This Hardcover Book item from Warner Books was reviewed on 30-Jul-2008.
Search ISBN:B00008RWCD offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture Reference Book. Classifications : Subjects Arts & Photography Biographies & Memoirs Business & Investing Children's Books Comics & Graphic Novels Computers & Internet Cooking, Food & Wine Entertainment Gay & Lesbian Health, Mind & Bod . Click the following link to view the cover of Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture. Related topics: Subjects. Arts & Photography. Children´s Books. Entertainment. Gay & Lesbian. Health, Mind & Body. History. Home & Garden. Law. Medicine. requestid: 94cb1e7b-cd74-4121-8fdf-9468f72e4ab3
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1) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. This is an excellent book, well-written and very entertaining as well as informative. The Keno brothers, Leslie and Leigh, are passionate enthusiasts for American antique furniture and their overall approach in this book is lively and down-to-earth. It is easy to see why the Kenos are such highly respected figures in the antiques world. Highly recommended also for it´s crisp photos.¤ 2) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. The Keno brothers are classic examples of what can happen when someone starts on something young and sticks with it through their entire life.
We all saw Tiger Woods out-putt Johnny Carson when he was 3 years old... Warren Buffett had read every book on finance the Omaha Public Library had available by the time he was 11. The Kenos follow a similar path, only instead of golf or investing, they chose Antiquities.
The one thing that rings very clear is that knowledge, much like interest, compounds at an impressive rate. How early you start your journey can very well determine how far you eventually go with it. The reader can easily imagine the two determined twins in their early teen years, scouting out flea markets for stoneware or "the good stuff".
In reading this book, it provides the reader with a profound insight into who these guys are- how they can know SO much about this stuff and why they´ve both gone so far in this field.
All in all, a solid four out of five stars. An easy, very interesting read that sheds light into a very exclusive world that was conquered by a couple of twins with endless enthusiasm and a desire to learn.¤ 3) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. Honestly these two guys make my skin crawl, but they really know their furniture, they are like encyclopedias of knowledge, not quite the great Albert Sack, but getting there. This is a very interesting book on some amazing furniture, and the stories are amazing. These guys really have an eye for a treasure I must admit, but i cant help shaking the image of them on their show, they are just really odd, like some old money WASP, from Newport or Long Island, I have a feeling in thirty years they will have their own Grey Garden.¤ 4) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. I looked forward to this book but found it sorely lacking.
My biggest gripe is that the brothers jump in a few pages from their modest upbringing to b ig shot dealers wheeling and dealing million(s) dollars items, There is no discussion of how this jump was made, or how they could manage to finance the huge purchase prices they describe. Further the books deals in antiques that only the top .00001 percent of the population could actually buy. Nor is there anything about the business end of things, like how one becomes a top line dealer.
Instead of focusing on real tips and experiences acquiring items that a serious (middle class) collector could hope to acquire, they focus on items that most millionaires would find expensive.
Don´t expect this book to have any relevancy to you.¤ 5) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. I bought a cassette tape of Hidden treasures from Amazon.com for $17.95.
Leslie and Leigh Keno take turns reading their chapters that they wrote for their book themselves. They do a great job and I greatly enjoyed hearing their story told in their own voices. I found them deeply engaging and I loved hearing their story of roaming the rural hills near their home in Mohawk NY, as they rode tautem on a small motor bike looking for long lost treaures near their home; in the form of old barn hinges, or digging through garbage dumps that were over a hundred years old. And their mom who´d see them leave and say, "their go the twins go, off in their own little world." And they do seem to go off in their own world a lot of the time.
Leslie Keno went to an interview at the Mather House admissions building that he was applying to the University there, and ended up crawling around on the floor examining the undersides and legs of furnature. A little later he got a tap on the shoulder as it was time for the interview, and he remembered the concerned looks of parents as he walked by. He didn´t say it, but I wondered if he was embarrassed?
Later on in another chapter describing a highly stylized pier table complete with womanly head and upper torso figures that supported the top of the table--I think it was Leslie that time too--Even though he and his brother made a real effort to carefully pronouce each word and keep the pacing even; Leslie almost but not quite stumbled over the word bosom. Yes Leslie, it is a bosom and some call them breasts too. But I thought it was sweet that he almost flubbed. Leigh on the other hand had no trouble telling about an almost sensual moment he had as he was running his hands over a seat cushion(yes, I said a seat cushion), then turned it over to check the underside for the age of the piece.
If you think that this book is a primer for how to be a antique dealer you would be mistaken, and you´d also be mistaken if you thought this would be a dry uninteresting book. Instead what we have here is a very honest look at how two young men grew-up in a very loving, and supporting family. And how their interest in antiques was nutured. It really is interesting seeing how these two brothers evolved into the top notch antique dealers, and appraisers that they are today.
The only thing that disapointed me was; I would have liked to have heard more about their youth.
I highly recommend the book on cassette or in book form. Right now I´m wondering what I missed not having the actual book? Probably a whole lot more pictures. Okay! I´m ordering the book right now!
¤ 6) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. Leigh and Leslie Keno, featured experts on the popular Antiques Road Show, share their amazing stories discovering rare treasures of American antique furniture in the least likely places. In a country of junk-filled attics, yard sales, and flea markets frequented by millions of Antiques Road Show viewers hoping to uncover a grungy chest of drawers worth millions, the Keno twins have become the Siskel and Ebert of antiques. Dapper, witty, and in their early forties (with nearly 60 years of combined experience between them), they symbolize the union of amateur enthusiasm and acute professionalism that has made the television program on which they appear a cultural phenomenon. Now, in this fascinating collection of tales of their personal adventures hunting-and discovering-priceless junk (including some notable Road Show success stories), readers will learn how to see the extraordinary in the mundane. Illustrated throughout with beautifully detailed color photographs of priceless antiques, many taken on-site at the moment of discovery, HIDDEN TREASURES is part history lesson and part treasure map for finding obscure, valuable antiques where they would be least expected.¤ 7) Hardcover Book Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture by Warner Books. Leigh and Leslie Keno are twins with a single passion--the pursuit of American antiques. One (Leigh) is an antiques dealer in New York. The other (Leslie) is a director at Sotheby´s, New York. Together with Joan Barzilay Freund--a New York-based freelance writer who specializes in American antiques--they tell tales of the hunt. Some of the stories come from the twins´ childhood in upstate New York (they started keeping antiques dealer diaries when they were 12); one riveting anecdote is set more recently in the auction room of Sotheby´s, circa January 1999. But all of the treasure-hunting episodes are imbued with the drama and thrill of the chase as well as the bliss of aesthetic appreciation. It doesn´t matter whether you, yourself, have swapped bids in tense auction rooms for million-dollar furnishings, or traipsed through small-town flea markets in search of sleepers, or gained the bulk of your antiquing know-how while firmly planted in your easy chair watching the Antiques Roadshow. Because the Keno twins know their stuff and they evoke the rich details of antiques, such as the creamy surfaces of 18th-century ceramics and the plum-pudding mahogany sheen to the rare secretary bookshelf. The passion that drives them is evident on every page of the book, and that emotion is the hook that allows them to so effectively share their fascination with the reader. To read their stories is to enter their world, and while the color photographs are certainly appreciated, the prose does a fine job by itself to portray the lure of the Seymour table and the Canton ginger jar. Along the way, the life stories and distinctive personalities of the twins come through, too. By time you finish the final chapter, you will have learned a lot about American antiques, and even more about the happy souls of two brothers pursuing their craft. --Stephanie Gold¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 27-Aug-2008, , 490-860-541-301-CDB-ZIB-8 
Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture, Book, Image © Warner Books
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