‘Masonic quilt on Antiques Roadshow’

     

Masonic quilt c. 1875 as seen on Antiques Roadshow on PBS.

    
The material culture of the Craft keeps popping up on reality television. Tonight on Antiques Roadshow, a mainstay of PBS programming to which all the pawn brokers, junkmen, and barterers on cable television are indebted, we got a look at a quilt covered in Craft symbols. (The episode in question is No. 8 of Season 17, which is the second of three hours shot in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.)

The quilt was identified as an “appliquéd Masonic quilt,” c. 1875; was appraised at between $6,000 and $8,000; and was described as being in excellent condition by Ms. Beth Szescila of Szescila Appraisal Service in Houston.

Not only do I own no modern digital recording devices to better reproduce these images, but my television is a 25-year-old Sylvania. I pointed a digital camera at the screen and tried to get the best possible shots of the quilt’s sudden appearance.