# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I have seen exactly one hour of "reality" TV in my time, the first episode of the Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie abomination many years ago. Last week I doubled my pleasure by watching the back-to-back debut hours of "Buried Treasure" on Fox, starring the Keno twins, Leigh and Leslie (one works for Sotheby's, the other for himself; one is gay, the other is straight; one looks like Pinocchio, the other looks like Rumpelstiltskin).

Perhaps you have heard of the popular gambling game, ubiquitous in roadside bars, called Keno? Well, this TV Keno game promises not only riches, but, as the Keno brothers frequently point out on the show, "we just saved someone's life!" How? By turning the junk in the attic to gold, or at least "its auction estimate," "what it would be worth in a retail setting," or "its value for insurance purposes," tricks they have somewhat imported from their former masters at "The Antiques Roadshow."

Give the boys credit though, the first two hours of "Buried Treasure" did feature cash offers on the spot. In one segment, Leigh and Leslie haul a slobby comics collector, with a stunning Eastern European girlfriend, to the gallery of a major comics expert ("we sold Nicholas Cage his collection"), where the sales staff actually offer the guy $50 grand for his Superman cell.

The fellow breaks out in a cold sweat as the offer goes up in thousand dollar increments (but "we won't pay $60,000," threaten the experts), because he perhaps loves his one piece of any value more than anything. Then, his babe gives him a big smooch and tells him to hold onto it. No sale! Like everything else on "Buried Treasure," it is totally staged, but effective.

Staging works best when the brothers knock on the door of a preppy Long Island vintner and his wife, who claim to own a $1.5 million 17th-century Maggini violin. The Kenos kayo the kouple by bringing along not only a violin player, but a violinist who plays the suspect instrument and then plays a Stradivarius, while the couple sits on the lawn already counting their money. You can hear the difference between the two instruments easily, as the couples' violin is a $300 imitation of what they thought they had!

The violin segment showcases what might be called the Ryan Trecartin element of the show, knockabout, quick-cut video of the boys examining various objects through microscopes, lasers, woodchippers, chainsaws and other machines whipping by too swifty to identify. They especially go nuts over a houseful of junk owned by some Edie Beale-wannabe on the North Shore, only this time the Kenos leave Grey Gardens with some actual loot.

Most poignant (and least formulaic) is a visit to a couple in Westminster, Texas. She's a cosmetologist, he's a chubby massage therapist and they are loaded up with not only children, but a master bedroom filled with dead granny's junk. The Kino boys vow to raise the dough to buy the kiddos new pairs of shoes (they actually crow about it!), but chubbo is too attached to the real Audubon "Birds of America" prints in the cold fingers of Granny's ghost.

Who you gonna call? My old Yale classmate Graham Arader, a bibliophile whooped up by the Kinos as the prince of prints. Once again, cash is king, taxes and appearance fees are not discussed and the twins are off to save (or humiliate) another greedy innocent.

Can't wait for their first "De Kooning" and a visit from Jerry Saltz!

CHARLIE FINCH is co-author of Most Art Sucks: Five Years of Coagula (Smart Art Press).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I have seen exactly one hour of "reality" TV in my time, the first episode of the Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie abomination many years ago. Last week I doubled my pleasure by watching the back-to-back debut hours of "Buried Treasure" on Fox, starring the Keno twins, Leigh and Leslie (one works for Sotheby's, the other for himself; one is gay, the other is straight; one looks like Pinocchio, the other looks like Rumpelstiltskin).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get to know ANTIQUES ROADSHOW appraiser Leigh Keno, expert in Folk Art, Furniture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Never before in our history have Americans been so interested in one another's stuff. MTV's Cribs, niche shelter shows, and an entire cable network devoted to home design have made it so that you can scarcely flip on the television anymore without seeing somebody invert someone else's punch bowl, looking for the ceramicist's mark. Maybe the boom in look-at-my stuff shows can be attributed to the fact that, in the post-privacy age of reality television, pawing through someone's belongings really is the last frontier of pornography.

The oddball new PBS series Find!, which premiered in October and is just drawing to the end of its first season, takes belongings-pawing to previously unknown heights. It combines the treasures-in-the-attic wish fulfillment of Antiques Roadshow, the you-call-that-taste? schadenfreude of Trading Spaces and the down-home, Mr.-Fix-It aesthetic of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. But Find! has one thing that these shows haven't got, or rather, two things: the Keno twins.

Leigh and Leslie Keno, 46, are tall, blond, engagingly hyperactive WASPs from upstate New York who have been collecting and dealing antiques together since childhood. In fact, the boys were antiques prodigies, as stressed by this factoid in their press bio: "At the age of twelve, twin brothers Leigh and Leslie Keno declared in their personal diary: 'We are antiques dealers.' " For me, the first thought occasioned by this revelation is not, "What precocious animation and drive!" but, "What kind of preteen boys keep a shared diary?"

The twins' very twinness is a kind of novelty act, the show's ace in the hole, and they love to milk the brother angle for all it's worth. They speak almost exclusively in the first person plural, with occasional disturbing references to "our kids" (as in, "our kids would love this shagreen footrest") that can't help but call up images of a joint household swarming with test-tube Keno clones. When Leigh and Leslie come across any two identical objects (say, a vintage toy in which two Popeye figures race down a ladder), they like to take sides as to which represents whom. The Keno brothers also touch one another with a frequency that is somewhat unusual in our culture, with its stuffy personal-space rules and prudish incest taboos. My friends and I have invented a drinking game: Every time there's a fraternal shoulder stroke or knee pat (not to mention the disturbing arm fondle in episode No. 106), the person who spots it gets to make the others do a shot. Let's just say that at the end of last week's half-hour show, a brand-new bottle of Stoli was almost gone.

The Find! episodes are frenzied. Generally, each begins with a house call, as the boys scope out the home of some private citizen who has written the program requesting a visit. Sometimes these are snooty scions of Mayflower families, well aware of the value of their heirlooms and seeking little more than an appraisal for insurance purposes. Other guests include inveterate collectors of unusual objects-carnival knock-down figures, 19 th-century playing marbles-who want to show off their collections and to get a price estimate on an individual piece.

Finally-the best-case scenario for Leigh and Leslie-some of these people simply have no idea what their things are worth, like the no-nonsense Boston-area housewife they visit in the breath-baiting Episode No. 110, due to air sometime in late December or early January. (Check your local PBS listings.) This refreshingly taciturn lady-who, unlike most Find! subjects, is neither too rich nor too thin-stands by in bemusement as a virtual blond tornado descends upon her house, upending vases, exclaiming over fire buckets, crawling beneath tables, and finally digging through her jam-packed attic in search of an abandoned painting that turns out to be a previously unknown masterwork by the major American painter Martin Johnson Heade. The painting is evaluated by a Heade specialist-visits to art conservators and scholars being another important element in Find!-and deemed authentic. In the money shot that ends this episode, the Kenos break it to the Massachusetts housewife (and to us) that the unassuming landscape she's had in storage for decades is worth something like a quarter of a million dollars. (As it turns out, the painting sold at auction this week for over $1 million, an event that will be broadcast in an upcoming Find! episode.)

Like Queer Eye's Fab Five, the Kenos descend on their unsuspecting prey in a sleek black SUV, all but racing up the steps to get to the spoils. But unlike Bravo's gay taste mavens, our sexually ambiguous towheads are unfailingly gushing, no matter how execrable the interiors they encounter. The catty back-stabbing that is no doubt endemic to the high-end antiques trade (and that is essential to reality TV) is nowhere in sight. Of course, the backsides of the elite must be osculated to keep furniture flying in and out of showrooms, but compulsively watchable as it is, Find! could benefit from a little more of what my therapist calls emotional honesty. If Leigh and Les are horrified by the juxtaposition of reproduction Queen Anne and authentic Federal transferware, let's hear them bitch about it! The muttering of a sotto voce wisecrack never hurt anybody (or their Renaissance Revival sideboard). For myself, I also wish the show were an hour long, rather than a half-hour, so I could learn more about the actual art of appraising antiques, rather than just admire how well (and how quickly) the Kenos do it. But I'm probably looking for an excuse to paw through even more people's stuff.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Never before in our history have Americans been so interested in one another's stuff. MTV's Cribs, niche shelter shows, and an entire cable network devoted to home design have made it so that you can scarcely flip on the television anymore without seeing somebody invert someone else's punch bowl, looking for the ceramicist's mark.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Keno Brothers "tag" the furnishings they think can stand the test of time

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The photo, as you can see for yourself, shows two adolescent boys, twins actually, stocking caps pulled over matching mops of blond hair on what is obviously a chilly day as they stand perched on the frame rails of an open trailer in front of a rather dilapidated old car. The photo was taken 45 years ago. The boys' father had just paid $300 to buy the car.

The boys are the Keno brothers, Leigh and Leslie, or maybe it's Leslie and Leigh; after all, they are identical twins. Their father, Ron, was a high school teacher but he and the boys' mother, Norma, also were experts in folk art and country furniture. Ron collected and restored old cars. Norma often kept the boys home from school on Fridays to attend antique shows with her in upstate New York.

The boys followed in and then sped beyond their parents' footsteps, and tire tracks. They went from digging up, collecting, buying and selling antique stoneware bottles to becoming recognized by the American television-viewing public as Leigh and Leslie Keno, the effusive, even passionate appraisers telling people on Antiques Roadshow that their gorgeous 17th Century table or Philadelphia-made chairs would be worth so much more had they not stripped and refinished them.

But the Keno brothers were car guys even before they were studying the sources of the wood and the maker of the particular dovetails used to produce a specific piece of furniture.

"Our father was a car collector," Leslie Keno explained. "We spent our summers under a car with him."

Leigh interrupts his brother - the twins seem to interrupt each other quite often - one starting a sentence, the other adding a few words, the other jumping back in and the other finishing the thought. But it's not that they're trying to one-up each other, it's just that they're so passionate about the subject, whether that subject is antique furniture, classic cars, or the Keno family.

Leslie remembers when they were 12 and they went to a friend of their father's and there was a car parked partway into the back of an old school bus to protect it - at least to some extent - from the upstate New York weather.

"We climbed on the car and dusted after it at age 12," he said, adding that they saw the same car again some 40 years later in the exquisite showroom at Sotheby's in New York City, where the car, now meticulously restored, sold at auction in 2013 for more than $1.2 million.

And before Leslie can get a word in, Leigh points out proudly that Leslie was the curator for Sotheby's part of that sale, which was a joint-effort with RM Auctions.

Classic car auctions are very much on the Kenos' minds these days. Just as the annual auction week was unfolding in Arizona earlier this month - with Barrett-Jackson, Bonhams, Gooding & Company, RM, Russo and Steele, and Silver each staging sales - the Kenos announced they were launching their own classic car auction company. They said Ken Sterne would be a third partner with them in the new business, to be known as Keno Brothers, and that their sales would be conducted through Proxibid, a company that specializes in online auctions of high-value items, including real estate, fine art and antiques.

Within hours of their announcement, the Kenos were on their way to Arizona, where ClassicCars.com sat with them, Sterne, and Ryan Downs, president and chief executive, and Joe Petsick, vice president of business development and founding partner of Proxibid, to hear the details of the new enterprise.

The Kenos met Sterne early last year in Paris. They were sitting just a row apart at the Artcurial auction held during Retromobile and realized they were all there to bid on the same car, a 1969 Maserati Ghibli Spyder with very special provenance, including a close history to Valentino Balboni, for four decades Maserati's chief test and development driver.

One of Sterne's roles in the new partnership is to be the voice of the buyer. He was early into buying Japanese cars with investment potential, helped build a major classic and exotic car collection and sales showroom in Dubai, and has been active in buying and selling entire major collections.

To put the Proxibid/Keno Brothers relationship in perspective for the classic car community, Sterne compared it with the relationship of automaker and coachbuilder.

"They're like Ferrari," he said. "We're like Scaglietti."

"We're putting our bodywork on their platform," Leigh Keno added.

One hope, Petsick said, is that other classic car auction houses will decide to use Proxibid for the online portion of their sales.

"This will be a safe place to bid," Leigh Keno said.

Regarding that bidding, the first Keno Brothers/Proxibid auction is to be held sometime this fall, everyone agreed.

As for the Keno Brothers' auction format, several templates are being considered: as many as 20-30 cars, with them all in the same room, and with people in the room bidding as well as bids coming online; sort of a half-scale event with perhaps as few as five cars; and an online-only sale.

The plan is to try all of those formats. Each would include a live auctioneer announcing bids as they are received.

Sterne noted that the cars available, at least for a full-scale auction, will include those affordable to car guys who don't have upwards of a million dollars to spend.

"We want to give the guy at home access to everything the guy in the auction showroom has," Sterne said.

Actually, what Proxibid and the Keno Brothers hope to provide is even more than might be available in a traditional auction bidding showroom.

One plan is to do to extensive video on the vehicles being offered for sale. Those videos will show not only the good things about a vehicle, but any flaws as well, Petsick said. In addition to showing details the cars, the plan includes having experts talk on camera about each vehicle and its history.

Leslie said that in selling an Alexander Calder sculpture, he had a tiny paint chip from the piece scientifically analyzed to verify the artwork's authenticity. He said the same thing can be done with classic cars to assure buyers of their provenance.

"We feel an obligation to bring this into the car world," he said of the forensics being used in the marketing of art and antique furniture.

Plans also call for showing previous transaction prices for various vehicles as the data is accumulated.

"Too much information is better than not enough," Leslie Keno said.

"Transparency, full transparency to the potential buyer is one of the tenants of our value system," Leigh added.

"Honest, integrity, trust..." Leigh said.

"... the best customer service," Leslie said.

"The next generation of buyers lives on the Internet," said Proxbid's Downs. "They've educated themselves through the Internet. It's how they get their information. It's how they engage."

Proxibid is home to some $2 billion in annual sales of high-value goods. Its news release announcing the new venture pointed out that it has developed what it calls the Proxibid Marketplace for safe and secure transactions. Petsick noted that many customers appreciate the anonymity provided through online auction buying.

As far as securing cars for their auctions, the Keno brothers pointed out their long history with classic cars and the relationships they have built within the classic car community from the days in their youth when they started going to Hershey each year with their father. They note their experience in vintage racing, as well as buying and selling their own cars - they still have the 1963 3.8-liter Jaguar XK-E they bought and restored when they were 15 years old, Leigh adding that he's jealous that the car stays at Leslie's house out in the country - and their years of being judges at such events as the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

And, Leslie said, "There are lots of cars."

Speaking of cars, remember that $300 car the Kenos' father bought back in 1970? Turns out it was a 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C2500 with a Sport Berlinetta by Touring, one of only 16 such cars produced. But even beyond the others, this Alfa had significant history.

A U.S. Army Air Force officer stationed in Italy brought the car home with him in 1946 and drove it until a connecting rod broke, after which the car was parked out in a field on the family farm. In 1967, the officer's uncle bought the car and, planning its restoration, started to take is apart.

But that's as far as he got, so in 1970 he put it up for sale. While helping Ron Keno load the car onto an open trailer, the uncle shared the story of how it had been a gift from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to his mistress, Claretta Petacci. Keno eventually contacted a historian who knew the German military officer who had been Petacci's chauffeur. The officer was able to verify the car's history.

After owning the car for nearly a decade, Ron Keno sold it to another collector who later sold it to the Imperial Palace collection, where it underwent a cosmetic restoration and was displayed for some 20 years - the Imperial Palace collection included several cars that had been owned by dictators and other heads of state - before being sold again and finally undergoing a complete restoration in Italy, where Touring's original drawings were used as a guide.

That restoration complete, the car won its class at Villa d'Este in 2007 and was judged best of show at Salon Prive in 2011.

On February 4, the car is being offered for sale by RM at its Paris auction. The pre-auction estimated value isn't the $300 Ron Keno paid for the car, but a figure just a few dollars shy of $3 million.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Keno brothers share their plans, and their passions | Classic Car News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The photo, as you can see for yourself, shows two adolescent boys, twins actually, stocking caps pulled over matching mops of blond hair on what is obviously a chilly day as they stand perched on the frame rails of an open trailer in front of a rather dilapidated old car.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When twin brothers Leigh and Leslie Keno were just twelve years old, they declared themselves in a joint diary: "We are antique dealers."

It was in their blood. When they were very young, their mother ran a small antiques shop out of the house. Their earliest memories are of traveling with their parents to antique shops and flea markets. In their twelve-year-old hand, they wrote, "We actually owe part of the intelligence that we have in antiques to . . . our Mother and Father. They got us interested in this fabulous hobby. We think that they deserve a good hand. We want at least 1/2 of the credit to go to our fantasticly wonderful parents."

"Collecting is very primal," says Leigh Keno. "Observing objects, picking them up, taking them home, categorizing them and comparing one to the next is a natural thing to do. It goes back even to collecting shells on a beach." Growing up in upstate New York, far from accessible shells, the Keno brothers began by setting out on their Suzuki trail bike and exploring the ruined barns and houses around them. They amassed quite a collection of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century wrought-iron door handles and hinges.

From that, they moved onto collecting stoneware.

"Once we found an object, we wanted to learn as much as we could about it," says Leslie Keno. "We loved looking up the maker, doing research on when they worked, trying to figure out how a piece was made, how it was turned on a potter's lathe. We were very interested and in awe of the craftsmanship that was inherent in these beautiful objects that we call antiques."

Today, both Leigh and Leslie Keno are foremost experts in Americana antiques. Formerly vice president in the appraisal department at Christie's, Leigh now owns Leigh Keno American Antiques. Leslie Keno is senior vice president and senior specialist of American furniture and decorative arts and director of business development at Sotheby's in New York. They have been involved in the discoveries and sales of important pieces that have broken records for prices. They are perhaps most well known for their many appearances on PBS's popular Antiques Roadshow, as well as their own PBS show, Find.

Leslie Keno credits Antiques Roadshow for popularizing the appeal of collecting antiques. "The best part of the show is hearing what the owners have to say about the pieces," says Leigh Keno. "We make a point of letting the person talk and tell their story."

"The Antiques Roadshow really illustrates that these objects don't exist in a void," says Leslie Keno. "They are part of a sometimes very rich and complex history. The show is not just about the objects but also the stories and storytelling that accompany them."

"It's a show that you can watch and walk away from having learned something," says Leigh Keno. "Not only are you more versed in what you're looking at, but you can also possibly find a sleeper yourself."

A sleeper is a piece that's undervalued when found. It is the gold at the end of the treasure hunt, albeit faded, tarnished, worn, or broken. With their keen eyes, the Keno brothers have come across many sleepers in their careers. They have been especially adept at finding highly prized seventeenth-century furniture made by two distinguished Newport cabinetmaking families, the Goddards and Townsends. Pieces that have sold for millions of dollars at auction were found in such surprising places as chicken coops and rental houses. Often the owners had no idea of their rarity.

"The great thing in this field," says Leigh Keno "is that pieces turn up all the time that have never been documented or never been cataloged. You never know what's around the next corner."

By CKB

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When twin brothers Leigh and Leslie Keno were just twelve years old, they declared themselves in a joint diary: "We are antique dealers." It was in their blood. When they were very young, their mother ran a small antiques shop out of the house.