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Jonathan Storm | Could it be a chip off Liberty Bell?

Did a Philadelphia councilman steal metal from the Liberty Bell to make a commemorative pin for himself? You won't find out Monday at 9 p.m. watching PBS's History Detectives, a pop history show that has its intriguing moments but is much flatter than some of public TV's more ambitious journeys to the past.

"History Detectives" investigator Elyse Luray (left) looks into claims that a pin belonging to North Carolinian Sandy Fisher is made of metal taken from the Liberty Bell in 1895.
"History Detectives" investigator Elyse Luray (left) looks into claims that a pin belonging to North Carolinian Sandy Fisher is made of metal taken from the Liberty Bell in 1895.Read moreKYLE SILVERI

Did a Philadelphia councilman steal metal from the Liberty Bell to make a commemorative pin for himself?

You won't find out Monday at 9 p.m. watching PBS's History Detectives, a pop history show that has its intriguing moments but is much flatter than some of public TV's more ambitious journeys to the past.

Detectives is a sort of Antiques Roadshow in reverse, except you learn more about history and less about what the show's interesting artifacts are worth.

Monday, a lady in North Carolina has a pin passed down from her great-grandfather, the otherwise forgettable John Murphy Stratton, who was one of the Philadelphians who accompanied the Liberty Bell on its 1895 journey to the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta.

She calls appraiser and auctioneer Elyse Luray.

History Detectives' theme song is Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives." They never get to the "He's so cute," part (or to a lot of the other lyrics, which have no place in a history show, and that's symptomatic of Detectives' overall not-terribly comprehensive nature).

But Luray is so cute, and she did fetch $600,000 when she auctioned Judy Garland's ruby slippers, even if she's not academically as qualified as some of the show's other investigators, including Penn sociologist Tukufu Zuberi.

You know Luray has her shortcomings when she arrives in Philadelphia, and the producers flash the de rigueur shot of a cheesesteak, and it's from Pat's, when everyone knows Jim's makes the best ones. And I eat, so I can say that, just as all TV watchers think they're critics.

But she's on the ball, too, going to 19th-century editions of The Inquirer at the Free Library to learn all about the Liberty Bell's trip to the South, which coincided with Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" speech, in which he declared that blacks should be happy being as separate from whites as the fingers on your hand, but work together docilely in the same effective way as the fingers. And maybe civil and political rights would come later.

History Detectives explains how that didn't go over too well with a lot of people even 112 years ago and how W.E.B. DuBois organized things behind more activist ideals. It's a simplification, like much on the show, which nonetheless does pry into some fascinating corners of American history. In this case, a little knowledge is not a dangerous thing. Maybe it will lead more people than one ignorant TV critic to do some research and learn a little bit.

In another segment Monday, about a $6 bill - and who knew there even were such things? - the show asserts that Ben Franklin actively deceived the American citizenry and embraced inflationary economic practices as a way to finance the Revolutionary War.

But back to the pin. Jennifer Maas of Winterthur introduces it to the Bell, with X-ray fluorescent spectography as the chaperone. The scientific results are conclusive, but, seemingly, not romantic enough for Luray.

Maybe she hopes one day to auction the pin off for $600,000, too.

Jonathan Storm |

Television

History Detectives

Airs Monday at 9 p.m. on WHYY12