingers crossed.

Adam Monahan:

Nico, the poster cowboy, says he can definitely still sell the poster for something.

Nicholas Lowry:

I guarantee you, Adam, that I can sell this poster for a dollar. I guarantee it. Guarantee it. I also guarantee you, I cannot sell it for a million dollars. There's no way. So our job as an auctioneer is to figure out where between one and a million is that selling point.

Adam Monahan:

The story of the poster is strangely similar to the story of the Sutro Baths themselves.

John A. Martini:

Adolf himself had said when he was building it, he intended to sell it off.

Adam Monahan:

Here's John Martini again.

John A. Martini:

He never did. The family couldn't get rid of it. They tried to sell it. They tried to get the city of San Francisco to buy it. The voters turned it down.

Adam Monahan:

They finally sold the property in the 1950s. The new owner closed the swimming pools and focused on the museum exhibits and a newer attraction, an ice skating rink.

John A. Martini:

And that's how I remember going there as a kid in the fifties and sixties. And eventually, even they couldn't make it go. It was announced in early 1966, it was going to be demolished and land turned into condominiums. And in June of 1966, two months into demolition, a very convenient fire broke out, and the whole place burned to the ground in one long, windy afternoon.

Adam Monahan:

The land was cleared. Everything except the foundation of the pools themselves. There are huge weathered concrete structures that blend into the cliffs above.

John A. Martini:

We're a very young city. San Francisco was only found in the 1770s. We don't have a lot of ruins. These are our ruins.

Adam Monahan:

And what eventually happens to the property?

John A. Martini:

Various developers purchased and gave up on redeveloping it. They kept running into local opposition, never increasing environmental laws. And then finally, my former employer, the National Park Service, purchased the site in 1980 as open space. And the Park's long-range plan is essentially to maintain it in it's a ruinous condition. I call it, don't ruin the ruins.

Adam Monahan:

You should offer free tetanus shots to the people who hike trails.

John A. Martini:

We'll look into that, yeah.

Really, it's a magical area. The native people, the Alune who lived here before the Europeans arrived, they used to have a song about living in this area. And the refrain translated: "I'm dancing. I'm dancing on the brink of the world." And that's the feel you get out there.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is the production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited and mixed by Ian Kos. Our assistant producer is Sarah Herashias. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH and Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Detours.

I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Daley from the album National Throat.

Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.

Adam Monahan:

Margie, you are the big boss, the head honcho in charge of all these appraisers. How many appraisers we got?

Marsha Bemko:

Actively working with us?

Adam Monahan:

Yeah.

Marsha Bemko:

I'd say... I'm going to the ballpark at 150.

Adam Monahan:

150. Who's your favorite?

Marsha Bemko:

Oh, but this is being recorded.

Adam Monahan:

They're like your children. They're all your favorite. But in the eyes of our viewers, some are loved more than others. Can you name one?

Marsha Bemko:

I'd go with Nico Lowry.

Adam Monahan:

Yes.

Marsha Bemko:

People love Nickel Lela Dunbar. She's so popular. Oh, people love Lela. Kathy Bailey. The keynote, Kevin Sabian. Oh, my goodness.

Adam Monahan:

It's a long list, but today is all about that first name, Nicholas Lowry, otherwise known as Nico. To people who might not know everything about the ins and outs of our show, please talk about Nico Lowry.

Marsha Bemko:

Nico Lowry is an interesting creature and he's silly. He's smart. He's interesting. He's so much fun.

Adam Monahan:

And you've seen him sell stuff at charity auctions, I believe, right?

Marsha Bemko:

I saw him sell a dollar bill for like $500. So yeah, he can sell anything.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha's not exaggerating. Nico is a poster's appraiser on GBH's Antiques Roadshow, but he's also a master auctioneer. Besides that dollar bill, I also witnessed him sell off a pair of T-shirts at a charity auction for over a thousand dollars each. We're talking typical public television swag, not Gucci. He's a pretty smooth talker.

So in 2004, we're in Portland, Oregon, and he appraises a six-foot by six-foot poster. Do you remember it?

Marsha Bemko:

You're talking about the Sutro Baths poster?

Nicholas Lowry:

The poster actually dates from 1896, so that makes it 108 years old as of this very minute. It is a lithograph, and they didn't have printing presses that could accommodate such a large sheet of paper. So this is actually printed on 12 different sheets.

Adam Monahan:

It's gigantic. I'm sure the scenic people had a lovely time hanging this thing and displaying this. And he appraises it for $15,000 to $20,000 at auction, which is a lot of money for a poster.

Marsha Bemko:

It's a lot of money for a poster. When you look through the individual posters, as Nico has priced them over all his decades, there aren't a lot that hit five figures like that.

Adam Monahan:

This is a special poster. This is 2004. He appraises this and he gets an email almost 20 years later saying: "Hey, I have this poster. It was appraised in Portland. Would you be interested in selling it?"

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

Let's find out.

I am Adam Monahan, a producer with GBH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detours.

Today, the poster boy takes a dive.

The guest who brought this poster to our show in Portland, his name is Paul, inherited the piece from a friend years before.

Paul:

But we never opened it or never put it up. We didn't have wall space large enough for it basically.

Adam Monahan:

The poster remember is huge; six-feet tall, six-feet wide, and shows the fantastical Sutro Baths, a glass-topped swimming complex, or a natatorium if you want to get technical.

The poster is mostly a muted watery green with a delicate line work of a technical drawing. A couple dozen swimmers splash through the pools while onlookers line the platforms and balconies above. It's a beautiful poster that almost didn't make it to our event at all.

Paul:

I thought it was too large and cumbersome to bring and too delicate. But my husband was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure it's protected," and blah, blah, blah. And I said, "Fine, you're responsible."

Adam Monahan:

The couple took their carefully rolled up poster and waited in line to see an appraiser at the poster's table. After a few hours, they finally made it to Nico.

Do you remember your impression of meeting him for the first time?

Paul:

I do. He has quite a commanding presence. I was intimidated by his outfit. I have to say it was a little different.

Adam Monahan:

Different. That's one way to describe Nico's style. Others might say bold, idiosyncratic, plaid.

Marsha Bemko:

I can't remember what year he decided he was going to wear plaid suits because if you look at the early footage, he wasn't a plaid suit man.

Adam Monahan:

Nico's outfits have a story of their own. In his earliest appraisals, Nico can be seen sporting a basic suit and tie just like everybody else. But remember that list Marsha rattled off of our most popular appraisers?

Well, Nico wanted to be on it.

Nicholas Lowry:

When I came of age on the show, the true rock stars of the Antiques Roadshow were the Keno Brothers.

Adam Monahan:

Lee and Leslie Keno are brothers and long-time appraisers on the show and everybody loves them.

Nicholas Lowry:

They were invited to the Bush White House. I mean, they were antique superstars on a high level that we mere mortals can't understand. And I was very, very, very jealous.

Adam Monahan:

The Keno brothers are amazing appraisers; so fun to watch. But they also have a thing that sets them apart from everyone else on our show. They're identical twins.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I thought, if only I had a catch, if only I had an identical twin brother and I didn't. So I started to wear outrageously funny shoes.

Adam Monahan:

Nico got a pair of red and white shoes that were designed to look like Andy Warhol's Campbell soup cans. Another pair was orange with the Tide laundry detergent logo on the side, like a sponsored race car.

Nicholas Lowry:

I'd wear a suit and tie and the shoes, and I was hoping that somehow these shoes would get on and that would be my catch. And the Wiley camera people only shot me from the knees up. So for two or three seasons, I wore these shoes and nothing happened. And I was like, "Okay, I will try something else."

Adam Monahan:

His next thing was bedazzled T-shirts with Nico self-assigned nicknames in blazoned on them in rhinestones. One said, "Poster Cowboy," another said, "Poster Boy Toy." The third, "Poster Boy."

Nicholas Lowry:

And the point was, I would finish my appraisal and I would say, "And you can trust me," and like Superman, I would pull open my jacket and say, "Because I am poster cowboy. I am poster boy toy." And the Wiley editors cut all that out.

So finally after that season, I was so fed up with not being noticed for my shoes or my specially bedazzled T-shirts that I was like, "I'm going to make it impossible for the camera not to get me in it." And I got into my head that I wanted to look like a British appraiser.

Adam Monahan:

His solution was a mustard yellow, plaid, wool, three-piece suit, jacket, pants, vest, the whole deal, and Nico wore it to every single taping. That suit was his new thing, and there was no way the camera could avoid it, which bothered a certain member of the team.

Marsha Bemko:

It just didn't look great.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha didn't like the style, but she also had a more practical concern.

Nicholas Lowry:

Marsha said to me, "I hate that you wear that suit all the time because when people are tuning into the show and they see you wearing that same suit, they think it's a rerun and they turn the channel."

And I was like, "That's a solid consideration." So then I was like, "I better get some more suits."

Adam Monahan:

Nico now has more than 60 suits in his closet or closets actually: plaid, tartan, checkered, they have become his signature. But it all started with that mustard yellow ensemble.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wore that suit for a number of years, and in fact, I'm wearing it in the Sutro Bath segment.

Adam Monahan:

Which brings us back to Portland, Oregon, 2004, and that massive poster of an even more massive bathhouse.

Nicholas Lowry:

And this was an aqua park extravaganza like Waterworld today. They had a total of seven baths, which could hold 1.7 million gallons of water. They had slides. They had trapezes. They had high diving boards. They had three restaurants. They had a theater for shows. They had a exhibition hall for exhibitions.

Adam Monahan:

Our guest, Paul, didn't know a ton about the Sutro Baths before this appraisal, and neither did I, but luckily for us, this guy does.

Can you give your name and what you do?

John A. Martini:

I'm John A. Martini. I'm a retired National Park Service ranger and historian, and I'm also the author of the book, Sutro's Glass Palace: The History of Sutro Baths.

Adam Monahan:

The Sutro in question was Adolf Sutro. He was born in 1830 in present-day Germany, came to the United States with his family as a young adult, and settled in California in 1851, three years after the gold rush began. San Francisco was a wild place in those days.

John A. Martini:

It was the worst of the boom town Western movies that you've seen. It was pretty violent. It was almost lawless. They were averaging about a murder a night.

Adam Monahan:

So tell me about how did he make his money and what was it like in San Francisco for him?

John A. Martini:

Sutro had a variety of different jobs. At one time, basically it was like a human burglar alarm living in different establishments, ready to fight off anyone that tried to break in.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutra was really an entrepreneur and he quickly started launching his own businesses. He opened a clothing store, a consignment shop, and a tobacco import business. Then in 1857, a rich silver mine was discovered in Nevada, and workers flooded in hoping to get a piece of the action.

The mine came to be called the Comstock Load, and it was a dangerous place to work. Miners risked cave-ins, fires, and flooding from underground reservoirs.

John A. Martini:

Horrific working conditions down there, hundreds of feet below ground.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutro found a solution.

John A. Martini:

He became a self-taught engineer and developed a system of tunnels. These tunnels drained water out of the deep mines of the Comstock Load, and they also provided ventilation to the deep mines.

Adam Monahan:

The tunnels improved working conditions for miners, and they made Sutro a lot of money. He came back to San Francisco in 1880, ready to spend it.

John A. Martini:

These Comstock millionaires tended to do things like establish universities, build giant mansions to themselves, top Knob Hill, set up banks. Adolf Sutro invested in San Francisco quite literally. At one time he owned a 12th of San Francisco's real estate, and unlike a lot of nouveau riche, he also invested in recreational facilities for the working class folks.

Adam Monahan:

Among his holdings was 22 acres of land to the west of the city, right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. There he made an elaborate public garden called Sutro Heights, built a train to bring San Franciscans to the seaside, and started working on his masterpiece, the Sutro Baths.

John A. Martini:

Adolf was very 19th century, which was we're going to tame nature. We're going to do better.

Adam Monahan:

The nature he was out doing, oh, just the Pacific Ocean. His vision was to create a natural swimming complex built into the cliffs at the edge of the sea.

John A. Martini:

One of the brilliant things that Sutro did was he made it basically self-filling. He had his workers create a catch basin, literally about an acre size flat plateau on the cliff face adjacent to the baths just above the breaker line.

So the waves would come in and they'd fill it, and then he had a couple of hundred-foot channel cut through the cliffs that led into the swimming pools. So at high tide, the water was just pouring in consistently, and they could fill the entire baths in just a matter of a couple of hours.

Adam Monahan:

The baths opened in 1896, right in the middle of Sutro's two-year term as mayor of San Francisco. The complex had seven pools, which held 1.7 million gallons of water and could accommodate thousands of swimmers.

But Sutro's vision was bigger.

John A. Martini:

What started simply as an impoundment for seawater evolved into concrete line tanks outdoors, sitting at the base of these cliffs. To heat it, he developed a way to heat the salt water, and the various tanks were heated to different temperatures. And then he got the idea, let's put a glass roof over this thing. And then it evolved into a three-dimensional, totally enclosed three and a half acre structure.

Adam Monahan:

And there was more to do there than just swim. There were musical performances, dance troops, opera, and lots and lots of exhibits.

John A. Martini:

Sutro, like a lot of 19th century millionaires, went on a grand tour in Europe and he purchased the cultures of the countries that he visited.

For example, he had a huge collection of Egyptian materials ranging everything from amulets and beads to several complete mummified people in their sarcophagi. He had Inuit and Native American artifacts, seashell collections, stuffed birds, endless stuffed birds, stuffed sea lions, stuffed polar bear.

Adam Monahan:

Sounds like those guys, like when rich guys start buying a train set for their basement or something, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

John A. Martini:

Except he worked on, in modeling, we call a one-to-one scale, actual size. And when he passed away in 1898, his daughter managing the estate was in for a real rude surprise when she opened the books.

Adam Monahan:

Really? So what did this endeavor cost him and what did she see in those books when it ended?

John A. Martini:

He estimated in one interview, he'd spent a million dollars on it, and this is in 1894 dollars. That translates to just an obscene amount.

Adam Monahan:

That would be more than $35 million today. So maybe a little more than a model train set.

Nicholas Lowry:

A place this fantastically big and impressive deserves a fantastically big and impressive poster.

Well, I think it's actually special for several reasons. It's special for its size. It's special for the institution...

Adam Monahan:

Our appraiser, Nico Lowry was certainly impressed when he saw the poster at our event and he valued it accordingly.

Nicholas Lowry:

So I would say that an auction estimate of $15,000 to $20,000 would not at all be out of range.

Paul:

Oh, wow. That's great. Thank you.

Nicholas Lowry:

That's a big pool of money to dive into.

Paul:

Yeah.

Adam Monahan:

So the appraisal unfolds and he tells the price to you of what he thought back in 2004, it was worth. What were your thoughts on that?

Paul:

Gosh, I hate to be selfish, but once he told me it was over a hundred years old, I thought these numbers signs kept popping in my tiny little head. So I was shocked that it wasn't more, shocked that I was so shallow that I wanted more that instead of just enjoying this beautiful piece. But yeah, we were very happy with his estimate.

Adam Monahan:

Paul and his husband took the poster home and hung it up on their wall, and there it stayed until they moved to a house in the country.

Paul:

We put in a lot of windows because we wanted to bring the outdoors in, and we were like, "Oh no, we don't have any place to put this up."

Adam Monahan:

Almost two decades after their appraisal, they decided it was time to sell the poster. They wrote an email to Nico.

Nicholas Lowry:

Hello, I own a large original Sutro Baths print that I'm ready to depart with after many years of enjoyment. Please let me know if you are interested in auctioning it off.

Adam Monahan:

After the break, Nico takes the plunge. Can this gifted auctioneer sell one of the most valuable items he's ever appraised on our show? We'll find out.

Almost two decades after having his Sutro Baths poster appraised on our show, Paul wrote an email to the general inbox at Swan, Nico's auction house in New York.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wrote back to him: "Greetings from across 18 years. Yes, of course, we would be happy to help you sell your poster."

Paul:

So yeah, we packed it up and believe it or not, sent it Federal Express.

Adam Monahan:

Nico looked over the poster again and decided to offer it at $12,000 to $18,000 in August 2023. It was part of Swan's annual travel poster auction, one of Nico's favorite categories.

Nicholas Lowry:

It seems like not only do they resonate with me, but they resonate really well with the market and other people appreciate them as much as I do, and the sales do very, very, very well.

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

It doesn't sell.

Nico, the poster cowboy, the man who could sell a dollar bill for $500 brought one of his greatest finds to one of his favorite auctions and got nothing.

Marsha Bemko:

Why doesn't sell?

Adam Monahan:

So in 2004, he'd only seen one example, and then something that we like to call the roadshow effect happens. What can you tell us about the roadshow effect?

Marsha Bemko:

Well, once people see it on a roadshow and they find out how "rare" it is, they take their copy, their item, and they have it, too. And it's no longer rare because it's that they didn't know where the others were.

Adam Monahan:

Nico had actually seen two copies of this poster before Paul's, but one of those was back in 1985. So it seemed super rare, but since then, a lot more came out of people's closets and attics and made their way to the auction block. Suddenly, our Sutro Baths poster did not look so special.

Nicholas Lowry:

It was not in great condition, which hadn't meant so much to me in 2004, but now having seen 15 other copies, I realize we can be pickier about condition. And in retrospect, I would say that's probably why it didn't sell. It was estimated too high for the condition that it was in.

Adam Monahan:

Paul followed the auction online.

Paul:

It was very disappointing that it didn't sell. I have to say we were sure it was going to sell, but we understand. I mean, if one truly follows the market, modern art is hot and old stuff, not so much.

You have to find the right person at the right time. So we're still hoping for that. I think our current agreement is to put it up again in August, but if anyone is interested and wants to see it sooner, they told me that anyone can schedule an appointment to come by and see it.

Adam Monahan:

All right, so this might have a happy ending after all.

Paul:

Fingers crossed.

Adam Monahan:

Nico, the poster cowboy, says he can definitely still sell the poster for something.

Nicholas Lowry:

I guarantee you, Adam, that I can sell this poster for a dollar. I guarantee it. Guarantee it. I also guarantee you, I cannot sell it for a million dollars. There's no way. So our job as an auctioneer is to figure out where between one and a million is that selling point.

Adam Monahan:

The story of the poster is strangely similar to the story of the Sutro Baths themselves.

John A. Martini:

Adolf himself had said when he was building it, he intended to sell it off.

Adam Monahan:

Here's John Martini again.

John A. Martini:

He never did. The family couldn't get rid of it. They tried to sell it. They tried to get the city of San Francisco to buy it. The voters turned it down.

Adam Monahan:

They finally sold the property in the 1950s. The new owner closed the swimming pools and focused on the museum exhibits and a newer attraction, an ice skating rink.

John A. Martini:

And that's how I remember going there as a kid in the fifties and sixties. And eventually, even they couldn't make it go. It was announced in early 1966, it was going to be demolished and land turned into condominiums. And in June of 1966, two months into demolition, a very convenient fire broke out, and the whole place burned to the ground in one long, windy afternoon.

Adam Monahan:

The land was cleared. Everything except the foundation of the pools themselves. There are huge weathered concrete structures that blend into the cliffs above.

John A. Martini:

We're a very young city. San Francisco was only found in the 1770s. We don't have a lot of ruins. These are our ruins.

Adam Monahan:

And what eventually happens to the property?

John A. Martini:

Various developers purchased and gave up on redeveloping it. They kept running into local opposition, never increasing environmental laws. And then finally, my former employer, the National Park Service, purchased the site in 1980 as open space. And the Park's long-range plan is essentially to maintain it in it's a ruinous condition. I call it, don't ruin the ruins.

Adam Monahan:

You should offer free tetanus shots to the people who hike trails.

John A. Martini:

We'll look into that, yeah.

Really, it's a magical area. The native people, the Alune who lived here before the Europeans arrived, they used to have a song about living in this area. And the refrain translated: "I'm dancing. I'm dancing on the brink of the world." And that's the feel you get out there.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is the production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited and mixed by Ian Kos. Our assistant producer is Sarah Herashias. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH and Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Detours.

I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Daley from the album National Throat.

Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.

Adam Monahan:

Margie, you are the big boss, the head honcho in charge of all these appraisers. How many appraisers we got?

Marsha Bemko:

Actively working with us?

Adam Monahan:

Yeah.

Marsha Bemko:

I'd say... I'm going to the ballpark at 150.

Adam Monahan:

150. Who's your favorite?

Marsha Bemko:

Oh, but this is being recorded.

Adam Monahan:

They're like your children. They're all your favorite. But in the eyes of our viewers, some are loved more than others. Can you name one?

Marsha Bemko:

I'd go with Nico Lowry.

Adam Monahan:

Yes.

Marsha Bemko:

People love Nickel Lela Dunbar. She's so popular. Oh, people love Lela. Kathy Bailey. The keynote, Kevin Sabian. Oh, my goodness.

Adam Monahan:

It's a long list, but today is all about that first name, Nicholas Lowry, otherwise known as Nico. To people who might not know everything about the ins and outs of our show, please talk about Nico Lowry.

Marsha Bemko:

Nico Lowry is an interesting creature and he's silly. He's smart. He's interesting. He's so much fun.

Adam Monahan:

And you've seen him sell stuff at charity auctions, I believe, right?

Marsha Bemko:

I saw him sell a dollar bill for like $500. So yeah, he can sell anything.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha's not exaggerating. Nico is a poster's appraiser on GBH's Antiques Roadshow, but he's also a master auctioneer. Besides that dollar bill, I also witnessed him sell off a pair of T-shirts at a charity auction for over a thousand dollars each. We're talking typical public television swag, not Gucci. He's a pretty smooth talker.

So in 2004, we're in Portland, Oregon, and he appraises a six-foot by six-foot poster. Do you remember it?

Marsha Bemko:

You're talking about the Sutro Baths poster?

Nicholas Lowry:

The poster actually dates from 1896, so that makes it 108 years old as of this very minute. It is a lithograph, and they didn't have printing presses that could accommodate such a large sheet of paper. So this is actually printed on 12 different sheets.

Adam Monahan:

It's gigantic. I'm sure the scenic people had a lovely time hanging this thing and displaying this. And he appraises it for $15,000 to $20,000 at auction, which is a lot of money for a poster.

Marsha Bemko:

It's a lot of money for a poster. When you look through the individual posters, as Nico has priced them over all his decades, there aren't a lot that hit five figures like that.

Adam Monahan:

This is a special poster. This is 2004. He appraises this and he gets an email almost 20 years later saying: "Hey, I have this poster. It was appraised in Portland. Would you be interested in selling it?"

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

Let's find out.

I am Adam Monahan, a producer with GBH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detours.

Today, the poster boy takes a dive.

The guest who brought this poster to our show in Portland, his name is Paul, inherited the piece from a friend years before.

Paul:

But we never opened it or never put it up. We didn't have wall space large enough for it basically.

Adam Monahan:

The poster remember is huge; six-feet tall, six-feet wide, and shows the fantastical Sutro Baths, a glass-topped swimming complex, or a natatorium if you want to get technical.

The poster is mostly a muted watery green with a delicate line work of a technical drawing. A couple dozen swimmers splash through the pools while onlookers line the platforms and balconies above. It's a beautiful poster that almost didn't make it to our event at all.

Paul:

I thought it was too large and cumbersome to bring and too delicate. But my husband was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure it's protected," and blah, blah, blah. And I said, "Fine, you're responsible."

Adam Monahan:

The couple took their carefully rolled up poster and waited in line to see an appraiser at the poster's table. After a few hours, they finally made it to Nico.

Do you remember your impression of meeting him for the first time?

Paul:

I do. He has quite a commanding presence. I was intimidated by his outfit. I have to say it was a little different.

Adam Monahan:

Different. That's one way to describe Nico's style. Others might say bold, idiosyncratic, plaid.

Marsha Bemko:

I can't remember what year he decided he was going to wear plaid suits because if you look at the early footage, he wasn't a plaid suit man.

Adam Monahan:

Nico's outfits have a story of their own. In his earliest appraisals, Nico can be seen sporting a basic suit and tie just like everybody else. But remember that list Marsha rattled off of our most popular appraisers?

Well, Nico wanted to be on it.

Nicholas Lowry:

When I came of age on the show, the true rock stars of the Antiques Roadshow were the Keno Brothers.

Adam Monahan:

Lee and Leslie Keno are brothers and long-time appraisers on the show and everybody loves them.

Nicholas Lowry:

They were invited to the Bush White House. I mean, they were antique superstars on a high level that we mere mortals can't understand. And I was very, very, very jealous.

Adam Monahan:

The Keno brothers are amazing appraisers; so fun to watch. But they also have a thing that sets them apart from everyone else on our show. They're identical twins.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I thought, if only I had a catch, if only I had an identical twin brother and I didn't. So I started to wear outrageously funny shoes.

Adam Monahan:

Nico got a pair of red and white shoes that were designed to look like Andy Warhol's Campbell soup cans. Another pair was orange with the Tide laundry detergent logo on the side, like a sponsored race car.

Nicholas Lowry:

I'd wear a suit and tie and the shoes, and I was hoping that somehow these shoes would get on and that would be my catch. And the Wiley camera people only shot me from the knees up. So for two or three seasons, I wore these shoes and nothing happened. And I was like, "Okay, I will try something else."

Adam Monahan:

His next thing was bedazzled T-shirts with Nico self-assigned nicknames in blazoned on them in rhinestones. One said, "Poster Cowboy," another said, "Poster Boy Toy." The third, "Poster Boy."

Nicholas Lowry:

And the point was, I would finish my appraisal and I would say, "And you can trust me," and like Superman, I would pull open my jacket and say, "Because I am poster cowboy. I am poster boy toy." And the Wiley editors cut all that out.

So finally after that season, I was so fed up with not being noticed for my shoes or my specially bedazzled T-shirts that I was like, "I'm going to make it impossible for the camera not to get me in it." And I got into my head that I wanted to look like a British appraiser.

Adam Monahan:

His solution was a mustard yellow, plaid, wool, three-piece suit, jacket, pants, vest, the whole deal, and Nico wore it to every single taping. That suit was his new thing, and there was no way the camera could avoid it, which bothered a certain member of the team.

Marsha Bemko:

It just didn't look great.

Adam Monahan:

Marsha didn't like the style, but she also had a more practical concern.

Nicholas Lowry:

Marsha said to me, "I hate that you wear that suit all the time because when people are tuning into the show and they see you wearing that same suit, they think it's a rerun and they turn the channel."

And I was like, "That's a solid consideration." So then I was like, "I better get some more suits."

Adam Monahan:

Nico now has more than 60 suits in his closet or closets actually: plaid, tartan, checkered, they have become his signature. But it all started with that mustard yellow ensemble.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wore that suit for a number of years, and in fact, I'm wearing it in the Sutro Bath segment.

Adam Monahan:

Which brings us back to Portland, Oregon, 2004, and that massive poster of an even more massive bathhouse.

Nicholas Lowry:

And this was an aqua park extravaganza like Waterworld today. They had a total of seven baths, which could hold 1.7 million gallons of water. They had slides. They had trapezes. They had high diving boards. They had three restaurants. They had a theater for shows. They had a exhibition hall for exhibitions.

Adam Monahan:

Our guest, Paul, didn't know a ton about the Sutro Baths before this appraisal, and neither did I, but luckily for us, this guy does.

Can you give your name and what you do?

John A. Martini:

I'm John A. Martini. I'm a retired National Park Service ranger and historian, and I'm also the author of the book, Sutro's Glass Palace: The History of Sutro Baths.

Adam Monahan:

The Sutro in question was Adolf Sutro. He was born in 1830 in present-day Germany, came to the United States with his family as a young adult, and settled in California in 1851, three years after the gold rush began. San Francisco was a wild place in those days.

John A. Martini:

It was the worst of the boom town Western movies that you've seen. It was pretty violent. It was almost lawless. They were averaging about a murder a night.

Adam Monahan:

So tell me about how did he make his money and what was it like in San Francisco for him?

John A. Martini:

Sutro had a variety of different jobs. At one time, basically it was like a human burglar alarm living in different establishments, ready to fight off anyone that tried to break in.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutra was really an entrepreneur and he quickly started launching his own businesses. He opened a clothing store, a consignment shop, and a tobacco import business. Then in 1857, a rich silver mine was discovered in Nevada, and workers flooded in hoping to get a piece of the action.

The mine came to be called the Comstock Load, and it was a dangerous place to work. Miners risked cave-ins, fires, and flooding from underground reservoirs.

John A. Martini:

Horrific working conditions down there, hundreds of feet below ground.

Adam Monahan:

But Sutro found a solution.

John A. Martini:

He became a self-taught engineer and developed a system of tunnels. These tunnels drained water out of the deep mines of the Comstock Load, and they also provided ventilation to the deep mines.

Adam Monahan:

The tunnels improved working conditions for miners, and they made Sutro a lot of money. He came back to San Francisco in 1880, ready to spend it.

John A. Martini:

These Comstock millionaires tended to do things like establish universities, build giant mansions to themselves, top Knob Hill, set up banks. Adolf Sutro invested in San Francisco quite literally. At one time he owned a 12th of San Francisco's real estate, and unlike a lot of nouveau riche, he also invested in recreational facilities for the working class folks.

Adam Monahan:

Among his holdings was 22 acres of land to the west of the city, right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. There he made an elaborate public garden called Sutro Heights, built a train to bring San Franciscans to the seaside, and started working on his masterpiece, the Sutro Baths.

John A. Martini:

Adolf was very 19th century, which was we're going to tame nature. We're going to do better.

Adam Monahan:

The nature he was out doing, oh, just the Pacific Ocean. His vision was to create a natural swimming complex built into the cliffs at the edge of the sea.

John A. Martini:

One of the brilliant things that Sutro did was he made it basically self-filling. He had his workers create a catch basin, literally about an acre size flat plateau on the cliff face adjacent to the baths just above the breaker line.

So the waves would come in and they'd fill it, and then he had a couple of hundred-foot channel cut through the cliffs that led into the swimming pools. So at high tide, the water was just pouring in consistently, and they could fill the entire baths in just a matter of a couple of hours.

Adam Monahan:

The baths opened in 1896, right in the middle of Sutro's two-year term as mayor of San Francisco. The complex had seven pools, which held 1.7 million gallons of water and could accommodate thousands of swimmers.

But Sutro's vision was bigger.

John A. Martini:

What started simply as an impoundment for seawater evolved into concrete line tanks outdoors, sitting at the base of these cliffs. To heat it, he developed a way to heat the salt water, and the various tanks were heated to different temperatures. And then he got the idea, let's put a glass roof over this thing. And then it evolved into a three-dimensional, totally enclosed three and a half acre structure.

Adam Monahan:

And there was more to do there than just swim. There were musical performances, dance troops, opera, and lots and lots of exhibits.

John A. Martini:

Sutro, like a lot of 19th century millionaires, went on a grand tour in Europe and he purchased the cultures of the countries that he visited.

For example, he had a huge collection of Egyptian materials ranging everything from amulets and beads to several complete mummified people in their sarcophagi. He had Inuit and Native American artifacts, seashell collections, stuffed birds, endless stuffed birds, stuffed sea lions, stuffed polar bear.

Adam Monahan:

Sounds like those guys, like when rich guys start buying a train set for their basement or something, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

John A. Martini:

Except he worked on, in modeling, we call a one-to-one scale, actual size. And when he passed away in 1898, his daughter managing the estate was in for a real rude surprise when she opened the books.

Adam Monahan:

Really? So what did this endeavor cost him and what did she see in those books when it ended?

John A. Martini:

He estimated in one interview, he'd spent a million dollars on it, and this is in 1894 dollars. That translates to just an obscene amount.

Adam Monahan:

That would be more than $35 million today. So maybe a little more than a model train set.

Nicholas Lowry:

A place this fantastically big and impressive deserves a fantastically big and impressive poster.

Well, I think it's actually special for several reasons. It's special for its size. It's special for the institution...

Adam Monahan:

Our appraiser, Nico Lowry was certainly impressed when he saw the poster at our event and he valued it accordingly.

Nicholas Lowry:

So I would say that an auction estimate of $15,000 to $20,000 would not at all be out of range.

Paul:

Oh, wow. That's great. Thank you.

Nicholas Lowry:

That's a big pool of money to dive into.

Paul:

Yeah.

Adam Monahan:

So the appraisal unfolds and he tells the price to you of what he thought back in 2004, it was worth. What were your thoughts on that?

Paul:

Gosh, I hate to be selfish, but once he told me it was over a hundred years old, I thought these numbers signs kept popping in my tiny little head. So I was shocked that it wasn't more, shocked that I was so shallow that I wanted more that instead of just enjoying this beautiful piece. But yeah, we were very happy with his estimate.

Adam Monahan:

Paul and his husband took the poster home and hung it up on their wall, and there it stayed until they moved to a house in the country.

Paul:

We put in a lot of windows because we wanted to bring the outdoors in, and we were like, "Oh no, we don't have any place to put this up."

Adam Monahan:

Almost two decades after their appraisal, they decided it was time to sell the poster. They wrote an email to Nico.

Nicholas Lowry:

Hello, I own a large original Sutro Baths print that I'm ready to depart with after many years of enjoyment. Please let me know if you are interested in auctioning it off.

Adam Monahan:

After the break, Nico takes the plunge. Can this gifted auctioneer sell one of the most valuable items he's ever appraised on our show? We'll find out.

Almost two decades after having his Sutro Baths poster appraised on our show, Paul wrote an email to the general inbox at Swan, Nico's auction house in New York.

Nicholas Lowry:

And I wrote back to him: "Greetings from across 18 years. Yes, of course, we would be happy to help you sell your poster."

Paul:

So yeah, we packed it up and believe it or not, sent it Federal Express.

Adam Monahan:

Nico looked over the poster again and decided to offer it at $12,000 to $18,000 in August 2023. It was part of Swan's annual travel poster auction, one of Nico's favorite categories.

Nicholas Lowry:

It seems like not only do they resonate with me, but they resonate really well with the market and other people appreciate them as much as I do, and the sales do very, very, very well.

Marsha Bemko:

And what happens when he sells that poster?

Adam Monahan:

It doesn't sell.

Nico, the poster cowboy, the man who could sell a dollar bill for $500 brought one of his greatest finds to one of his favorite auctions and got nothing.

Marsha Bemko:

Why doesn't sell?

Adam Monahan:

So in 2004, he'd only seen one example, and then something that we like to call the roadshow effect happens. What can you tell us about the roadshow effect?

Marsha Bemko:

Well, once people see it on a roadshow and they find out how "rare" it is, they take their copy, their item, and they have it, too. And it's no longer rare because it's that they didn't know where the others were.

Adam Monahan:

Nico had actually seen two copies of this poster before Paul's, but one of those was back in 1985. So it seemed super rare, but since then, a lot more came out of people's closets and attics and made their way to the auction block. Suddenly, our Sutro Baths poster did not look so special.

Nicholas Lowry:

It was not in great condition, which hadn't meant so much to me in 2004, but now having seen 15 other copies, I realize we can be pickier about condition. And in retrospect, I would say that's probably why it didn't sell. It was estimated too high for the condition that it was in.

Adam Monahan:

Paul followed the auction online.

Paul:

It was very disappointing that it didn't sell. I have to say we were sure it was going to sell, but we understand. I mean, if one truly follows the market, modern art is hot and old stuff, not so much.

You have to find the right person at the right time. So we're still hoping for that. I think our current agreement is to put it up again in August, but if anyone is interested and wants to see it sooner, they told me that anyone can schedule an appointment to come by and see it.

Adam Monahan:

All right, so this might have a happy ending after all.

Paul:

Fingers crossed.

Adam Monahan:

Nico, the poster cowboy, says he can definitely still sell the poster for something.

Nicholas Lowry:

I guarantee you, Adam, that I can sell this poster for a dollar. I guarantee it. Guarantee it. I also guarantee you, I cannot sell it for a million dollars. There's no way. So our job as an auctioneer is to figure out where between one and a million is that selling point.

Adam Monahan:

The story of the poster is strangely similar to the story of the Sutro Baths themselves.

John A. Martini:

Adolf himself had said when he was building it, he intended to sell it off.

Adam Monahan:

Here's John Martini again.

John A. Martini:

He never did. The family couldn't get rid of it. They tried to sell it. They tried to get the city of San Francisco to buy it. The voters turned it down.

Adam Monahan:

They finally sold the property in the 1950s. The new owner closed the swimming pools and focused on the museum exhibits and a newer attraction, an ice skating rink.

John A. Martini:

And that's how I remember going there as a kid in the fifties and sixties. And eventually, even they couldn't make it go. It was announced in early 1966, it was going to be demolished and land turned into condominiums. And in June of 1966, two months into demolition, a very convenient fire broke out, and the whole place burned to the ground in one long, windy afternoon.

Adam Monahan:

The land was cleared. Everything except the foundation of the pools themselves. There are huge weathered concrete structures that blend into the cliffs above.

John A. Martini:

We're a very young city. San Francisco was only found in the 1770s. We don't have a lot of ruins. These are our ruins.

Adam Monahan:

And what eventually happens to the property?

John A. Martini:

Various developers purchased and gave up on redeveloping it. They kept running into local opposition, never increasing environmental laws. And then finally, my former employer, the National Park Service, purchased the site in 1980 as open space. And the Park's long-range plan is essentially to maintain it in it's a ruinous condition. I call it, don't ruin the ruins.

Adam Monahan:

You should offer free tetanus shots to the people who hike trails.

John A. Martini:

We'll look into that, yeah.

Really, it's a magical area. The native people, the Alune who lived here before the Europeans arrived, they used to have a song about living in this area. And the refrain translated: "I'm dancing. I'm dancing on the brink of the world." And that's the feel you get out there.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is the production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited and mixed by Ian Kos. Our assistant producer is Sarah Herashias. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH and Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Detours.

I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Daley from the album National Throat.

Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.