Me, My Jewelry and a TV Show

About a two months ago I was contacted by a Japanese production company called NHK World. The representative told me that they were here in Southern California shooting a TV show called "Treasure Hunt in the West Coast USA". 

They wanted an expert on Native American jewelry to help with their show. Would I help? I said yes. 

The premise of the show is as follows. I schooled two actresses about Fred Harvey Navajo jewelry as well as touching on turquoise mine identification. I was on camera for this part of the show. 

Next,  the actresses took their new-found information and shopped at the Pasadena Rose Bowl antique show to see if they could find a treasure. 

Once they had their finds, they took them to a second expert for appraisal. 

It took a while to get things going but we shot the first part of the turquoise section of the show at an antique store that I chose called "Sea Hive" in Oceanside CA. 

We shot after the store closed on a Friday night. It was an interesting experience as I was speaking in English and the actresses were speaking in Japanese. It was hard to know what facial expressions were needed when I had no idea what they just said. It all worked out in the end and we got the job done. 

This is the only photo that I have of me during the shoot because I wasn't about to shoot selfies in front of a camera....

When we were finished, the Sea Hive Store manager, Producer Yasu and I did take a selfie. 

The following week, I brought my jewelry to a warehouse that was full of Mid-Century Modern furniture where we shot close-ups of the jewelry. And here's the cool thing. Only a small part of my personal collection was used for this project. I used mostly pieces from my website that are offered for sale. You can own a famous piece of jewelry!

Here is the warehouse:

Here are some great photos of the production staff and camera crew shooting the jewelry. 

So to my Japanese customers, watch for me to appear on this show. I really enjoyed the experience.