Julie Luongo

It is better to travel well than to arrive. -Buddha (and I’ll bet he was walking)

Because I like adventures, it’s fairly easy to get me to go along on some errand or other with the promise of fun. And here begins the Saga of the Walking Buddha.

A few weeks ago, my sister decided she was curious about the Buddha statue she’d had for years. It was given to her by my grandmother when we helped her move in the mid-90s. She probably told Sarah that it was valuable. My grandmother is always telling us things are valuable. She grew up during the depression. Sugar is valuable. Econo-size paper towels are valuable. A dress that’s 50% off is valuable. We don’t pay much attention to this disclaimer.

Sarah wasn’t interested in the value of it though. She was just interested in the history. So, she finds the Walking Buddha online. And in the course of her search, she discovers that it might indeed be valuable. Well, it is if you think $3000 to $8000 is a good price for a statue that’s been just hanging around the house and has been played with by 3 little kids on occasion. Then Sarah digs in a little more and finds some Walking Buddha’s that are priceless. I mean, only-in-museums-priceless. That’s a whole different world of valuable.

Meanwhile, Sarah is emailing me this information as she was discovering it. I wasn’t around at the time, but I read them sequentially. $3000…$8000…priceless…oh, boy. Then the last email was a link to a Walking Buddha that looked very similar to Sarah’s. It was $125. That’s one hundred twenty-five bucks. And there’s the bubble popper. Oh, well.

Still, we learned a bit about the art and the Buddha, so it was worth it. Oh, and we think it’s funny that we were momentarily excited to have a valuable artifact in the family. What a hoot, right? We love it when we get all keyed up over nothing. We have lots of stories that end with that punchline.

So, we’re telling the tale of “The valuable Walking Buddha that wasn’t.” My sister calls my dad and gives him the story because he’s a fan of our brand of humor. However, my dad tells her that she might consider getting it checked out by a professional.

Turns out that the Buddha was sent to my grandmother by a relative who was a covert CIA agent whose cover was “Antiquities Dealer.” Naturally, despite his real line of work, he knew a bit about antiques. So, it’s possible that it is indeed more valuable than a souvenir.

As fate would have it, two days ago, the theater down the street was hosting a little Antiques Roadshow-like event. Perfect opportunity to get this thing checked out. However, Sarah had to work. She asked my mom to bring it to the theater for her … and my mom can rope me into pretty much anything. “It’ll be fun,” she said and I put my shoes on.

We figured we’d get to the theater right on time, 5pm, so we’d be first in line. We’d beat all of those 9 to 5ers. We rolled up to the joint to see people outside waiting for the doors to open. Not too many. We were still a little bummed. But it was OK. When we got closer we realized that those people outside were the overflow from the line inside that was looped twice the length of the lobby. We were at the very end of this very long line. Damn!

So, we waited. And waited. We checked out other people’s junk out. We dodged the rain that was leaking through the old theater ceiling. We assessed the faces of people leaving. We asked people leaving if they had something good. One man and his wife got a conservative estimate of $45,000 on an old rifle. Nice, eh?

We waited some more. We craned our necks to see what the TV camera was focusing on. We counted the people ahead of us. When we were very close, Sarah called. At my insistence, my mom told her that it was only worth twenty bucks. She said, “Julie wants me to tell you they told us it’s only worth twenty bucks.” Talk about blowing a joke. We told her we’d call as soon as we knew.

Very close to getting the word, we let ourselves excited about the possibility of it being valuable. Our strongest evidence was the history of the purchaser. He had access. He had connections. He had knowledge. We had logic: Why go through the trouble to ship a cheap souvenir? It seemed possible that it was valuable and probable that it was very valuable.

When it was our turn, as we approached the table, our appraiser was already eyeing the piece. He checked it out. He jumped at the chance to hear our story. Then he furrowed his brow and said, “Yeah, I have no idea about this kind of stuff.” He then consulted the man next to him. We gave him the story. The new appraiser nodded thoughtfully and said, “I’ve got no idea.” They told us we should take it to Christie’s or Sotheby’s. Then another appraiser wheeled a tin truck down the table and they all turned from our Buddha and marveled at the stupid toy.

TWO hours in a line to find out that they have no idea. So, I guess we’ll never know because the likelihood of any of us taking that thing to Christie’s or Sotheby’s is pretty slim. Nevertheless, I vaulted that Walking Buddha so one day our kin two generations from us can pull it out and look it up on the internet and have a little adventure of their own. And if it turns out to be junk, how hilarious will that be for them?