'Antiques Roadshow' gets 5,000 visitors in Washington

The man with the bearskin rug thrown over his head is hoping for a big break. "It's not just any bearskin rug," Ron Hrabal says from somewhere under the animal's jowls. This grizzly belonged to Bette Davis's daughter, he says. Really, he's got the documentation to prove it.

It could be worth thousands, he says.

At the first "Antiques Roadshow" taped in Washington, he's about to find out that it's worth much less.

"Far be it for me to argue with a man holding a bear," said Rudy Franchi, an appraiser with the PBS program. "But the connection to Davis is tenuous."

Hrabal pulled the bearskin rug off his head. He wasn't happy.

"This is the real deal. We've got letters from Wild Bill and everything," said Hrabal, producing a handwritten note from the rug's manufacturer. But the appraiser remained skeptical. Hrabal threw the rug over his head and walked away.

About 23,000 people had scavenged for 5,000 available tickets to Saturday's "Roadshow" -- a 14-year American institution that one appraiser described as "the History Channel meets 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire.' "

Families marched to the Washington Convention Center with bayonets, signed baseballs and cardboard boxes filled with a range of heirlooms and kitsch.

A man lugged an iron exercise bike that he discovered at a recreation center in Southeast Washington.

A woman carried a tattered prayer book that an ancestor brought from Ireland in the late 18th century.

A couple brought a cane made from the timber of Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, Ill., home.

A half dozen people brought copies of the Declaration of Independence.