Twenty years ago I remarked on the apparently endless popularity of the Antiques Roadshow on television. Incredibly it is still going, almost every night it seems. After so many years some of the rediscovered treasures we see on the show might be appearing for the second or third time. It was the genius of the Antiques Road Show to turn trash into potential treasure, and the search for it into a treasure hunt. It is a cultural phenomenon, a tribute to the national gift for optimism and the mysterious alchemy that gives value to objects with no apparent value at all.